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For Amber Wilson, Vice-President of Internal Affairs with the McMaster Humanities Society, art is a huge part of her life — and everyone else’s. “There's art everywhere. I know it's corny, but there is,” the fourth year Philosophy student said.
The universality of art is something Art Matters Week aims to draw attention to. A collaboration between the MHS and Humanities SRA members, Art Matters Week offers a variety of free events for students in all faculties to enjoy. “This year we've really opened it up to the whole school, which is really important so we've changed the focus from humanities to art and the arts,” Wilson explained.
Running from Mar. 7 to 11, Art Matters Week is made up of a diverse array of activities and events. These include a panel discussion involving a member of each faculty explaining how they use art in their teaching, workshops led by Humanities-affiliated clubs, an arts alumni mixer and a wine and cheese night at the McMaster Museum of Art. Wilson and the Art Matters Week planning team hope these events will appeal to students in all faculties.
Wilson is most excited for the events of Mar. 11, however. Between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. the MUSC Atrium will be transformed into an art gallery. “We have students from all faculties submitting their art. We're bringing Art Crawl to us. So we'll have tables set up with Mac student art and at the same time the Jazz Ensemble and the Flute Ensemble will be playing,” she said, adding that student art submissions are welcome until Mar. 10.
The exhibit will also feature Robbie J, a well-known live painter. “He's going to bring all of his materials and you can just come and watch him paint ... In his 'artist's requirements' he said it's required that he have a fun atmosphere. So however whatever's going inspires him, he's going to put it into that piece. And then he's going to be donating that piece to us.”
This year marks a new chapter for Art Matters Week. In the past, the week had a minimal presence on campus. Events were sparse and quiet, the highlight being a coffeehouse at Bridges. “Gauging interest is what we're trying to do this year, so if people are excited about it, we're just going to keep making it bigger,” Wilson explained.
She added that she was inspired to revamp the event after giving a campus tour. “One of the parents of the tour I was giving asked if I liked living in Hamilton ... There’s so much culture in Hamilton and a lot of people don't realize it.” As this is the first year the events have been planned to have a greater reach on campus, most of the events are tied to McMaster. However, Art Crawl and other off-campus events will also be promoted throughout the week.
Wilson hopes the events will entice students to look at all the ways art factors into their lives and the Hamilton community at large. “People don't realize how amazing the arts community is in Hamilton ... it's just sitting there and it's waiting to be realized.”
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You may not have had time to walk through the corridors of the newest exhibit at the McMaster Museum of Art, but I encourage everyone to make that walk up the stairs to the third floor to see Chris Cran: It’s My Vault. It is a glimpse into the mind of Canadian artist Chris Cran and the works that make him tick.
His criteria when selecting the pieces?
“The works I selected for this exhibition hit me. They hit me first with pleasure and then they hit me relative to others that I had already selected.”
The result is a wonderful collection of paintings that you are unlikely to find in the same place at any other time. Abstract paintings are hung beside impressionist landscapes, which you can find across the hall from wall-sized collages. In Cran’s vault, anything goes.
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Isa is a small portrait by Gerhard Richter of a woman and is hidden inside a little room in the center of the exhibit. The oil on canvas painting is cleverly disguised as, what I first thought was, a blurry photograph of a woman. The piece is so well done that the painting comes across as photo film. It is almost as if Richter painted Isa with precise strokes, yet while the paint was still wet, decided to swipe across the canvas with a paintbrush. It is a simple, muted, unassuming piece composed of greys, greens and blacks, yet the time and detail it must have taken to create the piece struck me. To create something in such realistic perfection and to reverse that completely is astonishing.
Alfred Pellan’s Fondre Un Désir de Plume goes outside of the lines as well, only this time in a totally different way. His painting is a cohesive blend of shapes of colour that sometimes fall within the lines of the drawings, and other times spill out of their sides. What results are two layers of a painting in mutual dualism: the coloured background setting the stage and the black outline of the woman, and feather in the foreground. Even Pellan’s shading is a reflection of the line between rules and rule breaking. At times, his shading adopts the traditional diffusion of colour, while at others, shadows are entire blocks of black. What’s more, Pellan’s painting changes every time you look at it. This piece, maybe more than most, is bound to have you musing about where shapes end and where they begin for a while.
Soviet/American Array 1 by Paul Rasuchenberg is another work integral to the exhibit. It is a collage of pictures taken in Soviet Russia, however the photographs seem to have been dipped in only one colour. Entirely red, navy or ochre photographs are overlaid over each other, a visual representation of the striking division between the rich and poor. Images of deserted cobblestone backyards are striking when paired with pictures of lavish palace towers. Some photographs are repeated, but not identical– while one picture is sharp, the other is muted as if by a hazy filter. The wall-sized mural is certainly striking as a whole, yet every photograph that makes it up could stand equally well on its own.
These three pieces are only a few among many striking works in the exhibit, among which is Cran’s own The Disputed Sculpture. It’s My Vault is open until May 9, but I strongly suggest the people go long before the snow even has a chance to melt.
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By: Alexandra Florescu
The This is Me, This is Also Me exhibit at the McMaster Museum of Art curated by Sarah Brophy and Janice Hladki will run until Mar. 21, 2015, and features an extensive collection of self-portraits by both Canadian and international artists. From polaroids to paintings to videos, no artist’s rendition of themselves is alike.
Among my favourites is a collection of four black-and-white prints by Làszló Moholy-Nagy. What sets his work apart is his use of negative space to represent people doing everyday things like jogging and talking. Instead of someone standing in a doorway, there is a solid black door with the white cutout, its missing occupant hanging out in the bottom of the page. In the space where the man used to be is a sniper aiming to take out the cutout of the other man, who is talking to a woman. This piece, titled Jealousy, is my favourite of the four prints for its simplicity and the way in which seemingly unrelated shapes and objects make a cohesive piece.
Another interesting piece is one that appears to be a wall-sized painting of three men lying in bed. As you cross the length of the room to get a closer look at the painting, you realize that there is one very clear difference setting it apart. Instead of being made out of standard paint brushwork, it is completely comprised of small blue, yellow, red, black paint splatters on a white canvas. It is remarkable that the only difference between the men’s faces and the white pillows behind their heads is how close together the splatters are. Details like the rosiness of cheeks, shadows on the face and even a faint trace of stubble were captured with only four different colours of dots. The piece is titled Baby Makes 3 and is done by three artists A.A Bronson, Jorge Zontal and Felix Zontal to portray an unconventional nuclear family.
Rebecca Belmore’s iconic White Thread is even more impressive in person than it is on the museum’s website, the ink-jet red a powerful contrast against the starch white of the cloth behind the model. From head to toe, her body is wrapped in a red cloth. Her contorted pose is provocative and shocking, creating the exact effect that Belmore, an Anishinaabe-Canadian artist that has been creating performance art for years, wanted. This specific photograph is representative of war in Iraq, and falls along the same lines as her past pieces, which portray the politics of identity.
Another personal favourite can be found in the back room of the exhibit, where Baaba Maal’s “Akkag-Addu Jam” is set to a silent video of a woman wrapping, unwrapping, and rewrapping a red cloth around her head. The woman, Grace Ndiritu, is first concealed completely by the cloth, but as the drum beat-driven “Akkag-Addu Jam” picks up in tempo, the cloth falls away and is contorted as she manipulates it. The piece is a representation of the use of cloth in different cultures, a passion that was sparked during her travels and has now become a vehicle for her empowerment of the silenced.
Other pieces in the exhibit includes a spoken word piece that uses heritage to define identity, Andy Warhol’s Portrait in Drag, Edvard Munch’s Self-portrait with Skeleton Arm and Cathy Daley’s criticism of female fashion. It isn’t hard to find parts of your own identity in every piece. It makes for an exhibit that is both a vulnerable and powerful portrayal of what it is that makes us, us.
Among the five new exhibits at the McMaster Museum of Art is that of artist and McMaster professor Graham Todd. The professor’s work can be found in private and public collections in places such as Spain, Mexico and the United States. Unfortunately, Graham Todd passed away in June 2013, leaving his story behind in the form of his sculptures.
Sculpting was to Graham what the written word is to authors – a method of storytelling. His mastery of several different media - from clay to bronze to ceramic – is evident in each of his multi-media pieces. Despite the fact that he incorporates several different surfaces into his work, it is through other methods that he is able to bring the elements together and create a cohesive unit. The repetition of colour is a big component of his art, as he uses a limited selection of hues per piece. Typically, his pieces include a few warm colours such as reds and oranges, but are primarily dominated by cool purples, blues and greens. His shades of choice tend to be muted, giving his pieces an overall weathered look. This results in artwork that looks earthy and natural, so much so that you are given the impression that it could be a relic discovered under heaps of rubble.
From piece to piece, what struck me most was Todd’s use of movement. It astonishes me that a piece that is solid and unmoving can inspire a sense of fluidity and motion, as do Todd's pieces. One piece in particular, Recent Memories (1983), consists of a marble shape resembling a cornucopia. The numerous curved, tightly packed lines on the side of the piece to draw the viewer’s eye from the tip of the cone to the end, giving the stationary object movement. This same piece is one of Todd’s most vibrant, consisting of hues of bright pinks, blues and reds. Furthermore, his installations often consist of irregularly shaped forms stacked upon each other, often at precarious angles that threaten to tip over. Similar to the cornucopia, the viewer’s eye runs over these impressive sculptures, starting from the base, following along the line of the sculpture and culminating at the tip.
Another impressive set of sculptures is Todd's twin pieces Sphere/Sombra (2008) and Sphere/Sunrise (2008). They are both spherical in nature and both have a similar surface texture that resembles snakeskin. However, the colour of each differs greatly, with Sombra using dusty purples and browns, and Sunrise consisting of oranges and yellow. This use of complementary colours creates juxtaposition between otherwise similar forms. Interestingly enough, these two pieces are stationed on the same length of table, but are separated by five other sculptures. Their distance is intriguing, given their obvious correlation.
These mentioned installations are merely a scratch at the surface of the beauty of Todd Graham’s exhibit, and I strongly encourage those who have a free moment to give it a visit. It is, all in all, an impressive collection that honours a man whose artistic genius lives on in his work.
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“I build objects. Clay is my ink, shapes are my letters, form is my syntax and structure is my synopsis. My works have a beginning middle and end.” – Graham Todd