Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2018 - 2019 från C Magazine

This issue, on Institutions, picks up threads from the fall 2018 issue on Trust, acting as a kind of sister publication. As the Trust issue came together earlier this year, it was clear that one of the most critical sites in which trust is at stake is in relation to institutions—in art and otherwise. In that issue’s editorial, C Magazine’s editor Jaclyn Bruneau and I wrote: “The theme’s reach grew, with trust (and breaches of trust) revealing itself as a fundamental principle through and against which we are all working today, where public trust has been eroded, and where interpersonal trust must endlessly be redefined.” Many—or most, or all—of us working in the arts have witnessed or experienced instances of institutional failure, have observed outdated processes and protocols upholding institutional…

The dancers move through the entire building, weaving through the audience,embracing stairs like descending sunlight. In 1982, a study was done with two flocks of adult sheep. The first weresubjected to daily walking on a concrete surface, while the second walkedon wood chips. After two years, the scientists observed a significantdecrease in the cartilage density and alteration in the bones around theknee joints of the first flock. One of the dancer’s feet, bare and baroque, has become swollen.They continue nevertheless, offering a tenderness and softnessto the concrete floor: more than it deserves. Despite its seeming neutrality, concrete is dynamic.When you press yourself against its surface, it presses backagainst you. It will try to take from you more than you can give. As I watch them dance, I lean against a…

Earlier this year, cultural organizer, writer and artist Ashok Mathur left his position as head of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan to become dean of Graduate Studies at OCAD University. He made the shift after discerning OCAD U’s unique potential to critically engage the implementation of practice-based research in the framework of the academic institution—a movement that has seen notable progress in scholarly environments outside of Canada. Two months into his decanal post, Mathur released a detailed list of items he was interested in pursuing at the school; among them, the investigation of a doctorate in practice-based research. A PhD in visual arts employs the methodology of research-creation, which, although distinct to the field, has recently gained recognition for its value…

2018 Ink on paper You (obviously) have an interest in the arts. Clues being, you’re reading this magazine. So, unless you’re in a waiting room thumbing through this to pass the time – in which case your gynecologist or podiatrist is the art lover – you most likely know a lot about the happenings and goings-on of the Canadian art scene. But do you? The new MOCA is now open. A new space for you to explore. New ideas for you to ponder. New artist names for you to drop while sharing a cheeseboard with friends. Seek Unsame Museum Of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada 158 Sterling Rd. Toronto moca.ca 20 YEARS | ANNEÉS ONTARIO CULTURAL ATTRACTIONS FUND LE FONDS POUR LES MANIFESTATIONS CULTURELLES DE L’ONTARIO…

The C New Critics Award, now in its 10th year, is designed to help develop and promote the work of emerging art critics. Writers are invited to submit an 800-1,000 word review of an exhibition, performance, moving image work, or site-specific intervention by Sunday, April 21, 2019. The winner will receive $500, a two-year subscription to C Magazine, and editorial support on a 2,000-2,500 word essay to be published within one year of receiving the award. All participants will receive a one-year subscription. For the purposes of the award, an emerging writer is defined as anyone who has not published more than one piece of writing in a recognized print or online publication, exclusive of student-run journals and magazines. The competition is open to anyone residing in Canada, or Canadians…

“Hey you! Just wanted to let you know that I think you are dangerously retarded. Hope you have a fucked up day!” Derek W wrote pithily to me from the discreet address dmw0714@gmail.com one smoky afternoon late July past. The dues paid for being the first signatory listed in an open letter penned collaboratively with my colleagues from a number of organizations, urging Arts Commons—a performing arts hub in Calgary, Alberta—to reconsider hosting Jordan Peterson for a “one-of-akind uplifting lecture, where he discusse[d] overcoming life’s biggest obstacles, how to improve oneself, and his new book: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” People phoned me at work to call me fascist. Someone named Dwain Lowe emailed me (from his iPad) to tell me that he thought I was a…

Curator Candice Hopkins tends to take an untethered approach to working with institutions, keeping one foot in and the other out. She often works in roles where she is an advisor to or resident of the institution. This approach enables an important perspective—one that gives opportunities to challenge normal or traditional institutional models. For Hopkins, there is a stability to not being entirely tethered. Her curatorial roles at documenta 14, SITE Santa Fe, the forthcoming Canadian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale and her recently announced appointment at the Toronto Biennial are anchored in a collaborative and artist-centric framework of respect and reciprocity. And whether by choice or chance, Hopkins has found herself working with institutions open to structural shifts and change: both SITE Santa Fe and the Toronto Biennial…

1 All quotes are from Some Trick: Thirteen Stories by Helen DeWitt (New York: New Directions Books, 2018). Some Trick: Thirteen Stories by Helen DeWitt is itself a bit of a trick. Thirteen being an auspicious number, the reader is obliged to attribute some significance to the volume of narratives in this collection about the strange characters and compromises that make up the worlds of art and publishing. Indeed, DeWitt’s stories are often about probability and her interest in numerical calculations frequently works as a vehicle for exploring analogous aesthetic and literary formulas. These rules, as one might call them, of art and writing may not always be clear, but they can be discerned at least by degrees and De-Witt takes a distinctly formal approach to their unpacking. Fittingly, then,…

When I try to picture a New Man, I think immediately of textured hair products, of conceptual photography, of the sipping of espressos in gallery-white cafés with baby-shaped lumps on chests. Of guys on bikes with just-filled growlers in their panniers zooming between start-up offices and estate garage sales. In my mind, the New Man is a man who is “enlightened” and lives in a city; someone who has “good politics” but who is also well-off enough to have the luxury of observing most injustices from a distance—that is, aesthetically. Who self-identifies as an “ally”; who has a mom and a sister who are feminists. Good people, good men, with good intentions. And yet, in the age of #metoo and innocuous predators masquerading as writing professors, I’ve learned to be…

Meaningful inclusion necessitates investment in long-term interpersonal relationships, between artists, institutions, curators, educators, publics and surrounding communities. The interrelationships of the individuals within a space define the accessibility of the place, and these relationships are a product of lasting, intentional care. In the privileged arena of the museum, a radically new order can be created through a series of commitments that transfer value from objects to people, both as audience members and content-creators. Here, we focus on the responsibility of institutions and curators to activate these relationships so that individuals who are marginalized can claim access to cultural platforms. This is the story of how we convened around these ideas and came to clarify how inclusion can be meaningful. We have been collaborating on a project that reimagines accessibility and…

This is a proposal to create a Gentrification Tax to make Toronto affordable for lower- and middle-income residents. The tax is designed to discourage house flipping and to direct real estate profits to the local community. A Gentrification Tax would tax any increase in the sale value of homes within the first 10 years after purchase, declining from 100% in the first year to 0% after year 10. Income from the tax would be used to fund local self-managed affordable housing in the form of land trusts and co-operatives. The Toronto housing market is out of control. Rents and housing prices are out of step with what most Torontonians earn. In the last 10 years, apartment rents have increased by 28% and house prices have increased by 112%,1 while wages…

Jackie Wang is “a student of the dream state, black studies scholar, prison abolitionist, poet, performer, library rat, trauma monster, and PhD candidate at Harvard University.” 1 I was first introduced to her writing in 2012 when some prairie prison abolitionists were reading her essay “Against Innocence,” published in LIES: A Journal of Materialist Feminism. Years later in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, I was surprised to see that the text was being discussed in a white cube art context, the SBC Gallery, where Wang had been invited to speak. (SBC’s ongoing program of critical institutionalism has been worth following since.) Carceral Capitalism, which includes “Against Innocence,” is Wang’s first book. I read it this summer while on a ferry crossing the Salish Sea. Like last summer and many before, fires had been devouring…