‘YYZBOOKS’ Archives
Butler vs. Saatchi smackdown
Paul Butler turned us on to this book so instead of reviewing it, we thought we'd ask Paul a few questions about it and he generously responded: Reading Art - If Phaidon approached you to do a book called "My Name Is Paul Butler and I Am A ____" what would you put in there? Paul Butler - ...An Artist. With everything I do - The Collage [...]
12 ways artists are like superheros (repris)
Just how exceptional are our artists? The ideas of genius, vision, mystique, no less than the rocketing prices of some artworks make artists appear to be flying like superheroes rather than walking like mere mortals. How real is this exceptionalism, and is it boon or burden to artists themselves? Superman or starving artist? What part of these [...]
Classics: conservatism and criticism
Clearly I don't pay enough attention. Shows come and go, local, national, I barely notice. So it was by chance that I came across this exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada. With its poster Dali image, I took it at first as old news, the kind of exhibitions you saw, and expected to see, in the big galleries in the 60s and 70s. But in [...]
The CCA – 2009 Chalmers Workshop
This event was on March 12th, 2009 at the Elgin Hotel, Ottawa. CCA holds this event, a national cultural strategy workshop, annually. Many of us are looking forward to hearing from Americans for the Arts, a very effective US representative group. INTRODUCTION - Allain Pineau, Nat'l Director of CCA The workshop begins by reporting on [...]
New money for translation
I wonder how France subsidizes translation, e.g. authors like Michel Houellebecq. Here in Canada there's an interesting development of the Conservative government's platform on arts funding; $5m for translation. In fact there is a blizzard of new developments in arts funding; this is just one of them. The translation money was actually [...]
Hawking the Chagall – How economic crisis led to the privatization of public art collections – the book
On March 3rd, Ed Harris in the UK's Evening Standard reported that New York's Metropolitan Opera had put up two Chagall murals to guarantee loans to deal with losses in investment income. Which then, within hours, unleashed Associated Press stories identifying a "trend" of individuals like Annie Leibovitz and Julian Schnabel, and undisclosed [...]
Hawking the Chagall – How economic crisis led to the privatization of public art collections – the book
On March 3rd, Ed Harris in the UK's Evening Standard reported that New York's Metropolitan Opera had put up two Chagall murals to guarantee loans to deal with losses in investment income. Which then, within hours, unleashed Associated Press stories identifying a "trend" of individuals like Annie Leibovitz and Julian Schnabel, and undisclosed [...]
Visualizing the book
I attended OCAD's VizDay a couple of months ago and found it exhilarating. Hearing Sara Diamond, Greg van Alstyne and invited presenters talk about information visualization got me thinking about how books work. Today when most content is digital at inception, the class of work called "writing" is coming to be described as "content generation" [...]
Visualizing the book
I attended OCAD's VizDay a couple of months ago and found it exhilarating. Hearing Sara Diamond, Greg van Alstyne and invited presenters talk about information visualization got me thinking about how books work. Today when most content is digital at inception, the class of work called "writing" is coming to be described as "content generation" [...]
Let them read newspapers
"The government of France is taking unprecedented measures to help the ailing French print industries. According to an AP story, French president Nicolas Sarkozy -- consistent with recommendations from a 3-month study of the industry's health released January 8 -- announced: Free one-year newspaper subscriptions will be given to all French [...]
