Downtown Cop Turned Street Art Activist? Interesting...

This profile of Toronto policeman Scott Mills is a couple of days old, but it’s a cool read.  Mills partners with businesses to provide legal space for graffiti artists in back alleys.   Check out the space in Broadcast Lane, which Mills helped to set up, and a neighbour’s reaction:

The article praises Mills’ efforts to help street artists channel their work legally, but despite Mills' popularity, criticism abounds, too.  Opposition to commissioned graffiti generally takes two forms – those who think it has no inherent value and validates illegal tagging, and those who see it as selling out.  Reading about Mills, who seems genuinely passionate about the artists he works with, it’s hard to object to his work, and looking at the photos, I can’t help but feel envious – I’d be happy to volunteer my back alley uptown, though I suspect my neighbours and landlord (slash mother) might feel differently.  Then again, the mystery and secrecy imparted by illegal graffiti is a huge part of its charm – how exciting was it to wake up on May 10 this year to proof that Banksy had graced Toronto’s streets?  So is Mills a champion for alternative art, or a patronizing cop who doesn’t really get it?

I haven’t decided, but in the meantime, I’m busy browsing Toronto street art in Torontoist’s Vandalist column – more recommended reading/viewing.

Video by LegalGraffitiArt.

The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army

Well I’m on vacation now, which means it’s time to catch up on Toronto attractions that I would never be brave enough to face on a weekend.  Case in point: this ROM exhibit, documenting the political growth of the Qin dynasty in China, culminating in the enormous tomb complex built for emperor Ying Zheng circa 210 BCE.

The exhibit provides a solid historical grounding for the tomb, covering 500 years of dynastic change and conflict in China, but of course the real reason we’re all there is to see the terracotta warriors!  Photos of the excavation site in Shaanxi province are haunting, showing endless rows of stone figures, surprisingly lifelike, to the point where at first glance, the missing heads seem deliberate.

The ROM exhibit includes ten of the life-size figures, in a variety of roles (military, civic, etc.).  The stone sentinels are set in a gallery with little else in the way of historical description or related artifacts, allowing them, rightly, to take centre-stage.  I must say that the dungeon-like Garfield Weston Exhibition Space is put to excellent use here – with walls painted dark brown, lots of angular corners, and statues lit eerily from below, it is easy to imagine that this is, in fact, a tomb.

Very spooky!

Unfortunately, I am immature, and the horses strongly 

reminded me of Gumby's horse, Pokey.

After the terracotta army, the remaining smaller artifacts, housed by sunny yellow walls, seem uninteresting and anti-climatic.  I think the exhibition would have done better to end with its strongest pieces.

Side notes on the ROM – it was sunny in Toronto today, making the dinosaurs a particular treat, but I am sorry to say that the batcave is not what it once was.  Eschewing the strobe-light heavy finale in favour of a hokey narrator was a mistake.

Photos from the Wikimedia commons and courtesy of www.rom.on.ca

Social Fiction

I first read about this phenomenon in this article in the New York Times this summer, and I’ve been fascinated by the concept ever since.  Can you tell a story through social media, by manipulating the interactions between various users?  And more importantly, will anybody read it?

The novel referenced in the Times article, My Darklyng, is clearly meant for the teen girl set, and I figured I would be doing the concept a disservice to base my opinion on something I’d be unlikely to enjoy in hardcover anyway.  Instead, I tried 2009’s November in Manchester.  In this self-proclaimed "social media love story," a cast of eight characters blog and tweet about their lives over the course of a month, and the story emerges in the interplay between them.

My conclusion is that its definitely possible to tell a story in this way, but that it requires far more blunt language, in order to establish context, than the average social media user actually displays to the world.  In November in Manchester, James tweets “Persephone not answering my calls.  Will see if I can catch her at work.”  What kind of pathetic, sad-sack person admits to someone not calling them back to all of their friends and followers?  I’m not buying it.  In real life social media (oxymoron?) you don’t share “Time to say goodbye to the second woman in my life” after a break-up, you either post cheesy song lyrics or photos of yourself with someone attractive draped over you.  The characters in November in Manchester just lay it all out there, with none of the nuance and subtlety that people use when crafting their online personas.

I think the social media novel is an interesting experiment, but without the benefit of narrative and description afforded by a print novel, it relies too heavily on dialogue, forcing its characters into unrealistic exchanges in order to advance the plot.  I much prefer the device when it’s used irreverently – fake Twitter accounts are less ambitious in scope, deliberately tongue-in-cheek, and can still effectively tell a story – i.e. Toronto’s own RebelMayor (the only funny part of the 2010 mayoral election).  This is not unlike early film – the attempts at drama come across as contrived and overwrought, but comedy translates well in almost any medium.  Maybe social fiction just needs to come of age.

Design Wish List

All I want for Christmas are these of-the-moment home decor items, which I will probably be sick of by next year:

Splatter in D Minor Blik Wall Decal by Jahoosawa for Threadless

Barcelona Poster by Simiansoul Design

O Canada! Screenprint in Red by Ork

Aeronautics Screenprint by Dave Murray

81 Square Miles of the Great Salt Lake Screenprint by Jenny Odell



Images courtesy of the artists.

The CBC Digital Archives

Disclaimer: my attitude toward most things CBC related trends toward fawning adoration.  This web resource, however, is truly deserving of praise. 

The CBC Digital Archives, a vast trove of radio and television clips, are an invaluable resource for writers, teachers, artists, historians, and anyone in the mood for some good old-fashioned entertainment.

You can browse clips by keyword or by category, and the curation of the playlists is quite good – the featured topic on the homepage is always worth a peek.  My absolute, no-holds-barred favourite topic is “Fighting Words: Bill 101”, a fantastic trove of archival material documenting the passage of and controversies surrounding the 1977 Charter of the French Language in Quebec, featuring news, commentary, and this amazing PSA:

French in Quebec: It's a Plus!

Side note: I first discovered the Digital Archives in 2009, when I was designing teaching resources for high school history and law classes.  For those of you in the same boat, the website offers links to educational resources, admittedly of varying quality.

Happy browsing!

2011 Will Be a Good Year for Art

Well, to be honest, there isn’t really such a thing as a bad year for art, but 2011 promises to be a fine vintage for Toronto, with this morning’s announcement of the AGO’s lineup:

Abstract Expressionist New York from MoMA and Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde from the Centre Pompidou

Sexy!

About three years ago, I was part of the world’s fastest tour of Paris – under 72 hours – and while I packed in plenty (the Louvre, Notre Dame, Montmartre, and the wonderful Musee d’Orsay), the Pompidou tragically did not make the cut.  Not to worry though, because I’ll be getting my fix of Kandinsky this year.

The two exhibits themselves are good enough, but I truly believe that art has a network effect, and I’m hoping that the presence of some of the world’s finest modern art in Toronto will force other venues to up the ante – or better yet, inspire some of our own fantastic local talent to new creative heights.

Image courtesy of http://www.ago.net/