Last Chance to see Charles Hackbarth: Everything and Nothing and Barbara Rehus' : Can't. Breath.

Closing This Week Last day, SUNDAY December 16 Charles Hackbarth and Barbara Rehus are ending our 2012 programming with Everything AND Nothing and Can't. Breathe. Charles Hackbarth, 'Everything AND Nothing' (2012) Barbara Rehus, 'Can't. Breathe.' (2012) Inspired by metaphysical and alchemistic art, magic realism, historical illustration, and contemporary realism, Charles Hackbarth’s “psycho-spiritual tableaux” present a vivid and surreal mind-space where Everything AND Nothing can occur. Hackbarth is a Toronto-based artist, writer and musician. When he’s not making art he is developing his private practice as a Transformational Counsellor and Life Coach. He has been creating art and showing in galleries since 1985; his work is included in a number of private collections. A serendipitous find of old puppet head molds led Barbara Rehus down a path paved with crazy-making frustration but also the occasional pleasant surprise as molds and materials yielded unpredictable and frequently transient results. Though it took her a while to realize it, it became apparent that the puppets in Can't. Breathe. would be revisiting familiar themes of her previous work: nurturance, familial relationships, misogyny and fear of loss. Rehus is a Toronto-based visual artist, working primarily as a sculptor and painter. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in public institutions, artist-run centres and commercial galleries throughout Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, and the United States. Her work is included in numerous private collections. FINAL DAYS: Thurs, Dec 13, 12-5pm.  Fri, Dec 14, 12-5pm.  Sat, Dec 15, 12-5pm and Sun, Dec 16, 1-4pm.

York University MFA Exhibition: Nine at loop Gallery

          

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE loop Gallery presents:

York University MFA Exhibition: Nine  January 4th – January 18th, 2013 Reception: Saturday, January 5, 2013, 2-5 PM

loop Gallery is pleased to announce Nine, a group exhibition of artworks by York University’s 2nd year Visual Arts MFA students. Participating artists include: Marina Black, Neil Harrison, Yoon Jin Jung,Rachel Ludlow, Carly McAskill, Nadia Moss, Shannon Scanlan, Victoria Vitasek, and Tobias Williams. Nine brings together diverse practices in a variety of media including sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, video, and collage. From alienation to ecology, and self-preservation to consumer culture, each artist uses their respective medium to address issues ranging from the universal to the profoundly personal. Nine provides a glimpse at the unique solutions developed by Toronto’s emerging artists in response to the challenges of their current artistic milieu. Please join the artists in celebrating the exhibition opening on Saturday, January 5th from 2-5 PM.

Barbara Claus at Diagonale, Montréal

Where to begin,

‘I am old , I am slow and other digressions’

What of using this blog as my public journal?

Non.

‘je suis vieille, je suis lente et autres digressions’,

is the name of an exhibition by Montréal based artist

Barbara Claus at Diagonale centre d’Artistes,

5455 de Gaspé, Montréal.

I happen to know that Barbara Claus is about

10 years younger than me, so her title caught me off guard.

I wondered if things had been rough for her lately.

I went to see her show anticipating a bit

of a smack up the side of my happy face.

Claus chose to take a pass on the traditional opening/vernissage.

The exhibition is open during regular gallery hours and if you want

to talk to the artist about the work you can make an appointment 

any day between 8 and 6 to meet, talk and share a cup of tea.

On entering the gallery my attention was pulled to the south

wall. The wall painted brown almost black, is covered

in white chalk writing with a small neon sign attached, lower left.

The neon reads je suis vieille (I am old) and the chalk writing reads

je suis vieille over and over, je suis vielle, je suis vieille.

During her exhibition Claus will keep writing/drawing on the wall,

the words massing into dense forms in some parts, open and

threadlike in others. It makes me think that ' I am old '

is an ever changing state.

In a similar way the west wall has been approached as a

site-specific work. This neon reads ‘je suis morte’ ( I am dead).

A different wall, a different place - being dead, feels more static,

with a rough surface, a bit edgy.

On the north wall 17, 22” x 30 ” drawings are hung with magnets.

These drawings, developed through the same writing/drawing technique

as the 'je suis vieille' wall.

In the enclosed corner space of the east wall the words,

‘je suis foutue’* ( I am fucked ) are cut into the drywall with a router.

The drywall dust lies on the floor below. All white on white in this corner.

  

Near the door there is a notice posted on the wall.

I didn’t see it until I was on my way out.

Avertissement - It is a warning to gallery visitors.

The warning en français explains that this exhibition is intended for a mature audience.

Advising artists and curators under 35 that they may be shocked or disturbed by the fact that no funding was received in the making of this work.

Barbara Claus is speaking the unspeakable. Since the big awards (RBC, Sobey. etc.) for artists under 35 have been introduced I’ve had wistful conversations with many artists well past 35, wondering where those awards were when we were that age. It is something that you keep to yourself as it sounds a bit like sour grapes, to even say it out loud.

But here is Barbara Claus not just saying it out loud but digging it into the walls of the gallery 

‘I am fucked’.

Ironically the opposite feeling bursts through this exhibition. It is an act of willful intent. There is an honesty and a freedom here that I think may have been thwarted had there been a line running across the bottom of the invitation thanking the Conseil des Arts du Canada et le Conseil des arts des letters du Quebec for their financial support.

It is a refreshing experience to come upon something so heartfelt,

spoken with a mature and celebratory voice. It couldn’t have happened when Claus

was under 35 and it wouldn’t have happened had she received funding for this

exhibition.

Now, I hope that she sells some of those beautiful drawings to pay for her freedom,

and her next exhibition.

  

* when I asked Barbara Claus for her translation of je suis foutue

   she said  “I am done

                   I am finished

                   I am fucked ….. or something like that….!”

Exhibition Continues Until December 13th 2012

http://www.artdiagonale.org/

photos Guy L'heureux