Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
8 May 2018 Vol 3 No 10 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2018
From the Editor
Portia Priegert
I’m fascinated by titles. Not only the words that writers and artists choose as calling cards for their books and exhibitions, but also the headlines on humbler news and feature stories. A good title sticks in your mind. It conveys a sense of what lies ahead and lures you in deeper.
The strictures are tight – a line or two at best – with a brevity that rivals even the minimalist haiku. I feel blessed that the latest format at Galleries West allows lengthier sub-heads. Even so, I still go back and forth on headlines, often holding up production with last-minute dithering.
Sometimes, the easiest solution is to replay a good show title. A favourite in this issue is Like a Conjuring, Erika DeFreitas’ show in Winnipeg. Her title evokes ideas of sleight of hand, an impression enhanced by our lead image of two hands – one real, one plaster – that hover over a vintage atlas. It also sums up my feelings about the magic of a good headline. The poetic title of Marigold Santos’ show in Calgary, The Weight and the Weeping, is apt for work that honours the power of women’s emotions. It worked well as another replay.
Carl White’s show, also in Calgary, is titled Koan, a reference to a riddle in Zen Buddhism that opens a pathway to enlightenment. It fits his work, which is both one thing and the other – classical painting and urban pop. We gambled that the term koan is familiar to most readers with the headline Carl White’s Koans.
German Expressionism, the title I landed on for a Vancouver show, is clunky. It’s not entirely accurate – the exhibition is built around a core of German expressionism, but there are works by artists from other countries, including Canada. The exhibition’s title was uninspiring: Living, Building, Thinking: art and expressionism. The challenge of summing it all up may be linked to the curator’s expansive vision. I used to interview Ihor Holubizky, who organized this show, when he was the curator at the Kelowna Art Gallery. He would conjoin disparate ideas in such rapid succession that I had to zip around my mental archives faster than a ping-pong ball.
The last two headlines in this issue are polar opposites. The Indigenous Archival Photo Project is functional, but doesn’t capture the excitement of an fascinating endeavour by Paul Seesequasis. Meanwhile, the headline for our review of a new book about Sonny Assu is evocative, but not that functional: When Superhero Met Formline. It plays with the phrasing of Indigenous stories, Assu’s interest in pop culture and one of his early works, When Raven Became Spider, Embrace, a button blanket that incorporated Spider-Man imagery.
Our digital format offers constant opportunities to hone headline skills. As we work on the next issue, we'll be musing about a project to place art by Indigenous women on billboards across Canada, as well as Perennials, Winnie Truong’s show in Calgary, and Trace, a group show in Greater Vancouver that explores mark-making and technology.
Another story will focus on an Edmonton print show created through exchange between artists from Banyan Hearts, a print shop in Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city, and Indian American artists in Milwaukee. The show has an irresistible title: India Inked!
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Stacey Abramson, Lindsey V. Sharman, John Thomson