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Hi, Art!

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Hi, Art!

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Hi, art lovers!

 
Photo of pop star Tate McRae in a still from the music video Exes. Seen in medium closeup, looking off to the distance with a blank expression, Tate is a woman with wavy dirty blonde hair wearing a black bikini top and elbow and wrist guards. She appears to lean against the ropes of a wrestling ring.

Pop star Tate McRae, who was born and raised in Calgary, appears in a still from her video for 'Exes.' (Beth Saravo)

 
I’ve been bookmarking a lot of lists this week, wondering what I did with the last 12 months. How about you? Did you read everything on CBC Books’ ranking of the year’s best Canadian fiction? Did your most-played song of 2023 make it into this article? And do your favourite Canadian albums of 2023 match up with CBC Music’s picks? (Also for the music fans: CBC’s selections for the year's top Canadian songs — and Canadian pop songs — plus an in-depth analysis of the divisive mushmouthed vocal style that took Tate McRae’s “Greedy” to the No. 1 spot on their lists.) Expect more year-in-review fun as we roll into the holidays. 

Been there, done that? 

Links from the here and now: Did you catch this story about Drake investing in an artsy amusement park from the ‘80s? Launching in L.A. later this month, the attractions include a restored Keith Haring carousel — and $750 souvenir T-shirts. (There’s heaps of fascinating history in this New York Times feature, which also teases plans for an international tour.) Also on now: Miami Art Week. For a frank and frothy take, I loved this insider’s diary on “how to close a deal during the art world’s biggest bacchanal.”

Links from the future: What will 2024 look like? Peach Fuzz is Pantone’s surprisingly beige choice for the colour of the year, and according to Pinterest, your new favourite esthetic microtrends will involve badminton, jazz and jellyfish. 
 

And because we promised you eye candy ...

 
Colourful illustrative painting in a surreal style. The background is a busy pattern of leaves and flowers, resembling wallpaper. A figure in the fore is cloaked in a blue and yellow polkadot unitard. Their face is covered with a mask. Multiple human eyes appear to gaze from their neck and shoulder and a tiny nude humanoid is curled up on their abdomen. In the background, a female figure wearing a teal and gold striped maxi dress and matching bonnet stands with their face in profile. small animals, a cigarette-smoking squirrel and a grey goat, face each other in the bottom left corner.

Marcel Dzama

Yesterday, Marcel Dzama opened his first major Canadian exhibition in nearly a decade. It’s up at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection through June 9. Pictured: Ghost of Canoe Lake.
 
Photo of ceramic flowers in pastel colours suspended from the ceiling in a white room. Paper cut-outs suggesting seeds hang as a sort of backdrop to the scene.

Marney McDiarmid

The 2024 DesignTO Festival launches next month, and this is a teaser of one of the event’s (many!) featured projects, Adrift. Created by artist Marney McDiarmid, the piece will be up at Toronto’s Stackt market Jan. 19 to 28. It’s an installation of ceramic flowers and paper-cut seeds — “disconnected and missing their roots, yet still searching for firmer ground.”
 
Textile artwork hanging on a white wall. It is made of Mohair thread and depicts a scene of two black dogs running. The furry nature of the medium makes the image appear to be blurry with motion.

Maria Szakats

I had to rub my eyes after seeing this on Instagram! Austrian artist Maria Szakats achieves that incredible blurring effect by embroidering with mohair yarn.
 
Photo of a large-scale ceramic artwork resting against a white wall. It is in the form of intricately patterned moth wings, constructed from colourful ceramic leaves.

Rebecca Manson

As seen at Art Basel Miami Beach, Grafted Wing by American artist Rebecca Manson. From her Instagram: “Moths may be ‘pests,’ but I think they deserve a closer look or even a monument. Through destruction they help along change. These have been days of reconciling with simultaneous grief and hope, repulsion and beauty. Molting days, maybe.”
 
Photo of an art installation resembling a charcoal-grey futuristic Egyptian tomb. Dark statues of dogs flank a square, minimalist fountain (also dark grey). Beige clay vessels rest at the bottom of the fountain. A stock ticker with a green and red digital display is mounted on the fountain's cube-shaped metal frame.

Azza El Siddique and Bradley Ertaskiran

Also at Art Basel Miami Beach: Sobey Art Award nominee Azza El Siddique has been earning heaps (and heaps and heaps) of praise for this new installation, Final Fantasy, which is being presented by Montreal gallery Bradley Ertaskiran.
 
 

You've got to see this

 
 
 
Night time photo. At left, a woman with dark brown hair wearing a dark wool coat peers into an illuminated shop window. It displays a Victorian-style contraption suggesting a ship or flying machine. The vessel has been built using found objects including pram wheels and badminton birdies.
Vito Amati/Ontario Science Centre

How did the world’s largest collection of Dream Machines wind up in Toronto?

 
Remember the gadgets from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? For almost 50 years, Rowland Emett’s wondrous contraptions have appeared at the Ontario Science Centre every winter. And now, for the first time, Toronto’s most whimsical holiday tradition has moved downtown.
 
Studio portrait of actor Amrit Kaur. A young woman of South Asian descent she smiles broadly and looks directly at the viewer in a medium shot. She is photographed against a deep red backdrop. Text reads:
Samuel Engelking/CBC Arts

Amrit Kaur is almost too embarrassed to admit it, but …

 
Her acting career started with a tarot reading. Now, the Markham, Ont., native stars in The Sex Lives of College Girls, the HBO Max series created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble.
 
Still from I Hate People, People Hate Me. A white man with short hair (dyed electric blue) wearing a black hoodie and bracelets, sits in a green restaurrant booth. The room is covered with stickers and graffiti.

CBC Gem

 

Your next TV obsession is a Canadian ‘gutter punk odyssey’

 
Streaming on CBC Gem, I Hate People, People Hate Me is about a couple of queer misfits trying to make it in Toronto. Meet its creators, comedians Bobbi Summers and Lily Kazimiera.
 

Follow this artist

 
 
 
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Alex Graff

@alexgraff.art
Top-down photo of a screenprinted T-shirt and painted black denim shorts and brown high-top sneakers.

Alex Graff

Alex makes videos of her artsy adventures for CBC’s Creator Network, and you can find her latest dispatch on our Instagram. In the video, she recaps a fun DIY project inspired by childhood nostalgia. Watch it here. 
 

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I’m Leah Collins, senior writer at CBC Arts. Until next time!

 
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