The Yoko Ono exhibition *Growing Freedom* opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 9th and runs through next spring. I captured this shot of the exhibition posters on the north side of the gallery this past week.

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

October 24, 2021

Midterm mayhem is in full swing, and my silence last week was due to a family emergency that had me scrambling to rearrange my schedule and shift gears to keep my head above water as the tsunami of grading pours in. I kept thinking about that infamous I Love Lucy episode where Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance work on an assembly line and try to keep on top of wrapping chocolates that are coming faster and in larger quantities down the conveyor belt.

Life is full of unexpected events, and these are the times we need to shed any pretense of perfectionism and our original game plan. As I told many of my students this past week, there is no shame in acknowledging when you are in over your head. If that means handing in an assignment that is incomplete and/or maybe not up to your standards, rethinking your expectations for a project, or even dropping a course that you know you are already failing, there is virtue in recognizing and facing the reality of the situation. The most important thing is not to beat yourself up about it. Look forward and carry on. Enjoy the weekly round up 😁

"Welcome To The Age Of Newstalgia"

refinery29.com

"Lost in translation? The one-inch truth about Netflix’s subtitle problem"

theguardian.com

"Banksy’s “Love is in the Bin,” Explained"

arsty.net

"Vienna Museums Are Revealing Their Raciest Art (and Educating the Masses) on the Adult Site OnlyFans"

artnet.com

"Is Paris really taking London’s art crown? (PODCAST)"

artnet.com

"Why Hollywood is Reluctant to Stop Using Real Guns as Props"

slate.com

"The True Cost of Wealth on HBO’s Succession"

theatlantic.com

"Culture Gabfest “I’ll Be Your Mirror” Edition (PODCAST)"

slate.com

"For This Artist, the Medium Is the Body"

nytimes.com

Meret Oppenheim: Mon Exposition / Retrospective at Kunstmuseum Bern (VIDEO)

vernissagetv

Montreal-based studio Principal designed the identity and accompanying campaign for iconic artist Yoko Ono’s Growing Freedom exhibition at the Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, set to open at the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 9th. — Montreal-based studio Principal designed the identity and accompanying campaign for iconic artist Yoko Ono’s *Growing Freedom* exhibition at the Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, set to open at the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 9th.

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

October 03, 2021

I have been in cinephile bliss as the 40th anniversary of the Vancouver International Film Festival kicks off this week, running from October 1-11. Adapting the very popular move to provide online films in a streaming format during last year’s fully virtual film festival during the height of the pandemic, this year’s much anticipated program provides a mix of in-person and online screenings. Having already attended two screenings, I cannot emphasize enough how energizing it is to be in the theatres once again!

As in past years, I am assigning a bonus assignment to all students in any of my fall courses to attend VIFF and offer a reflective report on any feature-length film of their choosing. With such a wide array of films to choose from, by request, I will be using this week’s round up to make ten film suggestions. Keep in mind that these are offered in no particular order and reflect my own taste and interests. Even so, I know some people will want somewhere to start, and so I am happy to encourage attendance via these picks and accompanying links:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Will Sharpe UK (2021)

Red Rocket, Sean Baker USA (2021)

Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew, Jeremy Schaulin-Riouz, Kirk Thomas, Canada (2021)

The Last Tourist, Tyson Sadler, Canada (2021)

Screen Shot 2021-10-03 at 7.59.06 PM.png

See For Me, Randall Okita, Canada (2021)

White Cube, Renzo Martens, Netherlands/Belgium (2020)

Keep Rolling, Man Lim Chung, Hong Kong (2020)

Just A Movement, Vincent Meessen, Belgium/France (2020)

Bipolar, Queena Li, China (2020)

Girlfriends, Carol Rodriguez Colas, Spain (2021)

"How Museums and NFTs Might Find Common Ground"

hyperallergic.com

"Fraud, Theft, And Breach Of Contract As Conceptual Art (This Is Not Theoretical)"

artnet.com

"Documenta Reveals Artist List For 15th Edition"

artnews.com

"The Art Worlds We Want: Solidarity Art Economies"

nonprofitquarterly.com

"The tension between copyright law and Appropriation art"

theartnewspaper.com

"How to Improve Your Teaching — Fast"

chronicle.com

"Anish Kapoor on vaginas, recovering from breakdown and his violent new work"

theguardian.com

"Hong Kong’s Local Art Market Is Flourishing. But, Many Fear an Artist Exodus"

artnet.com

"The Many Saints of Newark Spoiler Special (PODCAST)"

slate.com

"Surrealism Beyond Borders | Met Exhibitions (VIDEO)"

metmuseum

Fall is in the air, and I was struck by this fantastic palette knife landscape by British artist Georgia Hart featured on designboom magazine’s Instragram page this past week. I love me some impasto painting!

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

September 26, 2021

As the fall semester kicks into full swing, I’ve been chatting with many of my students about scheduling, deadlines, and bottom-line pragmatic strategies for getting things done. As we all learned during the pandemic lockdown and in the subsequent year, our routines and normal rhythm and pace of doing things have all been completely disrupted.

At the top of the list is our relationship with time and the enormous flexibility that we have had introduced, without much warning, into many of our lives. For academics like me who are used to working on their own and forced in many ways to figure out how to balance research, writing, teaching, service work, admin duties, grading, and all of the other demands on their time to blur the lines between personal and professional life, this has not been new. In fact, I know many of my colleagues who like me have pivoted to planning their days and weeks like an extended sabbatical where they would normally produce a big project, without outside supervision, over a year or so.

An excellent resource for figuring out how to manage goals through small daily actions. As Clear states, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

For the majority, however, this kind of planning is quite alien, and it is especially the case when juggling different work and education modes. Without benefit of the built-in systems that have us committed to commuting and being in a particular physical place for certain hours of the day, the ability to self-schedule and “find the time” to get things done becomes exponentially more challenging. This is one of the reasons, for example, that I have designed all of my online courses with a predictable “rhythm” of content, activities, and assignment deadlines, all with built in “To-Do” lists and a suggestion for how to work the course over a seven-day period.

Still, no amount of goal-setting can lead to actual action when it comes to making deadlines. And what we all soon discover is that the motivation we feel early on with any novel thing-- be it a new job, course, hobby, or something more personal like a diet or exercise routine—is limited and fleeting. This is where habits and something called “habit-stacking” is fundamentally important.

As James Clear aptly argues in his book Atomic Habits, “Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” In a broad sense, Clear is stating the obvious: if you don’t actually schedule and make time for your goals, they won’t happen. I think we all know this at some base level. But Clear’s solution to this problem is not just about the breaking down of goals into manageable steps and new habits, but more critically, to tie the establishment of those new habits with existing habits. For example, if you already drink a cup of coffee every morning and want to work on the habit of journaling, then pair the habit of morning coffee with journal writing. This was one of the ways I personally developed a daily routine to write with more consistency.

The most important thing is to look at the habits that you already have in your day-to-day life, and look for ways to stack an old habit with a new one. This helps cement the new desired routine with the system you already have in place. Don’t believe me? Simply spend one week tracking your time, and you will quickly see that you have a pace and rhythm to the way you are already spending your time. The only way to interrupt, transform, and achieve new systems, is to hardwire the daily/weekly consistency that comes via habits.

For more information, I highly recommend reading Clear’s book, and for more immediate action, start with identifying a goal you want to achieve next month, and work on breaking it down to a smaller habit you can pair with something you are already doing every day. Enjoy my weekly round-up (which incidentally I tie to writing up just before making Sunday dinner). We all have the same 24 hours each day— how will you make yours work better for you?

"Frida Kahlo estimated $30m self-portrait set to smash records"

theguardian.com

"The Art Angle Podcast: Writer Roxane Gay on What Art Can Teach Us About Trauma and Healing (PODCAST)"

artnet.com

"Kanye West Buys Tadao Ando-Designed Malibu House"

artnews.com

"Bob Ross the Dreamer Got a Rude Awakening"

hyperallergic.com

"From Marina Abramovic to Greta Thunberg: the legacy of Joseph Beuys lives on"

theartnewspaper.com

"How to Curate During a Pandemic"

artnews.com

"On the Internet, We’re Always Famous"

newyorker.com

"Try before you buy? Art rental scheme could bring steady income for emerging artists"

theartnewspaper.com

"Inside ArtBasel 2021 (VIDEO)"

vernissage.youtube

"Exhibition Tour—In America: A Lexicon of Fashion with Andrew Bolton (VIDEO)"

metmuseum.youtube

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped (2021) — Christo and Jeanne-Claude, *L'Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped* (2021)

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

September 19, 2021

The art world celebrated an extraordinary moment this week with the realization of a public art work sixty years in the making. On September 18th, the final wrapping of the iconic Arc de Triomphe in Central Paris took place under the guidance, vision, and posthumous direction of conceptual artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Born on the same day, dying a year apart, and married for 60 years, the artist couple spent a lifetime creating and executing some of the world’s most compelling large-scale artist installations. Most notably, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s projects were often incredibly ambitious, controversial, and required years and sometimes decades to plan and see to final completion. One of their most famous works, Wrapped Reichstag (1995)—the complete wrapping of Germany’s parliament buildings in over 100,000 square metres of silver fabric—followed twenty-four years of planning, lobbying, and negotiation with the German government, and it was only following Germany’s reunification in 1990 that the art work was approved and helped symbolize Berlin’s return to its status as a world city (see images below).

Christo-and-Jeanne-Claude-Wrapped-Reichstag-Berlin-1971-95--644x403.jpeg

And while the Wrapped Reichstag is seen by many as the duo’s most important artistic achievement, this week’s reveal (or conceal) of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe comes at a similar inflection point in recent global history. Reading the background to the project on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s rich website (also an absolute must for those new to their art projects) one learns of the desire to wrap one of France’s most iconic structures as a direct engagement with the public, a way to transform and make the monument both sensual and tactile, to invite a new engagement with public space and history at the precise moment that the world is experiencing a realignment of perception in the wake of the global pandemic. As the New York Times reported, France’s President Macron spoke of the will to support artistic vision in his address, standing at the Arc de Triomphe this week: “I think that what we believe is this: crazy dreams must be possible.” The wrapping of a monument at once military, historical, artistic and a repository of national memory made French people “extraordinarily proud,” he suggested, “because this is what artistic adventure is all about.”

For me, the wrapping was also a beautiful final tribute to artists who have always refused to accept sponsorship or donors of any kind, including charging entry fees or tickets to view their works, to see their final projects to completion. Instead, the projects have always been funded entirely via the artists’ estate through the sale of preparatory drawings, sketches, and models of the planned art projects. This approach to art production has often been seen as utopic and/or impossibly naïve by many in the art world, but it is a testament to these two amazing artists who spent a lifetime doing what most people claimed would be impossible.

See below a LIVE VIEW of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe in the YouTube video below, and another showing the time-lapse capturing the final wrapping on September 18th. The project will remain in place until it is dismantled on October 3rd.

"Against Artsploitation"

thebaffler.com

Understanding the onset of hot streaks across artistic, cultural, and scientific careers"

nature.com

"Sohrab Hura: “You Can Destroy Photography by Being a Photographer”"

elephant.art

"So, How American Was The American Met Gala?"

refinery29.com

"'Life is Strange: True Colors' taps into the power of empathy in video games"

mashable.com

"Masters and Fools: T.J. Clark on Velázquez"

lrb.co.uk

"Ten Years After Occupy"

nybooks.com

"Social Media Is Attention Alcohol"

theatlantic.com

"Fall’s Best Art Books Present Art History Fresh Off the Presses"

culturedmag.com

"Hito Steyerl Rejects Top German Honor, Citing Country’s Pandemic Response"

artforum.com

Gerhard Richter, September (2005). A profound history painting marking the moment of September 11, 2001. To learn more about this important work of abstract painting, see the Tate Modern video below with detailed discussion and analysis. — Gerhard Richter, *September* (2005). A profound history painting marking the moment of September 11, 2001. To learn more about this important work of abstract painting, see the Tate Modern video below with detailed discussion and analysis.

Weekly Round Up... And A Few More Things

September 12, 2021

The first week back to classes has been exhilarating, emotional, and tinged with highs and lows. It was also a week of many firsts—first time back on my university campus and in my office since March, 2020; first in-person classes and direct contact with students and colleagues since the pandemic; and the first time I have started planning for a field school (for summer 2022 — this one to Paris and the Venice Biennale) with the distinct possibility that it could be canceled at any possible moment.

My office at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, a literal time capsule complete with March 2020 calendar on the wall— it was the first time I had stepped inside that space in over 18 months.

That feeling of not knowing what will come next is not entirely unfamiliar. Yesterday, on the anniversary of September 11, 2001, I shared in the communal remembrance of casting back to where I was, and what I was doing twenty years ago when news of the NYC Twin Towers attack reached me. I was a new grad student at UBC, starting my M.A., and was walking to the gym for my morning workout ahead of my first classes on that fateful day. I had just put my earphones in order to listen to the news on my Walkman when I heard the first reports of the plane hitting the first tower. I had only made it down a block from home, and turned right around and ran back to my apartment to wake up my husband and turn on CNN just in time to see the second tower hit. The news footage was being transmitted live and unedited, and we sat in shock watching people jumping out of the windows and seeing the final collapse of the structures, realizing that this collective witnessing, via the screen, was a shared trauma that could not be unseen.

My first peer-reviewed academic publication published in the Spring 2002 edition of Postmodern Culture Journal was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001. — My first peer-reviewed academic publication published in the Spring 2002 edition of *Postmodern Culture Journal* was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001.

Later that day, my first grad seminar gathered up on campus. It was a beautiful fall day and Vancouver shared the same sunny blue skies that were now etched into our memories of the New York skyline at the moment of the attacks. We talked in the class—a Photography Theory course led by one of my grad school advisors Dr. John O’Brian-- about what we had all just seen and experienced, and how the accumulation of images of that day would circulate and gather meaning, nostalgia, information, disinformation, and all manner of symbolism in the months, years, and decades to come. In fact, the very first peer-reviewed journal article I published as an academic would come out of those intense and emotionally charged conversations and that sense of not knowing what the future would bring. “Grand Theory/Grand Tour: Negotiating Samuel Huntington In the Grey Zone of Europe,” published in Postmodern Culture Journal’s Spring 2002 edition, touches directly on the way artists and cultural theorists would contend with the aftermath of September 11th in terms of spectacle, trauma, technology, and spatial relationships— ideas that would also later shape my doctoral work and current research.

Talking with some of my students this week, I shared this memory and asked them to consider how the profound historical moment they were experiencing and witnessing for the past 18 months was shaping their own perceptions of time, space, and memory. While clearly not the same as the moment of 9/11, the global pandemic has wrought similar feelings of inevitable loss and the fear of not knowing what comes next. Moreover, we are seeing the function of media, technology, screen culture, and the circulation of conspiracy, half-truths, and “fake news” as all too familiar components of both inflection points in our global history. As Mark Twain famously wrote, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”