atcorporate collecting practices today

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ART
AT
CORPORAT E
COLLECTING
PRACTICES TODAY
WORK
ART GAL L ERY OF MI SSI SSAU GA
ART
AT
WORK
Visual art is the fruit of creative practices.
Artist’s framing – or reframing – of experience
through visual image-making invests art with
the power to enhance our imaginations in a
parallel process of re-seeing and rethinking.
Art’s transformative affect can be subtle, yet
its potential to shift thinking and catalyze
change is vast. Perhaps because of these
intangible effects, art’s powerful influence
can simultaneously inspire awe or, equally,
trigger distrust.
Kim Adams
John Hartman
Barbara Astman
Susanna Heller
David Askevold
Spring Hurlbut
Rebecca Belmore
Luis Jacob
David Bierk
Tania Kitchell
Lorène Bourgeois
Wanda Koop
John Boyle
Arnaud Maggs
Roland Brener
John Massey
John Brown
Evan Penny
David Buchan
Don Phillips
Brian Burnett
Ed Pien
Edward Burtynsky
Mary Pratt
Jane Buyers
Amanda Reeves
Alex Cameron
Mitch Robertson
Kai Chan
Carlos & Jason Sanchez
Lynne Cohen
Francine Savard
Lynn Donoghue
John Scott
Stan Douglas
Greg Staats
Michael Earle
Otis Tamasauskas
Soheila Esfahani
Jeannie Thib
Gathie Falk
Kelly Wood
General Idea
Kevin Yates
Martin Golland
Cybèle Young
P R E V I O U S PA G E :
ROLAND BRENER
untitled, 1994
plexiglass, light, motorized sculpture
102 x 91 x 53 cm
from the collection of McMillan LLP
Courtesy: Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto
with selected works
from the collections of:
E. I. du Pont Canada
Ernst & Young
GlaxoSmithKline
RBC Royal Bank of Canada
BMO Bank of Montreal
Scotiabank
McCarthy Tétrault LLP
OMERS
McMillan LLP
Osler Hoskin Harcourt LLP
Sun Life Inc.
Torys LLP
ART
AT
CO R P O R AT E
COLLECTING
PRACTICES TODAY
WORK
C U R AT E D B Y
G E R A L D I N E DAV I S
A R T G A L L E R Y O F M I S S I S S AU G A
ART AT WORK:
Corporate Collecting Practices Today
© 2011
Art Gallery of Mississauga
300 City Centre Drive
Mississauga, Ontario L5B 3C1
www.artgalleryofmississauga.com
Graphic Design: Rob Gray, DesignWorks Studio
Printing:
Laser Reproduction, Toronto
Photography:
Geoffrey Scott
Catalogue of a two part exhibition held at:
June 24 – August 1, 2010
August 5 – September 12, 2010
Curated for the Art Gallery of Mississauga
by Geraldine Davis
ISBN-13 978-1-895436-83-9
1. Davis, Geraldine
2. Art, Modern – 21st century – Exhibitions
l. Robert Freeman
ll. Art Gallery of Mississauga.
Ill. Title.
Funding support from The Canada Council for the Arts,
the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Trillium Foundation,
and the City of Mississauga is gratefully acknowledged.
Introduction
Corporate collecting has evolved beyond companies’ merely
purchasing works to decorate their offices, and today’s major
corporate art collections often manifest the time of their
acquisition. These collections highlight major artists of the
period and are viewed as an asset that may appreciate not as
a decoration or purchase that will depreciate along with their
office furniture. Although still influenced by the corporate
image each collector wishes to reflect, today’s corporate
collections reflect the diversity of contemporary art practice.
This exhibition, Art at Work: Corporate Collecting
Practices Today was realized through the focus and dedication of guest curator, Geraldine Davis. She went beyond our
initial expectations to create a show that shared with our
audience works that are generally hidden from public view.
Geraldine set out to feature the best of the best in corporate
collections. She has focused on some of the most relevant
collections. This was the first large scale exhibition of corporate collecting since Hidden Values organized by the Art Gallery
of Nova Scotia in 1994.
This was a rare opportunity to glimpse into corporate
collecting practices. More significantly, this project critically
explores the corporate benefits of collecting and the impact
these collections have on those who work in this environment. It erased outdated impressions of stuffy corporate
collections of long deceased artists and shed new light on
an active and vibrant practice of contemporary collecting in
the corporate sector.
ROB ERT FREEMAN
E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R / C U R AT O R
ART AT WORK: I N T R O D U C T I O N
7
FIGURE 1
KIM ADAMS
“He He”, 1996
tricycle (sculpture)
69 x 118 x 40 cm
from the collection of McCarthyTétrault LLP
Courtesy: Diaz Contemporary, Toronto
G E R A L D I N E DAV I S
ART AT WORK:
REFLECTIONS
ON CORPORATE
COLLECTING
In corporate art collecting, connoisseurship meets branding
in its most elegant form. Post-capitalistic discourse hasn’t
quite penetrated the quiet halls of commerce where private
art treasures convey status from some of our cities’ most
expensive walls. By the act of possession and proud display,
their owners transfer a new aspect to their acquisitions.
“Collectors’ items” become tools of wealth and power because
of, or in spite of, their sometimes critical content. Does ownership diminish their capacity to transform us? Seeing these
pieces “at work” in large bank lobbies, private banking’s
hushed halls or poised above Lake Ontario in a major law
firm’s reception, corporate art reveals an awkward and
interesting symbiosis. Is corporate art still working when it’s
“at work?” Who is it working for? Are these works able to
perform their cultural critique even in their reluctant function
as office décor? This ambiguity of functions pervades even
the most provocative of corporate collecting practices.
What happens when collecting evolves into corporate
responsibility? In Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention since the 1980’s, Chin-Tao Wu discusses the
pervasive influence of corporations in our consumer society.
Wu views corporate participation in the arts as an effective
form of advertising or public relations. Involvement in the arts
or collecting visual art may enable a corporation to shine with
the reflected gloss of culture, knowledge and/or sophistication.
Meanwhile works of art often conveniently maintain or improve
their monetary value while usefully being depreciated on the
company’s books. If this were not reward enough, art serves
up delightful bonuses as a visible asset variously delivering
beauty, entertainment, education or illumination to the many
different eyes of its corporate beholders. A very profitable
and useful kind of office furniture indeed!
Corporate wealth in the form of art raises issues of
privacy or secrecy. Many firms are happy to show off their
fabulous collections, like the ten who generously lent works
to this exhibition. A few prominent corporations are reluctant
to advertise or discuss their collections. Perhaps they fear
public criticism. Their visible accumulation of art may be
judged a “luxury” in the minds of many. Frequently, more
money is spent on decoration than on art. While the decoration declines in style and office furnishings physically
deteriorate through time, art is often surprisingly resilient in
holding, if not increasing, its value. Art doesn’t usually wear
out. Frames may need to be changed or replaced. Some art
can become dated or less desirable for other reasons, but
its value seldom disappears like that of office furnishings.
ART AT WORK: REFLECTIONS ON CORPORATE COLLECTING
9
FIGURE 2
D AV I D B U C H A N
Twintron, 1992
cibachrome colour photograph
51 x 41 cm
from the collection of OMERS
Is corporate art collecting really just astute investing disguised
as self-reflection or critical thought? A clever confusion
emerges amid aesthetic splendour in these highlights
plucked from magnificent collections and re-shuffled in this
exhibition. Whether collecting is profitable or not, more
significant than its ability to hold its value is art’s capacity to
stimulate and engage its audience. This extraordinary,
experiential value is prized, for example, by some lawyers
who believe that having art around the workplace helps them
to think more creatively, or as we commonly say, “outside
the box.” Visual art is the fruit of creative practices. Artist’s
framing–or reframing – of experience through visual imagemaking invests art with the power to enhance our
imaginations in a parallel process of re-seeing/rethinking.
Art’s transformative effect can be subtle yet its potential to
shift thinking and catalyze change is vast. Perhaps because
of these intangible effects, art’s powerful influence can
simultaneously inspire awe or, equally, trigger distrust.
The public perception of visual art as an expensive
extravagance persists, revealing our limited view of art as
glittering objects of desire or high-end consumer goods rather
than an enriching cultural experience, by far its greatest value
and, ironically, its most intangible quality. Our hunger for
glamour, elegance and mystique still lingers in our
expectations of visual art despite contemporary artists’ brave
experiments in ever less permanent or traditional materials
and media. In our culturally undereducated society, many
people do not understand art and view its cultural value with
scepticism. In the absence of experience and understanding, well-publicized high prices may unduly skew the
public’s view of art as a luxury good collected only by the
rich. Despite these perceptions, much contemporary art
created by living artists continues to be affordable by the
10
REFLECTIONS ON CORPORATE COLLECTING
middle class and compares favourably in price to many less
enduring consumer goods.
In many corporate settings, the reflected glory of the
artists’ prestige shines on their works’ owners advertising
their good taste, education, success and status as wealthy
and powerful enough to buy the best. Of course, their
acquisitions sustain the artists and their dealers. Purchases
by prominent corporate collections, especially in Canada
where few museums have funds for acquisitions, enhance
reputations – of the artists and their works. This action
increases market value in the same way that the art market,
like the rest of our capitalist society, tends to exaggerate gaps
between amateur and professional artists just as rich people
get richer and poor ones poorer.
Stories of art’s reception into public spaces include
many accounts of works greeted initially with disdain or
disgust, that later provoked the staff’s anger and outrage at
the prospect of their removal on loan to public gallery
exhibitions. Continued interactions with works of art reinforce
their presence in our memories. With time, our changing
responses strengthen our connections with art just as
relationships between people develop through many encounters. Conversations in the workplace about visual art
and its ideas can enrich our exchanges, creating context and
shared experience. Art’s capacity to transform its audience
and our perception is subtle and powerful. Especially potent
in a society drowning in data, theory and text, visual art often
transcends the motivations of owners or the potent
influences of corporate settings. In the twinned context of
wealth and power, art’s transformative potential ironically
invests this unusual form of wealth with greater value.
In corporate collections, art vacillates between monetary and
social functions even while delivering cultural riches.
THE COLLECTIONS
E. I. DU PO NT C ANADA, MISSI SSAU GA
ERNST & YO UNG, TO RONTO
This broad-based collection represents a national selection
of artists, including David Blackwood, Dorothy Knowles,
Norval Morriseau, Alfred Pellan and others. Works chosen
for this exhibition include an elegant painting by Vancouver’s
Gathie Falk, Pieces of Water #1, whose lyrical 1982 abstraction joins Brian Burnett’s strong cityscape Oxford Street,
1983-84 as excellent examples of notable Canadian
painters’ works from the 1980’s. Like many other corporate
collections in Canada, this large collection was assembled
primarily in the 1980’s and early 1990’s under the leadership of Craig Audette in DuPont’s Mississauga office.
E&Y has amassed the largest private collection focussed on
original Canadian prints in the country. In over fifty years,
E&Y’s collection evolved from its early origins as Clarkson
Gordon, with historical prints and maps, to a predominantly
contemporary collection of national scope. In 1994, E&Y
created the Great Canadian Printmaking Competition. Over
ten years E&Y fostered appreciation of this challenging
discipline and its significant contribution to visual arts.
Through its unique concentration on one art practice, E&Y’s
strategy has achieved strength in the collection and greater
interest in the public, clients and staff. The expert direction
of David Richardson and Ed Phillips informed E&Y’s
selections with curatorial rigour and quality, creating an
enviable consistency rare in corporate collections that readily
lose focus through changes of leadership. The affordability
of original prints allowed E&Y to purchase in depth, enriching
their diverse selection of thousands of prints. This exceptional collection is an interesting example of a conservative
corporate culture – that of accountants and trustees –
enthusiastically supporting a creative, artistic practice as a
visible extension of their brand.
Ernst & Young’s experienced curator, Ed Phillips,
observed the audience’s interplay with art as “a process of
acclimatization to the aesthetic of an art form. At first
exposure, seeming ‘unusual and dissonant’, over time the
experience becomes incorporated into and transforms our
world view. The more we experience the stimulus presented
in a work, by an artist or group of artists, the more the
aesthetic will resonate within us and start to shape how we
interpret other experiences.”
GL AXOSMITHKLINE, MISSISSAUGA
This pharmaceutical company was actively collecting until
the 1990’s. Among its varied Canadian collection, an
exceptional figurative painting of a party by Toronto’s Lynn
Donoghue makes a dramatic statement in the entrance to
the company’s large dining hall, welcoming staff and visitors
with its brilliant colour and enigmatic portraiture. Aside from
the rarity of portraiture, and group portraits especially, in
many corporate collections, this vibrant work demonstrates
the power of contemporary art to enrich its audience’s art
experience in the workplace.
THE COLLECTIONS
13
RBC, THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA, TORONTO
B MO / B ANK OF MONTREAL
One of Canada’s largest corporate collections, the Royal
Bank has acquired several thousands of works since 1929.
In addition to an active collecting practice, the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, established in 1999, provides
exceptional support for emerging painters. Juried by recognized experts, RBC’s annual competition affords the public
a rare opportunity to view exhibitions of less recognized
artists’ works in significant museums like MOCCA in Toronto
and Musée Contemporain de Montréal. Through national
circulation to major museums, this highly respected competition generates excellent publicity for visual art. In addition
to generous prizes, winners and honourable mentions of the
RBC competition can attract buyers and gallery representation from the buzz and resulting attention of well-educated
visual arts audiences.
The impact of these competitions is demonstrated by
the inclusion in Art at Work of Soheila Esfahani’s painting.
In reviewing emerging artists’ works in the RBC competition’s publication, Esfahani’s quiet image radiated with
poetic simplicity amidst the explosive colours of many neighbouring works. After requesting the loan of her painting from
RBC’s curator, Robin Anthony, we learned that Esfahani was
an Honourable Mention. As such, her work had not been
acquired by the bank’s collection. We borrowed the work
from private collectors who had purchased it from the artist
after seeing the work in the competition. In Art at Work, this
is the only work by an artist not included in the corporation’s
collection. The presence, here, of Esfahani’s exceptional
work is evidence of the impact of RBC’s competition, an
interesting recent development arising from its corporate art
collecting practice.
Despite the prominence of painting in the collection,
the Royal Bank’s most recent acquisitions include an exciting 2008 sculptural installation by Vancouver-based
Geoffrey Farmer. Unusual in any Canadian corporate collection, and surprising among bank collections better known
for conventional media and permanent materials, this contemporary installation augers well for the inclusiveness of
future corporate collecting practice. Farmer’s whimsical lifesize work refers to self-portraiture in the context of an
ambiguous everyman/woman. The list of its elements–
Derby hat, stick, light, concrete, plastic fern, stones and
poem–reflects the poetry in Farmers’ title: I am by nature
one and also man, dividing the single me into many, and
even opposing them as great and small, light and dark, and
in ten thousand other ways.
BMO / Bank of Montreal, is notably absent from this exhibition, for two reasons. Canada’s oldest bank only buys art that
it can display, i.e. for which the bank has a need. Unlike
many of its collecting financial colleagues, including E & Y,
Royal Bank and TD Bank, for example, BMO doesn’t keep
a stock of art. All of its collection is on view or in use. No
additional works are available in a storeroom to replace what
a museum might request for an exhibition. So, BMO rarely
lends their art beyond an occasional loan of an artist’s significant works to major one-person public gallery or museum
exhibitions.
Dawn Cain, currently BMO’s highly qualified curator,
has constructed an articulate, varied collection of significant
artists’ outstanding works that reflects Canada’s provocative
diversity of cultures, styles, media and creative practices.
Although BMO’s collection isn’t as large as that of the Royal
or TD banks, the calibre of representative works is so great
as to rival the larger bank collections by virtue of quality of
selection alone. Inside BMO’s 68th floor at First Canadian
Place, we experience the contemporary corporate equivalent
of an elegant galleria in an Italian palazzo with the sharp
sparkle of cutting-edge contemporary art works. The BMO’s
publication and museum wall tags testify to their corporation’s ownership of highly recognized artists and their
significant works.
A less obvious reason for BMO’s absence in this
exhibition is the bank’s preference not to publicize its
collection. BMO, however, welcomes access by appointment
to the BMO Project Room. This small space is a sponsorship
initiative that has attracted some press. An informative
website is dedicated to each yearly installation at:
www.iamthecoin.com.
14
THE COLLECTIONS
SCOTI AB ANK
Scotiabank was unable to participate in Art at Work for other
reasons. At the time of selections for this exhibition, Scotiabank curator Jane Nokes was travelling and occupied with the
bank’s role as supporter of CONTACT, the annual photography festival. In addition to CONTACT, Scotiabank sponsors
Nuit Blanche and the Giller Prize. The bank’s support of Nuit
Blanche, the largest public event of its kind in Canada, is an
indirect result of the bank’s collecting practice. Corporations’
arts sponsorships and competitions expand public audiences
and increase visibility of the visual arts in Canada.
Photography, portraits and images of people are notable
highlights in many contemporary corporate collections.
Along with the current popularity of photographic media,
there seems to be a prevalence of human subjects in
contemporary artists’ photo-based practices. The famously
unpeopled wilderness landscape once symbolized
Canadian ideas of visual beauty. Still powerfully present in
Alex Cameron’s environmentally-threatened Georgian Bay
Aurora, 1988, from Osler’s collection, vacant natural scenes
have been largely displaced by pictures of ourselves.
Photographic images by Rebecca Belmore, David Buchan,
Angela Grauerholz, Mitch Robertson and others in
corporate collections, as well as Geoffrey Farmer’s figurative
installation in RBC’s new building demonstrate a strong
corporate appetite for images of people.
McMIL L AN LLP, TORONTO
Exploring corporate collectors’ fascination with photography
and human images in light of contemporary art’s “branding”
function led to valuable insights. At McMillan LLP, for
example, a first glimpse of Tania Kitchell’s Snow White in
a quiet hallway outside private offices might trigger a sense
of the work’s playful subject. Closer observation reveals that
the artist is wrapping herself around a huge ball of fluff–not
the lovely white stuff–snow–that Canadians love and love
to hate in equal measure. The work triggers childhood
memories of playing in the snow despite the use of fluff,
studio lighting and a carefully staged performance. Images
of outdoor play are highlighted by juxtaposition with their
polar opposite: a highly-charged, busy inner-urban legal
practice in full work mode.
A First Nations’ youth in black leather defiantly returns
our gaze in a haunting portrait of society’s least favoured.
In its short “collected” life at McMillan LLP, Greg Staats’
memorable 1994 silver print, Wesley Rheaume, rose from
partially-despised acquisition to universally venerated icon.
The process of art’s acceptance by its owners and their
clients oddly echoes the work’s content as a nowmarginalized outsider whose people were once the only
insiders is welcomed within. With art consultant Catherine
Williams’ guidance, Margaret C. McNee directs the firm’s
selections.
OMERS, TO RONTO
OMERS’ Ontario-focused collection reflects this public
pension fund’s mandate. Under the guidance of art consultant Pat James, over several decades OMERS has assembled
a diverse sampling of a broad spectrum of art-making
practices, incorporating fine craft by nationally recognized
artists like Kai Chan and Susan Warner Keene, along with
drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture by the province’s
exceptional artists. Chan’s Adam & Eve epitomizes his imaginative bamboo sculpture with its fragile transience, strong
shape and memorable image – the hallmark of an inventive
artist whose highly original Canadian-Asian vision is currently
on display through May 2011 in a retrospective exhibition
organized by the Textile Museum of Canada. Evan Penny’s
Untitled (Small Red Skin) in beeswax, mimics skin’s texture
while creating an abstract, fabric-like fragment of our body
in a sampler-like presentation. This choice of a two-dimensional
work by one of Canada’s celebrated sculptors, adds richness
to scope of wall-based works in unusual materials in
OMERS’ collection.
Pat James travelled to collect work of local artists from
many regions of the province. John Boyle’s watercolour Polson Steamer is an example of ‘local colour’ painted by a
national artist who has lived in small towns and rural settings
in Ontario. Less regionally representative, photo-based
works by David Buchan, and Rebecca Belmore, who is originally from Ontario, add conceptual and contemporary scope
to the breadth of this variegated collection.
McCARTHY TÉTRAU LT, TORO NTO
Toronto’s oldest law firm has built a significant contemporary
art collection with the expert guidance of Jeanne Parkin,
one of Canada’s most experienced art consultants. With
Parkin’s consistent direction for more than thirty years, and
the current leadership of Brian C. Pel, a senior partner and
photographer, McCarthy’s recent exploration of installation
and photography is explored in the accompanying video.
Parkin’s account of physical challenges in installing Stan
Douglas’ monumental photograph Every Building on 100
West Hastings Street demonstrates McCarthy’s commitment
to contemporary photography and large electric
installations like Ron Terada’s as significant contributions
to its collection.
THE COLLECTIONS
15
OSLER HOSKIN HARCOURT LLP, TORONTO
This leading law firm has collected in depth since the late
1970’s. Osler’s current contemporary focus has shifted from
expressive paintings by Alex Cameron, Suzanna Heller,
John Scott and other notable Canadians, to conceptual and
text-based visual ideas in the works of Robert Houle, Mitch
Robertson, Francine Savard with digital or photo-based
works like those of Nicholas Baier. Under Terry Bourgoyne’s
recent leadership, the firm has expanded its scope by
including outstanding contemporary artists from Quebec.
SUN LIFE INC., TORONTO
This large Canadian insurance company built an extensive
Canadian art collection over more than thirty years through
active collecting until about 2000. Thomas Bogart, Executive
Vice President & General Counsel, worked with in-house art
consultant Herb Sigman and, more recently, with Jay
McDonnell, to acquire works by John Brown, Angela
Grauerholz, John Hartman, Landon Mackenzie, Greg
Murdoch, John Massey, Denyse Thomasos and many others.
Mary Pratt’s large drawing Fire on the Beach is an example
of the exceptional quality of several of Sun Life’s latest
acquisitions.
TORYS LLP, TORONTO
Over more than twenty years, Torys has created a contemporary Canadian collection with the guidance of art
consultant Fela Grunwald. Architects KPMG’s 2007 custom
installations in two boardrooms feature commissioned floorto-ceiling roll-up wall panels created by Robert Fones and
Pascal Grandmaison. Under Philip Mohtadi’s direction,
Torys’ recent focus on digital, installation, photo-based, performative and video works adds to an expanding
contemporary emphasis that includes Kelly Wood’s provocative Garbage Bag and Elastic Substance by Toronto-based
Luis Jacob who was prominently included in a significant
2010 Guggenheim exhibition and publication.
16
THE COLLECTIONS
Selected Works
General Idea
FIGURE 3
INFE©TED Mondrian #9, 1994
acrylic on gatorboard
51 x 51 cm
Courtesy: AA Bronson, Toronto/New York
The modern Dutch painter Piet Mondrian used only the
primary colours of blue, red, yellow, black and white in his
severely minimal abstractions. General Idea created this witty
fake in reference to the AIDS epidemic with an irreverent use
of the colour green – a wholly inappropriate choice in an
appropriation of Mondrian’s famously primary palette.
The Dutch artist is reputed to have intensely disliked the
colour green which General Idea flaunts in their “infection”
in reference to the chosen colours of the AIDS campaign.
The anomoly of a green rectangle in this tribute to a great
artist’s work ironically contributes to GI ’s great originality.
At the same time, this small flaw in their Mondrian
facsimile may, like AIDS, be imperceptible to many, thereby
cleverly mimicing the virus’s insidious action. Playful humour
and pure colours deliver GI’s potent visual memo about an
invisible contagion and its dark implications.
20
GENERAL IDEA
21
Kelly Wood
FIGURE 4
Garbage Bag, 1997
C - print mounted on Plexiglass
228.5 x 185.5 cm
edition of 2
from the collection of Torys LLP
Garbage Bag is life-size at 8 by 6 feet. Woods’ plastic
garbage is strangely animate: a new life form we breed from
abundant consumption threatens to burst the bag’s stuffed
seams. Irreverently gleaming in its Plexiglass surface, Woods’
garbage leans precariously, like a wounded figure about to
topple over and fall. Like its predecessors, the slain soldiers
in historical paintings, Wood’s bags are enlisted. Toiling in
the everyday service of our waste, the bags are unwitting
object-workers conscripted by manufacturing’s antiagriculture. Garbage-gathering is the massive industrial
harvest of our packaging industry. Blatant icons, Wood’s
bags evoke an all-pervasive consumer world in which art
becomes a form of packaging. Ironically, this art’s ownership
by participants near the top of our food-and-garbage chain
enhances the cultural capital value of this image. By
becoming an object of desire, Wood’s photograph performs
its implied critique within its high-end recycling act,
transforming garbage into a treasured work of art.
An image that smirks at the attempted smart remarks
of critics, Garbage Bag defies even its own commentary.
Wood’s image conveys a shocking newness with the most
mundane of ready-mades. Garbage can’t be art! This isn’t
like Claes Oldenburg’s pop art sculpture of a giant
hamburger. It’s not funny! Neither supersized, nor soft,
Wood’s garbage does, like Oldenburg’s playful forms, make
a plastic icon of a man-made, everyday object. Unlike the
banal commerciality of pop art’s colourful icons, Wood
coolly sharpens her iconic, industrial images with flawless,
clinical photography. Wood photographed garbage for five
years to produce her series entitled The Continuous
Garbage Project. In this early example from 1997, there’s
nothing whimsical about her stark documentation of the
evidence of our excess.
22
K E L LY W O O D
23
Stan Douglas
FIGURE 5
Royal Bank of Canada/Parking Lot,
Havanna Vieja, 2005
C print mounted on 1/4 inch honeycomb aluminum
125 x 142 x 6 cm
from the collection of Royal Bank of Canada
Courtesy: David Zwirner Gallery, New York
Tattered columns loom uselessly over signs
of the current occupants of this colonial
colonnade turned parking lot. Possibly military
or police motorcycles, these utilitarian vehicles
eloquently convey the agile strength of mobile
forces poised to continue the work of Cuba’s
legendary revolution. Their metal gleams with
polished care in contrast to dull flakes of
dying paint, like old skin, shed by the decaying
extravagance of departed conquerors.
Douglas’s astute visual commentary
extends the post-colonial discourse generated
by historical remnants of Canadian commerce
in Havana. Once a Royal Bank, the irony of
this architectural image is enhanced by its
further recycling as art. The grand old bank’s
colonnade became a parking lot. Douglas’
photograph of this mundane transformation
was later acquired by the same bank where,
as a valued asset, it now beautifies RBC’s
Toronto real estate. The bank’s display of its
Cuban building recalls earlier traditions of
collecting images from the colonies for
exhibition at headquarters.
24 S T A N D O U G L A S
Don Phillips
Don Phillips sometimes used coffee grinds, metal type
furniture and rock salt to create the tusche washes on his
plates or stones. In this work, their gritty traces lashed with
cerulean blues emulate the porous surfaces of weather-beaten
rocks. In Untitled, his abstract tribute to nature celebrates
the muscular rhythms of the Canadian Shield. He loved to
explore wild places, especially near water. On trips to
Temagami to swim between the granite “whalebacks” or
outcroppings, he would draw on litho plates outdoors,
intentionally leaving them to dry where rain and wind might
contribute to their textures. Phillips’s predominantly earthy
palette is illuminated by flashes of exotic colours he
experienced in Dominica’s tropical rainforests. The mineral
beauty of the elements in light inspired his strong drawing
and bold shapes. One of Canada’s finest master printers,
Phillips shared the benefits of his exceptional command of
lithography with many artists. He graciously lent his
sensitivity and skill to assist others in their printed creations
at Sword Street Press. His unabashed energy in co-creating
was akin to that of the weather that occasionally collaborated
with him in drawing on his plates. The ambitious scale and
extraordinary quality of his printing are as rare today among
hand-printed lithographs as they were in 1980 when this
triptych was created.
26
DON PHILLIPS
FIGURE 6
Untitled, 1980
triptych, lithograph, hand coloured with acrylic
and watercolour, edition of 10
printed and published by Sword Street Press, Toronto
127 x 244 cm framed
from the collection of Ernst & Young
Courtesy: Geraldine Davis & Company, Toronto
Martin Golland
FIGURE 7
Residential Night Vulture, 2009
oil on canvas
152 x 127 cm
Courtesy: Birch Libralato Gallery, Toronto
MARTIN GOLLAND
27
Barbara Astman
FIGURE 8
Untitled (I was Thinking of You), 1979
manipulated Polaroid photograph
142 x 116 cm
from the collection of McMillan LLP.
Courtesy: Corkin Gallery, Toronto
Pounding her words into wet photo emulsion on an old typewriter,
in two minutes Barbara Astman combined action art, performance
and self-portrait. We experience the typewriter’s impact. The text
feels freshly printed in its gooey surround, still vibrating above the
artist’s body with the frenzy of its 1978 creation.
Astman shows her painter’s hand here. This is an unusually
messy thing to do in photography. Many photographers are
famously perfectionistic about the cleanliness of their images–
no dust specs, etc. Sensuous energy oozes out around her
typewriter-pounded letters, oddly linking her text to our memories
of old book pages printed on letterpress. Bookish and historical
qualities combine dynamically with influences from abstractexpressionist painting in this performative photograph.
Headline-sized characters float over the artist’s body in a
visual play on words. Astman’s personal letter-narrative and
physical evidence of her action squished in gel undermine our
documentary expectations of a photograph–common expectations in 1979 when this work was created. The artist’s body
merges with her text. Despite the personal content, this work
reveals only the ambiguity of female sensibility or relationships.
Her figure’s strength contrasts provocatively with the vulnerable
voice in her romantic ramble. Astman’s work reveals a very
creative woman artist’s expression while capturing the excitement
of early performance and conceptual practices in their heyday in
the 1970’s.
28
BARBARA ASTMAN
29
John Massey
FIGURE 9
Twilight’s Last Gleaming #1-3, 1988
sepia toned photograph, edition 1/2
45.7 x 51.4 cm each
from the collection of Sun Life Financial
Courtesy: Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto
The architectural interiors in Massey’s Twilight’s Last Gleaming
are photographs taken of a scale model the artist constructed
from floor plans of a gallery in Antwerp. Massey’s sensitively
lit images celebrate the power of space to create our
experiential reception of art. His ironic title and use of sepia
tone suggest the imminent disappearance of presence in
space, circa 1988 – in a post-Reagan, consumer-driven
society that would soon find little use for sentience.
With minimal details like the solitary light, Massey invests
this tiny gallery with a potent atmosphere. The infinite range
of our imaginations in engagement with art and creativity is
immanent in these interiors.Twilight’s Last Gleaming’s careful
photographic reconstructions of the actual space have
become metaphysical – Massey’s affective tribute to a
moment of epochal transformation.
30
JOHN MASSEY
Brian Burnett
FIGURE 10
Oxford Street, 1983-84
acrylic on canvas
175 x 168 cm
from the collection of E.I. du Pont Canada Company
32
BRIAN BURNETT
Susanna Heller
FIGURE 11
Brooklyn Bridge/Heatwave, 1988
oil on canvas
152 x 213 (framed 159 x 219 cm)
from the collection of Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
SUSANNA HELLER
33
David Askavold
FIGURE 12
Love Mansion, 1997
9 photos & title page
62 x 42 cm each
Courtesy: Gallery Page and Strange, Halifax
34
DAVID ASK AVOL D
35
Jeannie Thib
FIGURE 13
Manual, 1998
screen print on kozo paper, ink, thread, oil
2 of 11 framed pairs, each: 63 x 50 cm framed
each frame contains one element, each: 20 x 14 x 2.5 cm
Courtesy: Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto
Manual contained eleven pairs of paper gloves. The artist’s
description notes that the gloves are installed with pins, like
specimens, in box frames. Her printed, stitched gloves
correspond to artefact, body, and book. Palm impressions
and oiled paper recall parchment, skin and pages. Thib’s
gloves are inscribed with found images accompanied by texts
from botanical and medical sources. The artist assembled
fragments of information that appear, initially, to resemble
their traditional counterparts – matching combinations of
illustration and text as found in illustrated books, maps and
manuscripts. Closer study of Thib’s illustrated objects reveals
the disparate origins of her chosen images and words.
Manual explores the history of collecting and organizing
information. Thib’s work reflects traditions in documentation
that encompass early encyclopaedic treatises on nature
along with contemporary instructional manuals.
Earlier intermingling of image and text offers a delightful
pretext for Thib’s imaginative blend of book arts, printmaking
and museological display. Crisp, two dimensional graphics
create a contemporary installation or sculpture that
resonates with an authority borrowed from historical objects.
Thib has executed her cross-media, interdisciplinary “sleight
of hand” with the apt symbol of gloves that variously clothe
the hands of archivist, artist, doctor, magician, technician
and scientist – all who work with images, information and
visual presentation.
36
JEANNIE THIB
37
Arnaud Maggs
FIGURE 14
Notification X, XI, XII, 1996
3 photographs
57 x 67 cm (each work)
Courtesy: Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto
In 1996 Arnaud Maggs was working in Paris where he collected
mourning envelopes, or “lettres de deuil”, that were common
until the early 20th century. He arranged them in grids. The
largest of the series, Notification 13, is in the collection of the
National Gallery of Canada. Maggs mounted the envelopes face
down, presenting only limited information and emphasizing the
heavy graphic of the “x” representing the cancellation or crossing
out of life. Only the eloquent finality of the black borders signifying
death remain in a further erasure of the person whose name on
the front is now buried by the envelope’s other side. Maggs
minimal artistic intervention makes a powerful statement through
its simplicity of means, mirroring the essential visuality and sign
function of the found objects he recycles. His use of everyday
printed matter conflates manmade ready-mades with historical
artefacts in a variation of documentary photography within his
conceptual contemporary art practice.
38
ARNAUD MAGGS
39
Lynn Donoghue
FIGURE 15
Luca’s Party - Tulips, 1990
oil on canvas
213 x 152 cm
from the collection of GlaxoSmithKline
40
LY N N D O N O G H U E
41
Lynne Cohen
FIGURE 16
Laboratory, 1998/2001
dye coupler photograph
123 x 153 cm
42
LY N N E C O H E N
Ed Pien
FIGURE 17
Seeding, 2006
paper-cut and ink
185.5 x 193 cm
44
ED PIEN
Evan Penny
FIGURE 18
Untitled (Small Red Skin), 1992
beeswax, intaglio ink pigment
41 x 41 cm
Courtesy: TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary
E VAN P E NNY
45
Sonia Esfahani
FIGURE 19
Lovers, oh, lovers, I shall turn
your dust into gold II, 1994
acrylic on canvas
121.92 x 121.92 cm
from the collection of Iris Birze
Inscribed in pearl white in Sonia Esfahani’s painting is
Persian cursive or script: the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi’s
famous love poem. Iranian-Canadian Esfahani’s work of art
is equally poetic in an updated context. Her white ground,
embossed with poetry, softly blends two worlds. The solitude
of a Canadian winter landscape echoes beneath Rumi’s
eloquent text. In Esfahani’s vision, silent whispers eloquently
convey her delicate tracing of the great, dead poet’s words.
46
S O N I A E S FA H A N I
47
Rebecca Belmore
FIGURE 20
Sacred, 2001
photograph - C print
74 x 64 cm
48
REBECCA BELMORE
MARTIN GOLLAND
49
Otis Tamasauskas
Otis Tamasauskas builds his images physically, assembling
ideas in his composition like a construction or collage. A sage
builder or renovator, he selects strong, visual elements from
found objects or remnants of the past. The past that he
collects may be his own or a piece of history discovered in
the world around him. Objects, whole or in pieces, anchor
the eye in Tamasauskas’s active, energetic works. He often
combines three-dimensional assemblage or installation with
painted or printed elements. In “Watermark Series:
Balancing Spirits”, a startling, turquoise fish in murky
depths demonstrates his tactile approach with its strong
shape as if cut from wood or metal. The fish recalls
Tamasauskas’s insertion of real printing blocks and plates
into his printed surfaces. This compilation of images,
materials, prints and surfaces is the hallmark of his work. An
accomplished virtuoso in the most challenging print
techniques, his deft use of engraving, intaglio, lithography,
photo and woodcut distinguishes his work among his
printmaking peers. He may photo-transfer an image from a
book or photograph or place an object directly on the bed of
the scanner. The loose dialogue between disparate elements
invites the viewer to invent their own narratives to connect
his visual clues. Myriad histories and stories accompany the
images as they unpack themselves from his rich, graphic
clutter. Whether he glues, nails, prints or scans an image,
Tamasauskas processes his memorable bricolage as an
enthusiastic hunter-gatherer, recycling ideas and materials
from his environment into works of art.
The archaeology of his images is chronologically
random, conjuring multiple interpretations with abundant
miscellany. Archives, bones, books, cloth, feathers, hide,
metal, photographs, plates, shells, stories, tools, wood:
natural things and man-made memorabilia acquire new life
in Tamasauskas’s works. An early print is torn and reinserted
in a new composition like a useful pocket appliquéd on a
jacket that never had one. The artist’s hand-print, a
colleague’s old film, a book from another century, or the
weeds outside his studio: he juxtaposes the arcane with the
everyday to create new contexts. Tamasauskas is an avid
fisherman and wilderness hiker. In his industrious creative
practice, he shares the visual harvest of his adventurous
wanderings through landscapes and time.
50
O T I S TA M A S A U S K A S
FIGURE 21
Watermark Series: Balancing Spirits, 1996
unique collage, woodcut & lithograph on St. Armand
handmade paper, printed in (3) sections and mounted
on BFK paper - 145 x 262 cm
Courtesy: Geraldine Davis & Company, Toronto
51
Carlos & Jason Sanchez
FIGURE 22
A Motive for Change, 2004
digital C-print
102 x 127 cm
Courtesy: Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
The Sanchez brothers’ hitchhiker is an archetype of North
American mythology. Miles from nowhere, the two lane
roadway carved out of the bush could be going anywhere.
The landscape is northern but bleary light through the rain
obscures geographical clues to direction. The figure is
dwarfed by the surrounding wilderness, emphasizing his
isolation. In his dark gear the crouching wanderer resembles
a large boulder on the shoulder, a rolling stone at the mercy
of the elements and his rite of uncertain passage into an
unknowable future.
This apocryphal image of contemporary culture
links the traveller’s solitary quest to our pioneer heritage. The
formidable wilderness poignantly illuminates uncertainties
and questionable motives of such quests attended by
utopian expectations of odysseys in wild places. In this
colour photograph, the rain’s grey palette sets off an orange
line of painted asphalt; the only man-made colour in what
could otherwise be a black and white photograph of earlier
times. The work’s title invites us to examine assumptions
about change. Our restless search for new frontiers has
altered earth’s bountiful natural beauty forever. A timely
response to this damage could still inspire the most
significant change to date: a decision to preserve rather than
destroy our planet.
52
CARLOS & JASON SANCHEZ
53
Mitch Robertson
FIGURE 23
Winners and Losers (Tennis), 2006
altered black and white photos (2)
43 x 60 cm (62 x 78 cm framed)
At first glance Mitch Robertson’s tennis players look like they
could be celebrities in historical photographs. They’re not.
Their baggy chinos appear in the black and white photo to
be beige or neutral, several shades short of regulation
“whites” that their professional counterparts would likely be
wearing on the tennis court. The artist makes his social
commentary by painting white shirts black in one of two
photos. He arbitrarily assigns the roles of “good” and “bad”
to identical groups of “players” who are ordinary amateurs
in their chosen game. Robertson discussed his symbolic use
of black and white to convey his recognition that he shares
a similar background with these anonymous white males
who enjoy a privileged life’s leisure activity. He collected
found photographs in second-hand shops and hand-painted
the players’ shirts to highlight the arbitrary assignment of
winner/loser roles in the black and white thinking that
pervades western culture. His conceptual reframing ironically
reveals our random associations of class with colour, race or
social status through accidents of birth. Monochrome in this
work plays on the positive/negative or black/white value
system implied by the title “Winners and Losers”. They
“look famous” but are not. Lawyers at Oslers like the fact
that they look like “winners” but are really just anonymous
“players”. In discussing Robertson’s work, Terry Bourgoyne
of Oslers alluded to the analogy of the lawyer who is asked
to “play” on both sides, representing innocent and guilty
equally in turn, and who is expected to win for whichever
side he or she plays on.
54
MITCH ROBERTSON
55
Wanda Koop
FIGURE 24
Early Morning, 2005
acrylic on canvas
76 x 102 cm
56
WANDA KOOP
Alex Cameron
FIGURE 25
Georgian Bay Aurora, 1988
oil on canvas
122 x 229 cm (126 x 232 cm framed)
Courtesy: Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto
ALEX CAMERON
57
Tania Kitchell
Snow White celebrates our experience of playing in winter
weather. Kitchell was unaware of a fortunate link between
these images and a little-known Canadian tradition of
performance-in-landscape. Her tribute to childhood pleasures
echoes a performance by Automatiste Francois Sullivan who
performed her Danse dans la Neige in 1948 in the snowy hills
of rural Quebec. The film footage of Sullivan’s unforgettable
work was immortalized by its very disappearance. The dance
in the lost film no longer exists except in oral history and the
shared imagination of those who hear its legend. Sullivan’s
dance exemplified the Automatistes’ revolutionary spirit long
before performance gained acceptance as visual art. An
artist and colleague, Maurice Perron, captured moments of
her dance in his photographs. Ironically, Perron’s stills –
static images – inscribed her energetic movement in the
canon of Canadian art history.
Fifty years later, Kitchell’s Snow White celebrates our
everyday activity more than the landscape that inspires this
childhood play. Textile arts like knitting honour ordinary lives
and served historically as an invaluable means of intimate
communication between people especially during revolution
or war, when warm clothing could save a prisoner or soldier’s
life. These significant traditions are whimsically recalled in
Kitchell’s original creation of the mitts she sports in her
performance in the snow. Her irreverent use of manufactured
fluff for her snowball transforms the harsh environment into
an outdoor lab or studio for creative fun.
In Kitchell’s familiar winter setting, the landscape is a
backdrop for a lively self-portrait. The artist’s immersion in
the elements parallels her predecessor’s tribute to the
environment in winter, although the Kitchell work is a postmodern construct for the purpose of the photographs while
Sullivan’s vigorous physical interaction with the land was an
ephemeral act of expressionism, only secondarily documented in film. That the film proved equally ephemeral
underlines the transience of performance. Kitchell’s prints
are intended as the final product while Sullivan’s dance was
captured in film and photographs as secondary bi-products
of her original creation. Curiously, in both sets of still
photographs, static shots prompt our perception of the
body’s movement. The visual sparkle of Kitchell’s pleasure
in the snow is enhanced by its current location. Her
photographs of outdoor play illuminate a subdued hallway
in the busy workplace of McMillan LLP.
58
TA N I A K I T C H E L L
FIGURE 26
Snow White, 2001
6 colour photographs/ Lamda prints
63.5 x 63.5 cm each
(Top row, l. to r.) Imagining Snow White, Rethinking Love and Affection, Thinking Comfort in Warmth.
(Bottom row, l. to r.) Knowing the End is Near, Knowing Its Cold, Imagining I’m Home.
59
David Bierk
FIGURE 27
This is a concept by which we measure our pain
oil on wood with glass
123 x 280 cm
60
DAVID B IE RK
61
Jane Buyers
FIGURE 28-29
Material Culture #16 & 17, 1994
etching and chine collé
84 x 64 each framed
Courtesy: Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
62
JANE BUYERS
MARTIN GOLLAND
63
Lorène Bourgeois
FIGURE 30
Arabesque, 1994
lithograph
251 x 386 cm framed
64
LORÈNE BOURGEOIS
65
Gathie Falk
FIGURE 31
Series: Pieces of Water, No. 1, Panco, 1982
oil on canvas
197 x 168 cm
from the collection of E.I. du Pont Canada Company
Courtesy: Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
Thoughtful observation of nature informs this series from
Vancouver artist Gathie Falk. In earlier sculpture included in
the National Gallery’s collection, Falk demonstrated a more
obviously conceptual approach not evident in this direct,
painterly work. Falk’s light hand created a lively freshness
with watercolour-like washes in Pieces of Water, No.1, Panco,
Her skill in executing these marks in oils was rarely seen in
the abstract paintings of the time. She chooses a challenging
technique judiciously. Delicacy is appropriate to the delivery
of her specific subject and she uses it to great effect. White
canvas sparkles around and beneath clear veils of colour,
heightening the translucent brilliance of water bathed in light.
A versatile creator, Falk has explored painting,
performance and sculpture. In her recent sculpture, her
sensitive appreciation of the natural environment and
everyday objects persists. Aside from aesthetic beauty this
painting offers a refreshing, meditative experience of the
elements, as unexpected in du Pont’s offices as it was on
Toronto’s Yonge Street where I first saw this painting in her
show at the Isaacs Gallery.
66
G AT H I E F A L K
67
Spring Hurlbut
FIGURES 32-33
James #1 & #2, 2005
ultrachrome digital print (Edition 2/7)
83 x 71 cm each
Courtesy: Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto
In James #1 and #2, Spring Hurlbut measures her father’s
ashes and bones with scientific tools. The ruler and scales
underline the insubstantial mass left by a human life. The
sparse arrangement of her minimalist “still life” echoes
emptiness: the hollow void left in the survivor by the
erasure of her parent’s living being. Hurlbut’s cool,
dispassionate means convey the existential plight we may
face when confronted by death’s finality in the absence of
a belief in immortality.
68
SPRING HURLBUT
69
Luis Jacob
FIGURE 34
Elastic Substance, 2007
colour photograph, edition 1 of 5
127 x 102 cm
photography by Miguel Jacob
models: Kevin Curreri, Kelly Lewis
Luis Jacob hired and directed models who were then
photographed by his brother Miguel, a well-known fashion
photographer in Toronto. Wrapped in fabric, the living models
become sculpture. Fabric and figure merge, blurring distinctions between art and life, creation and creature. Jacob’s
Elastic Substance echoes animation and hints of ineffable
qualities that defy recognition despite the helpful title.
If transformation is a suspect for Jacob’s subject, the
human figure adopts abstraction as a disguise in the
camouflage of printed material. The artist’s imaginative repurposing of fabric and fashion transcends their commercial
origins. Biomorphic or surreal suggestions breathe beneath
the “haunting” qualities of Jacob’s still photograph. Tension
in the cloth wrapping of Jacob’s choreographed chrysalis
threatens to explode out of its sculpted form or the picture’s
flat surface, bursting into live movement or dance.
70
LUIS JACOB
71
Francine Savard
FIGURE 35
C=13%, 2007
acrylic on canvas mounted on wood
126 x 97 cm
Courtesy: Galerie René Blouin, Montreal
72
FRANCINE SAVARD
Amanda Reeves
FIGURE 36
Untitled 03, 2008
acrylic on board
122 x 122 cm
Courtesy: p|m Gallery, Toronto
AMANDA REEVES
73
Cybèle Young
FIGURE 37
it all started with a pail, 1999
etching on Japanese Paper and chine collé
84 x 64 cm framed
Courtesy: Edward Day Gallery, Toronto
74
CYBÈLE YOUNG
73
John Brown
FIGURE 38
Human Head #18, 1991
oil & tempera on plywood
152.4 x 121.9 cm
from the collection of Sun life Financial
76
JOHN BROWN
John Scott
FIGURE 39
Untitled, 1997
latex & acrylic paint with oilstick on cartridge paper
211 x 91 cm (234 x 112 cm framed)
John Scott’s 1997 expressive depiction of a human being
is curiously both humble and noble: noble in its lack of any
obvious or superficial nobility; and humble in its simplicity.
Simple, rough execution and unpretentious statement
combine in Scott’s soulful figure that celebrates the
“everyman/woman.” This familiar, uncomplicated vision of
humanity contrasts sharply with figures in elaborate settings
or situations in other figurative works in this exhibition.
Scott’s subject doesn’t depend on external references to
create meaning. Dishevelled clothing, facial expression and
gestural drawing speak volumes without a background or
other props. Scott’s authentic, unforgettable drawing is
monumental and powerful. In this hand-drawn image, the
artist achieves a visceral strength that is difficult to create
using more sophisticated, technological means.
JOHN SCOTT
77
Kevin Yates
FIGURE 40
Garbage Bags, 2004
bronze sculpture
five pieces - largest 13 x 18 cm
photo: Isaac Applebaum
Courtesy: Susan Hobbs Gallery
78
K E V I N YAT E S
79
John Boyle
FIGURE 41
Polson Steamer, 1995
watercolour on handmade paper
46 x 53 cm
Courtesy: Loch Gallery, Toronto
80
JOHN BOYLE
Michael Earle
FIGURE 42
When the River Was Born, n.d.
monotype/screenprint
119 x 122 cm framed
Michael Earle is inspired by fabric in this luxuriously decorated screenprint. His intricacies of colour and texture recall
sumptuous ancient textiles and carpets seen in his childhood
visits to the Victoria & Albert Museum in the London of his
birth. Interwoven colours and calligraphic lines reflect textile
weaving, another creative practice as demanding of artistic
skill and invention as the exceptional printmaking practice
celebrated in the Ernst & Young print collection.
MICHAEL EARLE
81
Mary Pratt
FIGURE 43
Burning the Rhododendron, 1990
watercolour and pastel on paper
127.6 x 239.4 cm
Courtesy: Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
82
M A R Y P R AT T
John Hartman
FIGURE 44
Kenojuak Flies to Iqaluit, 1995
pastel on paper
66 x 101.6 cm
JOHN HARTMAN
83
Kai Chan
FIGURE 45
Adam & Eve #2, 2000
sculpture: bamboo, dogwood, dye, oil paint
104 x 89 x 41 cm
Courtesy: David Kaye Gallery, Toronto
Kai Chan draws his sculpture or he sculpts drawings. Either
way, he is curiously cast as a fibre artist by his choice of
materials. Chan’s sculptural installations in bamboo, nails,
thread or wood are spare despite elaborate intricacy. If their
threaded patterns share aspects with weaving, their
amorphous, calligraphic movement eludes ready definition.
Chan’s extraordinary works dance nimbly between sculpture, assemblage, drawing and painting while celebrating
the delicacy of fibre textures. He judiciously edits his
eccentric bricolage in a tactile and visual feast of fine
ingredients from art and craft practices. Chan’s eloquent
visual poetry em-braces the everyday and eternal things like
nature and spirituality. Adam and Eve is powerful yet simple:
an exceptional sculptural craft object to discover in a contemporary urban office.
84
KAI CHAN
Edward Burtynsky
FIGURE 46
Ferrous Bushling #7, Hamilton, Ont, 1997
chromogenic colour print
100.3 152.4 cm
86
EDWARD BURTYNSKY
87
Greg Staats
FIGURE 47
Wesley Rheaume 1994
silver print 2/10
89 x 74 cm
Greg Staats’ compelling portrait disguises enormous
meaning with deceptive simplicity. What we perceive at
first glance as defiance turns out to be the imagined
reflection of our own prejudices. Staat’s subject’s intense
gaze mirrors our fears, and in so doing prevents us from
seeing the fear of conflict so nakedly revealed in the
piercing eyes of Wesley Rheaume. Beneath our exchange
of gazes, the Trojan horse of Staats’ image bears its lethal
load in stealth to our subconscious. Even as we turn our
backs to walk away from his tragic subject our monstrous
inhumanity to fellow beings unpacks itself within our
dawning awareness.
88
G R E G S TA AT S
89
Roland Brener
FIGURE 48
untitled, 1994
Plexiglass, light, motorized sculpture
102 x 91 x 53 cm
Simplicity is the key to the powerful imagery in Brener’s
sculpture. The universal figure in motion enscribed by an
orb is a kind of visual algebra for human life on earth.
Echoing humanist icons of renaissance origin, the postenlightenment idealized human form is caught in the force
of its own momentum: a self-fufilling prophecy of industrialization. Impaled on the human creation of motorized
spinning wheels the toy figure going nowhere embodies a
dichotomy. Our utopian expectations co-exist with our cogin-a-wheel, mechanical notions of progress so fundamentally
out of harmony with the infinite momentum of celestial
bodies in the universe around us.
Brener playfully harnesses the human figure to a small
model of industrialized wheels. In revealing “the works” on
ready display behind his illusion he shares the simple
mechanics of his kinetic construction with his audience. This
demystifying of the artmaking apparatus may trigger a
parallel critical glimpse into society’s methods of illusion
manufacture. Viewed from the front, all is magical
mystery – the eternal rotation of heavenly spheres. The
luminous disk is mounted well away from the wall, allowing
us to see its inner workings. From the sides, we easily see a
plastic figure driven by the motor necessary to maintain its
movement, and perhaps by extension, our industrialization.
Black wire draws our eye graphically to the inevitable
materialistic explanation of modern manmade mysteries –
the eletrical plug. After we absorb the evidence of mechnical
production, we are left to ponder the undeniable force of
human imagination necessary to maintain powerful illusions
about meaning and human existence.
90
ROLAND BRENER
91
FIGURE 3
K E L LY W O O D
Garbage Bag, 1997
C-print mounted on plexiglass
228.5 x 185.5 cm, edition of 2
NOTES ON THE
POPULARITY OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
Art at Work reflects the popularity of contemporary photobased works among recent corporate acquisitions. Why are
corporations, and private collectors, buying so much
photography? Is this mad dash just a return to recognizable
imagery? Today’s photographs can work well in office
spaces. Often large and colourful, with eye-catching density,
detail or precision, this is art with “winning looks”. Many offer
narratives or settings like windows that allow us to look out
in the real world. The relative accessibility of many photobased works is so apparent that we might expect more
critical discussion about the implications of this trend
towards identifiable images.
Ease of access, not its aesthetics or significant history,
is the source of photography’s immense popularity in current
corporate collecting practice. This reflects the multi-tasking
frequently expected of corporate art: ideally, it pleases many
while beautifying spaces and, with luck, increasing in fame
and value. Photographs often trigger instant recognition,
followed by our habitual, learned response to images–a
response I regard as a labeling function. The fault does not
lie in the medium itself. Photography is an important form of
artistic expression. The flaws are in a materialistic education
and preconceptions that limit our natural capacity to open
eyes and minds to visual experience. A slavish devotion to
old notions of science persists in western culture along with
mechanistic thinking adapted to assembly-line production.
Aside from our tendency to label things, what’s wrong with
accessible art? Whether it’s the recognizable images or our
conditioned response to their use in advertising, family
albums, internet and media, we unpack the meaning or story
more than we feel photographs through our senses. The
current popularity of amateur photography, reality TV,
documentaries and memoirs, reveal the public’s desire for
“real” content in art, entertainment and media. We may
intellectually grasp that photographs can be constructed or
enhanced, but we still intuitively “believe” what we see in
photographs. Even if we crave reality, so much of it is fabricated in Photoshop, film or video programs and media, that
so-called reality and events are often fictitious. The great
appeal of much photo-based work may derive from a
relatively close resemblance to “real” objects in our known
world. For many viewers, the trusted familiarity we associate
with family photos may enhance our easy assimilation of
visual images when we encounter them in photographic form.
A recognizable image can be powerful as it is Kelly
Wood’s Garbage Bag (fig. 4). Tory LLP’s brave purchase of
Wood’s strong statement supports the artist’s production of
challenging work. The prominent display of Garbage Bag in
Torys’ main client area gives the work excellent exposure to
an educated audience. In branding terms, the possession
of provocative art can convey to clients the firm’s status,
success and taste. By extension, the evidence of cultural
NOTES ON THE POPULARITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
93
knowledge may imply an equivalent expertise in legal
matters. This association doesn’t work for everyone. Phil
Mohtadi, chairman of Torys’ art committee, recalled some
people’s concerns about Garbage Bag when it was first
installed: they worried that Wood’s image could reflect on
the quality of work done by the firm1. In conversations with
corporate collectors about living with their art, I observed a
deep appreciation of its meaning and impact on daily life.
Corporate art collectors seem informed and perceptive, yet
a growing emphasis on recognizable content raises
significant concerns.
Doubt shadows my observations about digital photography. They may be a modernist hangover from my early
diet of rich painting and expressive works but I can easily
identify the physical characteristics of digital prints. My
response to these attributes may be exaggerated but digital
printing has a pronounced effect on the aesthetics of these
prints. I find their surfaces feel sealed. As an experienced
printmaker, my eyes can’t miss the flat, even, smooth dyes,
inks and paper. Large areas of digital prints are often
completely coated with dye, plastic ink or varnish. The
homogenous surface and continuous, mechanical quality of
ink-jet prints has its aesthetic rewards but its consistency
can become monotonous. By contrast, irregular, hand-made
marks in many etchings or lithographs, for example, often
leave some areas blank, called paper “shows”. These
natural, rhythmic breaks in the drawing of an image–often
94
GERALDINE DAVIS
revealing white paper–can intensify colours, lines and
shapes, adding life to the whole. Empty spaces or intervals
allow the work to breathe and create restful pauses for the
eye. The variety of textured marks in an image can be
accentuated by such interruptions. In digital prints, the
dense, mechanical grid pattern of tiny ink-dots subtly asserts
itself, uninterrupted, throughout the image in spite of the
invisibility of the individual dots. This density and sharpness
that enhances the visual appeal of digital means can be
dazzling. The brilliance that attracts our attention can become
distracting, reducing our ability to look at the work for a long
time.
The popularity of digital printing in contemporary art
has exaggerated my reaction to the homogeneity of its
surfaces. Not only is there a consistency within each image,
but there is a common “look” that blurs distinctions between
artists’ works that otherwise might differ greatly. This
aesthetic consistency is a result of so many artists using the
same processes. The individual human hand can make a
big difference between drawings. Digital images reveal a
greater sameness because the machines and software that
produce them are much the same, while artists’ non-digital
productions can vary greatly in execution.
Photography’s widespread use is a result of manufacturing and marketing. Digital tools haven’t made us all
artists, but familiarity with them creates popular acceptance.
In view of its seductive qualities, I cannot gloss over – a printing
FIGURE 5
DAVID ASKEVOLD
Love Mansion, 1997
9 photos & title page (3 shown)
62 x 42 cm each
Courtesy: Gallery Page and Strange, Halifax
term – industry’s attempts to turn digital printing into art. It’s
a big industry: printing and packaging. The huge printing
and packaging business has invested on a large scale to woo
the art world by offering dyes in place of plastic inks. Even if
the dyes last, I’ll risk predicting that sprayed from ink-jets
they won’t withstand centuries or millennia like traditional,
heavily pigmented inks hand-rolled and driven into paper by
20,000 lbs-per-square-inch pressure. Questions about the
permanence of materials prompt our view of the legacy of
art objects in the greater context of environmental concerns.
Museums are already struggling with the challenges of
caring for many contemporary art objects in new media.
Contemporary artists, like their buyers, demonstrate a more
immediate, visceral response to digital photography. They
are often entranced by the rich resolution and crisp detail
in digital printing techniques. Artists are visual people: they
are easily seduced by these qualities. Many of them find
the near-infinite creative possibilities of digital composition
very exciting. For those who choose to explore this creative
potential, a desire to experiment with new things outweighs
an attachment to the longevity of the medium.
Photographs were often luminous before digital
printing. In discussing their use of light and tonality, I include
the colourful richness of much B/W or silver photography
even when flat, or matte, in finish. Some digital works “glow”
like their predecessors but many digital art prints share
industrial qualities with commercially-printed, advertising
materials. Despite decades of pop art influences,
commercially printed images can appear dull or, at worst,
tawdry. Industrial production isn’t inherently bad, boring or
cheap-looking. Marcel Duchamp anticipated DIY and
conceptual art practices by famously celebrating everyday
experience, industrial objects and commercial processes to
the benefit of much art that followed. Whether the medium
works depends entirely on what an artist says in using those
means, which artist says this and when.
Quality and longevity aside, the prevalence of
photography in corporate collecting raises a larger topic: the
recurring–or enduring–popularity of realism. The Fall 2010
issue of Canadian Art appeared on the stands while I was
procrastinating about publishing such potentially suspect
thoughts. On its cover, Edward Burtynsky’s spectacular,
undeniably current, oiled ocean spills its potent,
photographic truth2. An equally compelling title floats in its
shiny blues announcing: “Photography + the revival of
realism.” Super-sized moral urgencies are an admirable
focus but why is this art instead of excellent, plain vanilla,
old-fashioned photo-journalism? If it turns out to be art, I
won’t mind but I would like to understand the difference.
What’s wrong with good journalism? When did we decide
that a great photo has to be art to be important? If we did so
decide, is it a simple matter of the name of the magazine?
Does Art trump Life 3 ? Let’s assume it does. Even then,
smuggling realism in under cover, so to speak, of photography,
ART AT WORK: NOTES ON THE POPULARITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
95
F I G U R E 4 (FAR LEFT )
EDWARD BURTYNSKY
Ferrous Bushling #7, Hamilton, Ont., 1997 [detail]
chromogenic colour print
100.3 x 152.4 cm
is just too easy. Sweeping photography and realism with one
brush –“ink-jet” wouldn’t work here: a large broom may – is
a huge generalization. This massive alliance of an entire
medium and a broad tradition, or its revival, could only occur
at the expense of each in a thinly-veiled attempt to recast
realism and all–or only realistic ?–photography as heroic
contemporary artistic projects. While the jury’s out on art vs.
journalism, realistic vs. non-realistic photography and other
issues raised by Canadian Art’s cover, isn’t it fantastic that
growing piles of new chemicals, plastics and soon-obsolete
digital printing equipment can help us more vividly depict
the errors of our planet-damaging ways? If artists can
borrow a page from journalism, then art historians may as
well grab some good press material while it’s staring us in
the face.
Ironically, despite these harsh judgments and ink-vs.dye tech, like many, I catch myself admiring Burtynsky’s
stunning images of humanity’s destructive might. His
Ferrous Bushling #7, Hamilton, Ont, 1997 (Fig. 46), is an
early industrial wasteland-scape included in Art at Work. In
terms of the many functions of corporate art, his images of
ravaged beauty are hard at work delivering timely messages
from the walls of nearly every major corporate collection I
visited. Burtynsky’s photographs are the subject of major
museum exhibitions. In corporate collections, his images
powerfully convey beauty while urging clients and visitors to
ponder the possibilities of corresponding, eco-savvy sentiments among the works’ equally powerful owners.
Another attribute of much recent photography that
succeeds in the marketplace may be less obvious than its
accessibility. In the accompanying video interview, Brian C.
Pel, a senior partner and manager of McCarthy Tétrault’s
collection, questions photography’s status as art due to its
scale. Brian is standing in front of Angela Grauerholz’s large
work when he says this. Size matters indeed. Scale contributed to photography’s rapid climb onto corporate and
museum walls, and conjures visions of Jeff Wall’s constructed narratives on a monumental scale borrowed from
modernism, fashion billboards, film and historical painting.
Wall’s oversized photographs received international
curatorial acclaim. If not best, big is, at least, better. Although
the prices of many artists’ photographs have risen dramatically of late, the price of a recognized artist’s large
photograph remains well below that of a comparable artist’s
painting of similar size.
A formative experience with contemporary photography was my first encounter with Grauerholz’s work in an
exhibition at the AGO. Installed in proximity to historical
works, her image in Window (1988) could have been a
couple of lovers watching the street while waiting for WWII
to end. Scale was the clue that her anonymous pair was
nowhere particular in time or space except wherever our
imaginations might place them: wartime photographs
wouldn’t be that big. Grauerholz’s ambiguous visual poetry
exploits our pre-conditioned response to photography. The
haunting qualities of many photographs arise from their
formidable history as documentation, journalism and family
photo albums as a recent exhibition 4 organized by the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum explored in discussing
the inherent resonance of photographic media.
Our strong response to the photographic image has
always played a large part in the success of the medium. If
there is cause to question the predominance of digital and
photographic images in corporate collecting practice, it may
be that such popularity has the potential to diminish, rather
than reinforce, their visual potency as art, despite the
medium’s historical rigour and increasing presence in private
and public collections. Our familiarity with photography, its
“everyday”-ness, is widely assumed to contribute to its utility,
if not its virtue, as contemporary media. The camera’s
capacity to capture images from the “real world” of our
ordinary, daily lives, lent documentary grit to the conceptual
avant-garde of the1960’s and 1970’s. Photography’s current
popularity may threaten this extraordinary, useful artistic
practice with imminent demise in the ever-newest-nextobsolescence of all things called ‘art’ in our time. At the
Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, a recent symposium
entitled “Is Photography Over?” debated its future 5.
ART AT WORK: NOTES ON THE POPULARITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
97
Our visual culture is moving quickly toward rapid modes of
viewing and away from single, static images. “Flickering”
pixels, higher resolution and faster transmission may soon
diminish our capacity for contemplation, imagination and
wonder. To attract audiences, visual art must compete with
an expanding array of entertainment /media produced to
satisfy our insatiable appetite for consumption and may
adopt similar means in the attempt. Fascination with reality
may come at the expense of our perception. Recent studies
of the brain show that memory, like imagination or vision,
is composed of emotional links between experiences,
events and things rather than an analytical process of
identification 6.
The art world’s infatuation with new media echoes
larger trends in popular visual culture. Moving images are
eclipsing photography in their rapid proliferation. If many of
us were to measure our exposure to visual media, our
consumption is likely to favour film, television and video over
still photographs or static works of art. Extrapolating art’s
future directions from the public popularity of its media may
be a dubious proposition at best. The persistent promiscuity
of photography with its accessibility, portability and practicality has contributed immensely to its power as an art
form. Its flexibility and utility may yet ensure it a long life in
the artistic toolkit. The new homogeneity of the digital pixel
grid and the similarity of printing tend to produce a
corresponding uniformity of aesthetic. This mechanical
“look” is also the result of the commonality of computer
software for editing or processing. The increased aesthetic
or technical uniformity of digital images may be more
pronounced than any comparable sampling of contemporary
drawings or paintings.
Aside from increased risks of homogeneity, technical
similarities in digital works may encourage our current
preoccupation with content, imagery and ideas. When
techniques are similar, it can seem natural to focus on
imagery in attempts to distinguish an artist’s intentions or
style. The narrative content of many photo-based works
tends to attract critical discussions about their images. An
understanding of imagery is fundamental to analyses of art,
but the ideas in much post-modernist art may be getting
more attention than they sometimes deserve. This focus on
subject matter often comes at the expense of significant
aesthetic issues. A discussion of subject matter that does not
address the sensory response to visual ideas is of little value.
A similar phenomenon is occurring in our popular
visual culture. We may observe the public`s near-insatiable
appetite for video games, websites, social networks, video
and documentary content. Beyond their emphasis on
content over form, the increasing volume of digital visual
media has a profound impact on our perception. The
popularity of digital media has severely reduced attention
spans, especially among our youth. My 21 year old daughter
had little exposure to video games, but she laments her
frantic impatience after 10 seconds of video on the internet.
This is a response she shares with many friends. She also
witnesses her mind completing a performer`s thought as she
blithely surfs off to grab the next scrap of an idea. Reflection
can scarcely factor in this high-speed audio-visual consumption. Even great ideas lose their value if we lack context
or ample opportunity to absorb them. The 10 second clip
may soon become our gold standard for brevity, replacing,
with light speed flashes, Warhol’s once famously short 15minute fame.
This capacity for speedy consumption of accessible
images may offer opportunities for valuable insight but the
power of art, or any visual media, to open our eyes to a
deeper experience of life can be reduced by this wholesale
exposure to visual stimulation. In considering our overexposure to images, the threat of diminishing our exceptional
perception or sensory response to aesthetic experience may
outweigh any short-term gains of new artistic tools. The
exciting creative practices offered by digital means demand
an equal curiosity and adventurous, critical inquiry into the
value of their cultural production. To usefully examine our
current engagement with digital or photographic media, we
need to fully explore another extraordinary process:
the mysterious operation of our human imagination. My
speculations about recent photographic practices were
inspired by my privileged journey through corporate
collections to discover the exceptional works of art which
illuminate these pages.
NOTES
1
Emily Mathieu, “Corporate Art: Not Just Pretty Pictures” Toronto Star, 7 September 2010: B1+. Mathieu paraphrases Mohtadi’s comments on B4.
2
Edward Burtynsky, Canadian Art, Fall 2010, cover image. Photo credit p.9: Oil Spill #4, Oil Skimming Boat, Near Ground Zero, Gulf of Mexico,
June 24, 2010, digital chromagenic print 1.21 X 1.62 m.
3
A reference to the magazine by that name that popularized excellent photo-journalism.
4
Blessing, Jennifer and Nat Trotman, Haunted: contemporary photography, video, performance, essays by Peggy Phelan, Lisa Saltzman, and Nancy Spector
(New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2010).
5
Is Photography Over?, symposium, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, various dates, 2010. http://www.sfmoma.org/events/1589.
6
Anthony J. Green, “Making Connections” Scientific American Mind 21.3 (2010): 22-29.
98
FIGURE 7
GREG STAATS
Wesley Rheaume, 1994
silver print 2/10
89 x 74 cm
Acknowledgements
This exhibition was a major undertaking requiring the
cooperation and assistance of many individuals and corporations. Guest Curator, Geraldine Davis was instrumental in
researching and relating to all the participants; corporate
connections and the numerous artists.
The selection of works for the exhibition and the
insightful essay which accompanies the catalogue were the
key to the success of Art At Work. It was, however, only a part
of the extensive work involved in organizing such a multifaceted project. Geraldine was the ideal selection to curate
this show. Her knowledge of corporate collections in the
GTA, her unending energy and her attention to detail were
essential to realize this exhibition.
Obtaining the necessary consent forms and reproductions proved to be a complex task requiring the help of
many artists and galleries. Thank you for the generosity in
lending irreplaceable slides and images which allowed the
AGM to deliver this project within its modest budget. Ed
Burtynsky, Barbara Astman, John Brown, Lynne Cohen, Stan
Douglas, Martin Golland, Spring Hurlbut, Luis Jacob, Tania
Kitchell, Arnaud Maggs, John Massey, Mary Pratt, Greg Staats,
the Sanchez brothers, Jeannie Thib, Kelly Wood and Cybèle
Young, consumed valuable studio time to hunt for images for
our publication. Many of the artists’ dealers were similarly
conscripted in the image gathering. Birch Libralato, Olga
Korper Gallery, Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Susan Hobbs Gallery
and David Zwirner Gallery facilitated our requests for images
and information. Fern Bayer who is nearing completion of a
catalogue raisonee of General Idea’s oeuvre kindly unearthed
that image from their archive in the absence of A.A.Bronson.
To have photographed all the works in this large exhibition
would have consumed the entire budget for the publication.
Our thanks go to all who grasped the rarity of this project and
enthusiastically supported our efforts despite the interruption
of their businesses and/or significant artistic practices. On
behalf of Geraldine, we give special thanks to Kelly Wood who
endured numerous emails, a studio visit and persistent
requests until she agreed to lend another of her Garbage Bag
works to stand in place of the irreplaceable key work in Torys
LLP main client area for the exhibition at the AGM.
The people who represented the corporate lenders to
this exhibition were instrumental. They gave up their valuable
work time and resources to enable Geraldine to survey
fourteen large collections in a very short period of time. Thank
you to Nancy Barun from E.I du Pont Canada Company; Ed
Phillips from Ernst &Young LLP; Pat James from OMERS;
Brian C. Pel from McCarthy Tétrault LLP; Margaret McNee
and art consultant Catherine Williams from McMillan LLP;
Jay McDonnell from Sun Life Financial; Tom Callaghan from
GlaxoSmithKline; Robin Anthony from Royal Bank of Canada;
Terry Burgoyne from Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and
Philip Mohtadi from Torys LLP.
A special note of thanks goes to the Art Gallery of
Mississauga (AGM) staff Gail Farndon, Operations Manager;
Jaclyn Qua-Hiansen, Gallery Assistant and Joe Vinski,
Weekend Attendant without whose support this project would
not have been possible. Lastly I would like to extend a special
thank you to Rob Gray, designer and printer, for his talent and
patience in putting this catalogue together along with the
accompanying cd publication.
ROB ERT FREEMAN
E X E C U T I V E D I R E C T O R / C U R AT O R
ART AT WORK: A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
101
Acknowledgements
Donald Rance, my favourite art book sleuth and head librarian
at the AGO reference library, shortened the path to contemporary photography. Geoffrey James kindly donated the relevant
tip about the SFMOMA symposium “Is Photography Over”
when I asked him en passant at the AGO. Colleagues among
the corporate collections were exceptionally generous with
their valuable time. Lloyd Fogler warmly welcomed my inquiry
and shared his considerable collecting experience. Fogler
Rubinoff’s collection is essentially Mr. Fogler’s private collection
on display at the firm, so it did not fit exactly within the mandate of this exhibition. Jeanne Parkin and Brian C. Pel were
exceptionally kind in allowing me to shoot my first documentary video. Jeanne and Brian’s eloquence and enthusiasm
speak for themselves. The interview could not have been
made without photographer Geoff Scott whose unfailing agility
and flexibility made it possible in one short session.
Art at Work’s conception exemplifies the positive, productive influence an exceptional board member can have on
a public gallery’s programming. AGM’s President of the Board
of Directors, Anne Kennedy, the Managing Partner of Pallett
Valo, a prominent Mississauga law firm, suggested the brilliant
idea of doing an exhibition about corporate collections. The
strong response and curiosity inspired by this exhibition
demonstrates the value of “keeping it real” for public galleries
who care enough to consider the public’s interests in their
programming strategy. Pat James gave me an enjoyable and
informed “cook’s tour” of her selections for OMERS. One of
the most professional practitioners in daily, on-site collection
management is Ed Phillips whose quiet enthusiasm over three
decades at Ernst and Young has inspired many devotees of
the graphic media. His diligence and intelligence contributed
greatly to E&Y’s disciplined collecting practice. Ed’s informed
appreciation and curiosity were an essential source of expertise in the endangered practice of printmaking in Canada.
Due to short project timelines and the busy lives of the
corporate lenders, the scope of Art at Work was never
intended to be encyclopediac. Rather, I hope it may inspire
future explorations of corporate collections on a larger scale.
The creation of this ambitious project by a smaller institution
like the Art Gallery of Mississauga is a remarkable achievement. No significant exhibitions of this type have been created
since 1996 when Robert Swain’s Hidden Values 1 exhibition
was organized by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Swain’s thorough study is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in the history predating my less extensive
investigation. In acknowledging current contributors to this
project, I leave out many who toil in the interest of their clients
to build interesting, or valuable, collections. To name just a
few individuals who have participated in corporate collecting
practice but whose work is not on display in Art at Work’s
small sampling of ten collections, I would like to note some
leading consultants of our day who work in the GTA; Helen
Griffiths, Jane Zeidler of Art Collections Canada and Kathryn
Minard of Contemporary Fine Art Services are only a few of
the people who have professionally assisted local corporations
whose collections are not represented in the very small sample of ten such collections in Art at Work. In earlier years, as
an art dealer who worked with corporate collectors, I was
blessed to meet Gerry Moses (Imperial Oil), George Gilmour
(Maclean Hunter et al.), Murray Oliver (many collections), and
Peter Rice (Rice Brydone), Alex Chapman and many other art
consultants and designers who were responsible for judiciously selecting some of Toronto’s leading corporate
collections.
Lastly I would like to recognize the generous collaborative spirit with which Robert Freeman and the AGM staff
assisted me throughout this amazing curatorial adventure.
The exciting experience of this rewarding exhibition and publication has been the culmination of a thirty year career in
visual art in Toronto during a period I hope will be more thoroughly examined in many other exhibitions to come.
GERAL DINE DAV IS
G U E S T C U R AT O R
1 Robert Swain. Hidden Values: Contemporary Canadian Art in Corporate Collections, introduction by Robert Fulford (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1994).
An exhibition catalogue of a travelling exhibition organized by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
102
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ART AT WORK:
Corporate Collecting Practices Today
© 2011
300 City Centre Drive
Mississauga, Ontario L5B 3C1
www.artgalleryofmississauga.com
Graphic Design: Rob Gray, DesignWorks Studio
Printing:
Laser Reproduction, Toronto
Photography:
Geoffrey Scott
Catalogue of a two part exhibition held at:
June 24 – August 1, 2010
August 5 – September 12, 2010
Curated for the Art Gallery of Mississauga
by Geraldine Davis
ISBN-13 978-1-895436-83-9
1.
2.
l.
ll.
Ill.
Davis, Geraldine
Art, Modern – 21st century – Exhibitions
Robert Freeman
Art Gallery of Mississauga.
Title.
Funding support from The Canada Council for the Arts,
the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Trillium Foundation,
and the City of Mississauga is gratefully acknowledged.

atcorporate collecting practices today

Transcription

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