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City-building
I suppose the headline suggests something big, when all I really want to talk about is dinner in a small town. I was in Barrie today for a play at the Mady Centre, a charming new theatre right in the...
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Patrick DeCoste: Dreaming of Bear and Crow
Patrick DeCoste: “Champlain (self portrait)”, 2009, acrylic on wood, 12 x 14 inches There is a particularly Canadian sensibility that I crave, an attitude that feels all too scarce these days. I crave...
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Pesky Porter raccoons
I had a conflict of interest, I’ll state it right off the bat. I love flying to New York on Porter airlines. As a resident of Scarborough it doesn’t make that much difference going to Billy Bishop...
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Bacon and Moore: Terror and Beauty
The show is called “Francis Bacon and Henry Moore” with the subtitle “Terror and Beauty”, opening at the AGO on April 5th and running until July 20th. Three Way Piece No. 2 aka The Archer (photo: Geoff...
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AJ Gray this is your life
Harvest Kitchen, Harbord St near Spadina Ave I came to the restaurant for AJ Gray’s art displayed on the second floor. I’d known this place in its earlier incarnations, and now it has become “Harvest...
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Back for More Moore, Bacon (and Brandt)
Today I revisited the AGO show “Francis Bacon Henry Moore Terror and Beauty” (or FBHM for short) that I wrote about at the beginning of April. I’m on holiday today even if it’s a rainy spring day. I...
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Toonseum
What was it that he said again? Joe Wos could have been talking about the way we make them, or the way we perceive them. I think he said that cartoons both exaggerate and simplify. The funny thing is...
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A conversation
One of the glories of travel is the encounter with the other. It’s fun to get to another country and talk to countrymen who just happen to be abroad. But that reminds me of the Accidental Tourist....
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Nils Dardel and the Modern Age
One of the journeys of my life has been to reconcile myself to fame. Not everyone gets famous, and often it’s the wrong people. For this Canadian it is very clear at least how it doesn’t work. It is...
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Ideal Pelléas
It may be redundant to speak of an ideal Pelléas et Mélisande. The work is symbolist, which means it’s by definition a kind of ideal work. And notice I did not say “An” or “The” ideal Pelléas. It was...
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Alex Colville: love and menace
The new show at the Art Gallery of Ontario is called “Alex Colville”. Other shows have had epithets attached. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera was titled “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting”...
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The Coffee Mill and old Yorkville: multiculturalism & a changing city
When I saw the piece earlier this week in the Toronto Star about the impending closure of The Coffee Mill, I knew I had to go one last time. There really was a coffee mill in the Coffee Mill. The...
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Michaelangelo, Rodin and genius
My first look yesterday at the new Art Gallery of Ontario show, “Michaelangelo: Quest for Genius”, was an ecstatic experience. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so strongly that a curatorial team understand...
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Escher & Farmer at National Gallery
Gallery attractions are sometimes from a permanent collection, sometimes brought in from elsewhere. When you visit the National Gallery in Ottawa next month you’ll be able to see the Alex Colville...
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Towards a new theatre vocabulary: Lepage, Cavalia and the legitimacy of aerials
It’s aerial week in Toronto: Robert Lepage’s pair of brief operas (Bluebeard’s Castle / Erwartung) for the Canadian Opera Company open May 6th at the Four Seasons Centre, including moments when you...
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10 Questions for Alex Fallis
Alex Fallis is a Toronto native who has been a part of the Canadian professional theatre for over thirty years. He is an actor, director, singer and teacher. As a performer and director, he has...
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Picturing the Americas: AGO goes Hemispheric
Tarsila do Amaral. Cart„o-Postal. 1929. ”leo sobre tela. 127,5 x 142,5 cm. ColeÁ„o Particular. Rio de Janeiro, RJFoto: Romulo FialdiniCat·logo RaisonnÈ Tarsila do Amaral v. I p.186 P112ReproduÁ„o: 300...
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Attila Keszei: the eco-warrior rides on
My friend Attila Keszei is back. Attila, an engineer who offered heroic leadership in the quest for sustainability and reducing the university’s carbon footprint retired from the University of Toronto...
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Painting set free by JMW Turner
When I was a teenager I discovered the great English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) at around the same time that my infatuation began with the other romantic...
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13 ways of looking at Pyramus and Thisbe
If a scientist could slice up love and loss into small specimens and put them onto slides and put them under a microscope it would resemble what we saw at the Four Seasons Centre tonight and in...
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