Christine Negus’ works presented at Gallery TPW embody the exhibit’s title you can’t spell slaughter without laughter.The neon sign that condenses the exhibition title into (s)laughter, with the “s” flickering on and off, characterizes the show. Consisting of six animated videos and two other installations, the exhibit showcases pieces that express a duality of disturbingly grotesque narratives with seemingly innocent characters. The voices of children describe terrifying stories, pop songs dissolve into unsettling and awkward sequences and the cosmos becomes one child’s trauma.

Negus’ most recent video “Hope/alone” takes Jack Johnson’s song “Hope” and morphs what appears to be a cheery pop song into a sinister chorus of voices that leaves the viewer haunted by the lyrics “better hope you’re not alone.”

On the wall leading the viewer back to the main room of the exhibit is “oh, those sad lonely beasts!” This perverse display of wreaths combined with artificial hair resembles festive costumes. Yet the work has a disturbing undertone appearing like a trophy collection of scalps from different cultures.

The disconcerting song “we can’t see their shape from this far away” can be heard throughout the gallery. The projected video starts with each star popping into the night sky with the sound of a few notes. The stars take on a menacing quality as they launch into a harmony that suggests an otherworldly presence that is always watching. The last line “watching you scream” obliterates the night sky and leaves the viewer startled, staring at a chilling blank screen.

“Secret galaxy” turns specks of dust from a keyboard into memories. Each crumb is a new memory, relating stories of the narrator’s past to colorful balls of dust that are later revealed to be planets in a diorama. The most unsettling memory, when the narrator is molested by her 8th grade teacher, is represented by a visual of earth. With this work Negus comments on the magnitude sexual abuse has on its victims, symbolically it becomes their whole world.

Negus’ works play on the concept of the vastness of the cosmos mirroring everyday traumas. It is through these short but succinct videos that nostalgia is expressed through humor and irony. You can’t spell slaughter without laughter not only compels the viewer, but leaves them traumatized.

you can’t spell slaughter without laughter runs until February 18.

- Sophia Farmer

(MacDonnell)

If you’re looking for a bit of glam, you should consider visiting Mercer Union in the near future. For the next two months, the gallery will be lit up like a movie set to display two complimentary shows. Annie MacDonell‘s Originality and the Avant Garde (On Art and Repetition), is showing alongside a retrospective on the photography of Diane Arbus, curated by Pierre Leguillon and entitled, Diane Arbus: A Printed Retrospective, 1960-1971.

Shimmering spot lights shine down on MacDonell’s collection of photographs in the first section of the gallery. Don’t be intimidated by the mirror-paneled bomb-shelter off to the side, it’s merely a projection room. Inside, a short film of a man eloquently sharing his opinion of society’s ‘obsession with the original’ rolls over and over, superimposing itself on the previous projection and becoming a blur of the man’s hesitations, emphases and moments of reflection. This might be enough for some, but the Mercer Union doesn’t leave it at that.

(Pierre Leguillon)

In the second room of the gallery, a retrospective of the work of Diane Arbus is arranged across all four walls. Her photographs, which appeared in Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, among other places, are framed, but most often shown with the original article in a scrapbook like arrangement, featuring celebrities of times past, including Mae West and Norman Mailer. An honourable mention goes out to her 1966 shot of the toothless Frank Stella, grinning widely while puffing on a cigar.

Exhibited together, the works of these two spectacular photographers are enriching and lively. MacDonell’s work displays postmodern scepticism, while Arbus reminds us of photography’s ability to simply capture the human spirit. It’s hard to say if MacDonell was inspired or disillusioned by Arbus, but nonetheless, they both go down as incredible artists.

Both shows run at Mercer Union until March 10.

- Anne Deck

Taking a cue from Bazin, Stan Douglas’s major solo show at The Power Plant Gallery, Entertainment: Selections from Midcentury Studio, seeks to create a sense of the real through the artist’s sleek digital images. However, in doing this Douglas simultaneously strays from the notion that “the camera never lies” by fashioning an entirely fictitious world in which his photographic subjects exist.

Upon entering the gallery it takes a few minutes to grasp the staged nature of Douglas’s photos as they are so accurate in their depiction of midcentury costume, posing and custom that they seem as if they could have been shot in really any North American city during the 1940s-1950s. However, realizing that they are in fact black and white digital silver prints shot in 2010 forces the audience to re-think the illusion.

Douglas’s extreme attention to detail is most notably exemplified by the overwhelming nature of his “Malabar People” series, 16 blown-up prints that identify the key players of The Malabar, a completely fabricated 1950s nightclub. All of its figures, which range from the club’s owner to a female impersonator, are perfectly posed in 1950s garb and look the viewer straight on, inviting them into the mysterious narrative. Both “Hockey Fight, 1951” and “Cricket Pitch, 1951” also present a momentous experience as they capture uncannily realistic images of a very specific, albeit staged, slice of history.

While the Power Plant’s spacing of Douglas’s show should have been altered (some pieces stood alone on white walls, only taking up 1/8th of the available expanse) it is still most definitely worth seeing. Stan Douglas’s photos allow their audience to re-examine midcentury nostalgia through the crisp medium of digital technology all the while calling into question the true reality of what is being presented.

- Stella Melchiori

Entertainment: Selections from Midcentury Studio runs until March 4.

The show runs at the University of Toronto Art Centre from January 24 – March 10.

The opening will be on Thursday, January 26 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM.

Video artists Christine Negus‘ “you can’t spell slaughter without laughter” details the small traumas of life at Gallery TPW from January 19 – February 18.

bloodbath from Christine Negus on Vimeo.

Mitchell Akiyama‘s “Ur-sound, or, the noise no writing can store” examines the lines between the sense at Gendai Workstation from January 20 – February 21.

“MonArchy,” a group built around Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, aligning artists to either the Monarchists or the Anarchists is on at the Hang Man Gallery.

Susanna Heller will be showing at the Olga Korper Gallery from January 26 – February 28.

The group show “Domestic Vista,” featuring Tonya Corkey, Nicholas Crombach, Jeff Devine and Charlotte Stewardson examines how people interact with their social and physical environments. At the Communication Art Gallery.

Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge are showing at the Toronto Free Gallery.

"Deep Water Horizon" Jeff Dywelska

The Communications Art Gallery is displaying the work Jeff Dywelska in his new show, Final Frontiers. Comprised of no more than handful of acrylic paintings, the exhibit presents works dealing with the themes of excess and obsession in the context of the lifestyles of modern suburbanites. Hailing from the suburbia of the Toronto area himself, Dywelska juxtaposes the reality of his own experience with humorous and satirical images to make a powerful statement.

The small gallery was well utilized for Final Frontiers. Comprised of only one small room, the front window allows for the majority of the paintings to be seen from the sidewalk. Dywelska’s intense use of colour and graphic imagery draws the viewer in but it is only after taking a closer look that it is clear that the paintings are also full of hidden symbolism.

The works displayed on the three white walls, though dealing with the same subject matter of suburban culture and consumerism, seem to fall into three different stylistic categories. The first group is characterized by an illustrative quality and the use of black and white lines with selectively added bold colours. These paintings are incredibly complex and appear to be full of juxtapositions and ambiguities.

Jeff Dywelska

Though interesting these works are nothing compared to the two paintings on the outer edges of the main wall. The creatively titled “Hold Me Like You Used To” and “Sons of Champions” are an extremely compelling combination of food and grotesque surrealism on an old-fashioned wallpaper backdrop.

“Deep Water Horizon” stands alone in the third stylistic group and seems drastically separated from the other body of works. This image of a burning shipwreck is far less surreal and is the only horizontally oriented work in the show. Rather than continuing on the satirical and humorous thread that characterizes the rest of the show, this painting is a direct assault on the issues Dywelska addresses. Despite the discontinuity this work creates in the exhibit, Final Frontiers overall is an extremely successful, if small show.

- Sophia Farmer

On from January 6th until the 22nd.

From the press release:

28 Days brings together the diverse work of Canadian artists with that of their international contemporaries in the United States and the United Kingdom to explore the staging of Black History Month. Featuring works in print, video, photography, painting, drawing, and sculptural installation, the exhibition examines the confluence of history and memory and its relationship to contemporary art and representational space.

Exploring the impact of African diasporic and Black expressive cultures on the evolving geography of global contemporary art, the artists create an international dialogue that complicates and transgresses prevailing notions of representation, memory, history, nationalism, and identity as they are presented in the site of the gallery.

Artists present in the shows include Leo Asemota, Radcliffe Bailey, Sonia Boyce, Sandra Brewster, Delio Delgado, Godfried Donkor, Denniston Ewan, Stephen Fakiyesi, Dana Inkster, Roshini Kempadoo, Wangechi Mutu, Keith Piper, Rob Pruitt, Dionne Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Camille Turner, Nari Ward, and Carrie Mae Weems.

The opening reception at JMB will be on Wednesday January 18 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM.
The opening at Georgia Scherman will be on Saturday January 21 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM.

A walk through the exhibit is like a treasure hunt through the most fabulous attic. Polaroids, posters, quilts…and underwear. He also designed underwear. The exhibit focuses on this aspect of his artistic career by devoting much of their front room to the display and celebration of these one-of-a kind pieces. At the entrance we’re greeted by four mannequin torsos sporting Munro’s skivvies. It is here that we are first introduced to sequins, studs and rhinestones. It will not be the last time we meet. Overhead, undies dangle from clotheslines while the sounds of one of Munro’s previous DJ performances blares in the distance.

But Munro did not simply design underwear; he explored the meanings, significance and history of the undergarment. Munro reveals the history of the invention of men’s briefs during WWI, and the visceral, human reaction to the vulgarity of a pair of recycled underwear. The mixing of the sacred and vulgar in “Black Fag – Henry Rollins vs. Vaginal Cream Davis” (2005), a hand-stitched tapestry of a nun embracing the naked legs of an anonymous man, made with recycled briefs is provocative indeed. The exhibit communicates that Munro’s interest, sometimes verging on fetishism, with underwear went deeper than its simple materiality.

My favourite moment was discovering a critical response to one of Munro’s earlier exhibits in a glass cased display. The critic found Munro’s work extremely vulgar, and wrote that he would never shake Munro’s hand for fear he hadn’t washed it, a slicing comment that epitomizes Munro’s deeper message! Munro aired out his dirty laundry…why don’t we all?

- Anne Deck

History, Glamour, Magic runs until March 11.

Send in your work in any media, or even your own manifestos, for a chance to get them out to a broader audience. This is an ongoing initiative and we hope to profile a different artist each week. This will include a mini gallery and short but sweet interview whenever possible. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to get your work seen, please send a few jpegs or a link to your work to the email address below.

Thank you

Submission link

Seripop (Blackwood)

Here is a list of some of the new shows on display in Toronto this week.

If you are in Mississauga, check out “Landscapes events reproducted” by Seripop (Chloe Lum & Yannick Desranleau) at the Blackwood Gallery. The show, curated by Christof Migone, runs from January 18 – March 4.

“Winter Group Exhibition,” featuring more than a dozen artists, will be at Lausberg Contemporary from January 14 – March 20.

“After the End,” an exhibition of emerging artists, will be running at O’Born Contemporary from January 14 – January 28.

The group show “Sediment” G Gallery. From January 13 – February 26.

Michael Maranda‘s new show will be on at Art Metropole until February 10.

Nestor Kruger has a show at Katzman Kamen examining mythology around the sun. It runs from January 12 – February 11.

“True Colours,” an abstraction based group show featuring 13 artists is on at the Twist Gallery until January 28.

“History” by Niall McClelland and Jeremy Jansen will run at the Tomorrow Gallery from January 20 – 27.

Jeremy Hof and Sasha Pierce are showing at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects from January 14 – February 11. Their show is called “Paint As Object ” and it looks at abstraction through creative approaches to material.

Annie MacDonell‘s “Originality and the Avant Garde (On Art and Repetition)” is on at Mercer Union. Borrowing from ideas in Rosalind Krauss’ seminal text, the exhibition looks at the potential of repetition as a method to generate meaning as it superimposes the gallery with the studio. The gallery will also be hosting “Diane Arbus: A Printed Retrospective, 1960-1971.” Both shows run from January 20 – March 10.