Opening Reception @ XPACE

Join us at XPACE for our Opening Reception
Exhibitions in our Main Space, Xbase, and Window Space
February 24, 2012  /  from 7-11 pm 

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Facet & Scale

The Al Green Gallery presents
"By Facet & Scale" by David Trautrimas

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 23, 6-8 PM
February 23, 2012 – March 24, 2012
Artist Talk: Saturday February 25, 2PM

Call for Submissions: CONTACT 2012 Portfolio Reviews

CONTACT 2012 PORTFOLIO REVIEWS
Sunday May 6 & Monday May 7
Hosted by The Gladstone Hotel

Registration deadline is April 15, 2012
www.scotiabankcontactphoto.com/portfolio-reviews

The Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival is now accepting submissions from artists with well-developed projects to participate in the 2012 Portfolio Reviews.

Call for Submissions: RBC Canadian Painting Competition

The RBC Canadian Painting Competition is officially accepting submissions. With a total of $55,000 in prize money, the national winner will receive $25,000 and two honourable mentions receiving $15,000 each.

Established in 1999, the RBC Canadian Painting Competition recognizes emerging artists from across Canada. Adjudicated by the Canadian Art Foundation, a jury of distinguished members from the Canadian arts community will select five paintings from the eastern, western and central regions of Canada, for a total of 15 finalists.

The finalists will be announced June 29, 2012 and the RBC Canadian Painting Competition winners revealed at a gala event in Toronto at the Power Plant on November 29, 2012.

Submission deadline: Wednesday, May 9 at 5 p.m. EST

For more information and to enter,visit
www.rbc.com/paintingcompetition

List of Ten: a student's guide to reading week

Hey Students!!

With Reading Week on the horizon, XPACE has compiled a List of Ten things to do. Since sleeping-in and procrastination are usually at the top of our to-do lists during this week, why not substitute essays & projects with some great events going on in our city. For exhibitions, films, shopping or skating, keep on reading....

Strength Thru Embarrassment

Popped into MKG127 today to check out Laura Kikauka's exhibit, Strength Thru Embarrassment. Have a look...

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Summer Job Opportunities!

Summer Jobs Opportunities

The Blackwood Gallery is seeking to fill multiple positions for Running With Scissors Contemporary Art Summer Camps. The weeklong programs are designed to introduce contemporary art to children and youth ages 5 to 12. Inspired by contemporary art history as well as traditional methods, campers will be able to experiment with a variety of artistic media including painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media, performance, and more.

Submit to the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition!

SUBMIT YOUR ART WORK TO TORONTO OUTDOOR ART EXHIBITION
SHOW, SELL, GET SCOUTED and WIN AWARDS!
Don't miss the March 1, 2012 deadline.
Apply now!

Applications are available on-line at www.torontoutdoorart.org
Questions? Contact us at toae@torontooutdoorart.org or 416 408 2754
Want to volunteer? Contact us at toae@torontooutdoorart.org

TOAE is a not for profit charitable organization which connects with over 100,000 visitors to Toronto's Nathan Philips Square each year. It is Canada's largest annual three-day outdoor art exhibition and attracts a diverse range of families, urban professionals, youth groups and established patrons of the art world.

~Tropical Bingo @ XPACE~

Join us Friday, February 15 for a mid-winter TROPICAL BINGO Fundraiser and support the construction of XPACE's new LIBRARY....may all y/our dreams come true!!



5$ for all you can play bingo!!! with really amazing ~~PRIZES~~ donated by:: The Paper Place, Art Metropole, C Magazine, Type Books, Magic Pony, Ideal Coffee, Crafted, Woolfitts, Fuse Magazine and more TBA!!!

From 8pm-11pm
[[Licensed Event]]

+Hosted by artists and frequent collaborators
EMILY GOVE and JENNIE SUDDICK (2/4 of Cry School Yearbook)
+Mucho tropical decor
++Funds will go towards construction of our new Library, which will be located in the gallery's main space. It will hold three library projects:

-THE CURATED LIBRARY--Texts curated bi-monthly to coincide with exhibitions

-NEW XPACE ZINE LIBRARY-- Zines, comics, bookworks, anthologies from local and international artists

-NEW BOOGIE WOOGIE MIX TAPE LIBRARY-- Curatorial project by Sarah Butterill devoted to cassette tape music and sounds. Participants borrow a tape (each home-made cassette tape has a specific theme) and a walkman of their choice and engage with their surroundings. For more information visit: http://beigecube.de/boogie/boogie.html

---Event poster by JULIA DICKENS!---
Location- 58 Ossington Ave, Toronto.

~ALOHA~

What is Work Worth?

Toronto Free Gallery Presents...
THE BRIDGE DINNER SERIES: WHAT IS WORK WORTH?

“I’d guess that – apart from domestic and care work art is the industry with the most unpaid labour around. It sustains itself on the time and energy of unpaid interns and self-exploiting actors on pretty much every level and in almost every function. Free labour and rampant exploitation are the invisible dark matter that keeps the cultural sector going.”

– Hito Steyerl, Politics of Art: Contemporary Art
and the Transition to Post-Democracy

MOCCA's current exhibits

The Xpace crew went to check out MOCCA's latest exhibitions.
Here are a few images from all three spaces. Enjoy.

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Double Shot - Artist Talk

DOUBLE SHOT
Two Artist Talks – One Night

Johnson Ngo
Daryl Vocat

When: Wednesday February 15th, 6 to 9 pm.
Where:  Toronto School of Art, 410 Adelaide St. West, Toronto.

Juan Ortiz-Apuy Realia Series: American Tourister at Whippersnapper!

February 16th - March 17th, 2012
Opening Reception: Feb. 16, 7-10pm

In Realia Series: American Tourister, artist Juan Ortiz-Apuy has modified an original set of the iconic American Tourister travel suitcase to mechanically inflate and deflate as passersby traverse the sidewalk in front of the Whippersnapper Gallery. Connotative of the necessarily physical characteristic of mobility, Ortiz-Apuy’s suitcases explore the complex narratives surrounding the movement of people in a globalizing world. One in which borders are emphasized or de-emphasized where it suits the free flow of capital, where global markets usurp national identities, and where exclusion is enforced with palpable consequences; refusal, imprisonment, or violence.

FEAST 02 Winners Shannon Linde and Edward Birnbaum Host a Love Sauna!!

Grab a drink of the Café and mosey on up to the second floor, where the Gladstone Hotel will host The Toronto Love Sauna.

The Toronto Love Sauna is a public installation that transforms a room at the Gladstone into a community-accessible sauna for the 2012 Valentine's Day.  Based on the theme of winter solace, the project stems from a reaction to current sauna and bathhouse practices that exist in North America under segregated circumstances, as well a desire to bring Torontonians together during the isolated winter season. The goal is to create an authentic sauna experience through the use of electric heat sources and cedar, supplemented by media elements such as sound and light. The Toronto Sauna Project will offer a warm retreat, enticing the local community into a comfortable space that is all at once relaxing, reflective, and fun.

Running With Concepts: Call For Submissions & Registration

The Blackwood Gallery presents
RUNNING WITH CONCEPTS
MAY 5 & 6, 2012
A TWO DAY HYBRID* EVENT
LED BY FOUR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS:

*Part-workshop, part-conference, part-crit session, part-masterclass, part pechakucha (but longer), part ignite (but longer still).

Michael Fernandes(artist, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design)Peggy Gale (independent curator, Toronto), Sheila Heti(writer, Toronto)and Mark Lanctôt (curator, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal). Moderated bySuzanne Carte(independent curator, New York/Toronto).

How do ideas take form? How does one embark on the process of extracting, editing and distilling an idea into a presentable format? One half of this intensive two day event (May 5–6) will be led by four distinguished guests who will model the process by which they each move from the conceptual to the final stages of a project. They will present the successes and failures of both in progress and finished work in a series of engaging presentations.

Inchoate

Rebecca Cairns
Inchoate

[in-koh-it]: being only partly in existence; imperfectly formed; formless; not yet completed

Tonight: Urban Field Speakers Series

The Urban Field Speakers Series centres on the role of art in transforming the experience of the city. Through lectures, audio-visual presentations and discussions, it explores how creative practices can help improve the quality of urban life and planning in Toronto and around the world. This series of monthly events brings together an array of international and local participants, including artists, architects, curators, designers and scholars, who are working at the intersections of technology, communications and aesthetics. Reflecting a broad range of perspectives and practices, the events build upon each other to inspire dialogue on the role of the city in art, and art in the city.

Hennesey Youngman artist talk

Hey all, there was an artist talk with Jayson Musson, the man behind the youtube sensation Hennessey Youngman's ART THOUGHTZ at the Drake last Tuesday. The XPACE team checked it out, with mixed reviews on our part. I recently read a review by art critic Sholem Krishtalka, check it out here

An Art Thoughtz video.... ART THOUGHTZ: Damien Hirst

Art Creates Change @ OCAD U

Art Creates Change
The Kym Pruesse Speaker Series:

Carol Condé and Karl Beveridge
Thursday, February 9, 2012, 7 p.m.
Auditorium, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto.

Long-time collaborators Carol Condé and Karl Beveridge have pioneered new ways of representing the resilience and resistance, struggles and strivings, of working peoples. Their staged photograph reconstructions reference various art historical and cultural practices to create a critical commentary on the function and understanding of power relations across a variety of contemporary cultures. Employing detailed sets, collage and digital technology, they create narrative series that draw on dialogic processes, and that both engage issues of labour, trade, and resistance and promote social justice. Their work has been exhibited at major and international museums and art spaces as well as in union halls, on billboards and in bus shelters. In 2010, Carol Condé and Karl Beveridge were awarded honourary doctorates by OCAD University.

To register to attend these free talks, please visit www.ocadu.ca/rsvp.
All are welcome and admission is free.
Limited seating available; guests are advised to arrive early.

The Canadian Art Foundation Editorial Residency

The Canadian Art Foundation Editorial Residency is a national prize awarded annually to a current undergraduate, graduate or other post-secondary student with an interest in developing expertise in the realm of professional art-magazine publishing. The award involves a nine-week summer residency at Canadian Art magazine and canadianart.ca. The winning student will hone writing and editing skills and learn production procedures at Canadian Art.

This introduction to art-magazine publishing and writing is intended to foster new editorial and critical talent. The $7,000 prize is selected on the basis of one 500-word review of a contemporary art exhibition, a list of titles of recent academic writing on art and a one-page CV.

Applications for 2012 are due by 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 6, 2012, to:

Canadian Art
Attention: Canadian Art Foundation Editorial Residency
215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 320
Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C7

Applications will not be accepted by fax or email.
The winner will be notified by April 22, 2012.

MAAD ♥'s you

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, OCAD's Material Art and Design students will be selling their ceramic, fibre and jewellery works. Come pick up something sweet for yourself and/or for your lover(s).

When: Wednesday February 8, 2012 from 10am to 5pm
Where: OCAD U Lobby at 100 McCaul St, Toronto.

LEFT, RIGHT, CENTRE

Trinity Square Video premieres four newly commissioned works that form the second part of their latest trilogy of Themed Commissions, LEFT, RIGHT, CENTRE.

RIGHT
New work by Mark Dudiak, Gail Mentlik,
Matthew-Robin Nye, and Carolyn Tripp

Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 8PM
Jackman Hall AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario)
317 Dundas Street West – McCaul Street Entrance

Tickets available at the door or in advance at TSV
$6 for TSV Members / $8 for non-members

The evening's programme will also feature work by renowned video artists
Harrell Fletcher, Tom Kalin, Steve Reinke, and Michael Robinson.  

Tonight: Kodak Lecture Series w/ Bas Vroege

 From Picture Story to Multi-Platform Experience;
Notes on documentary photography in Holland

An evening lecture presented by Kodak Lecture Series and
The Ryerson School of Image Arts Student Lecture Series

Speaker:		Bas Vroege (Holland)
Date:		Thursday, February 2, 2012
Location:		Rogers Communication Centre, Eaton Theatre (RCC 204), NE corner of Church & Gould
Time:		7pm

Noted Dutch curator, critic and educator, Bas Vroege, will speak on the postwar evolution of documentary photographic practice in Holland with a stress on recent cross-disciplinary and inter-media developments. 

Artist Statement Workshop @ XPACE

When: Saturday, February 4, 2012, 1:00pm until 5:00pm
Where: XPACE Cultural Centre, 58 Ossington Ave, Toronto.

 

 

According to Wikipdia, an Artist Statement is...
'a text composed by an artist and intended to explain, justify, extend, and/or contextualize his or her body of work.'

But WHAT exactly makes a good or bad artist statement? And how does one write an artist statement in such a way that ANYONE, yes, even your mother, can understand what your work is about?

XPACE intends to show you exactly how to do this. We will have both good and bad statements, written by artists we have worked with, to give specific examples of common mistakes and pitfalls almost all artists make. Remember, writing an artist statement doesn't have to be an awful experience of watching a blinking cursor in an empty document. Writing about your work in an appropriate and concise way is an invaluable skill to have!

MOCCA presents...

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) is having an opening reception on February 4th from 2-5pm. Three exhibits are showing. The exhibition runs from February 4 to April 1, 2012.