Blog #
131…July 2022
It’s wonderful to be outside so much these days, especially when there’s refreshing and original art to see - sometimes in surprising places. I’ve missed most of it, but thanks to my friend Google, have been able to catch up online.
I discovered Ed Burtynsky many years ago in a photo exhibit of the devastation caused by the Three Gorges Dam in China at a small gallery on Hazelton. He works in large format, kind of the Imax of still photos, continuing to record industrial landscapes and their impact on nature and on human existence …”capturing the underbelly of what humans accomplish,” as he puts it. Once you’ve seen these sights (and there’s a certain compelling beauty from a distance) you can’t unsee them. There’s a cruel irony in rich dudes spending billions flying into space rather than caring for the space where we live, sort of like getting rid of a car when the ash trays are full.
Ed’s had a
series of thoughtful and thought provoking works in the years since the Three
Gorges, His latest show, In the Wake of
Progress, an immersive experience now housed in The Canadian Opera Company
Theatre had a spectacular preview earlier outside on all 12 screens in Dundas
Square.
Another open
air piece of a very different sort came with the return of Judy Chicago (remember The Dinner Party at the AGO in
1982?) Her Tribute to Toronto, a new
work commissioned by the Toronto Biennale of Art, illuminated the waterfront
from a barge off Sugar Beach with environmentally friendly, non toxic coloured
smoke one evening early in June.
Seeking to
soften and feminize our surroundings with an impermanent approach, merging
colour and landscape, Judy hoped to
increase our awareness of the beauty of our natural environment.
And, adding a note of whimsy to my neighbourhood and giving new meaning to the elephant in the room, is Matt Donovan’s 1999 student thesis for OCAD. Resting on the lawn of a house on Yarmouth Road, Sally had an overhaul and face lift in 2013 and continues to dispense prosperity, longevity, intelligence and good luck to the house owners and all who pass by…that’s what elephants do.
Hope you're having a calm and peaceful Canada Day, be back in August.
