Western Canada’s art magazine since 2002
5 December 2023 Vol 8 No 23 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2023
Shelley Boettcher
From the Editor
I firmly believe that when it comes to books, a person can never have too many. Luckily for me, I have a family who feels the same. Every holiday, every birthday, we give them — new releases, major publishers, small presses, out-of-print gems that one of us has been searching for and sometimes even a notable find plucked from a little free library. We read. A lot.
We’re all always looking for new inspiration, too, and there’s plenty to be found in the latest edition of Galleries West.
Leonora Carrington has been popping up in other books I’ve read this year, so I was particularly interested to dive into Yani Kong’s review of the new biography Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead. The author, Carrington’s cousin, gives a condensed version of the artist’s entire life, from childhood to her adventures with Max Ernst and beyond. And what a life!
And by the time I finished reading Becky Rynor’s review of Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision, I had clicked on the Goose Lane Editions website to order myself a copy. Like Rynor, I feel I haven’t paid close enough attention to Pratt or her art. I am now.
Veteran journalist and editor Paul Gessell reviews Early Days: Indigenous Art from the McMichael, a stunning book that underscores the importance of Reconciliation as we look at the way Indigenous art has been handled throughout Canadian history — in this case, since the start of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. “More than 100 Indigenous objects are each treated to a full-page, colour photograph and an accompanying essay,” he writes. “Almost all the essayists are Indigenous, often with a familial, tribal or geographic attachment to the artist who created the object.”
From Michael Jackson to Picasso, Sarah Swan wrestles with the dilemma of good art by bad people as she reviews Claire Dederer’s book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. Dederer, an American reporter and essayist, first wrote about the subject in a 2016 essay for The Paris Review and then realized she had enough to say to expand it into a book.
Journalist John Thomson reviews philanthropist Michael Audain’s beautiful new book, Pictures on the Wall, “a 200-page compendium of 75 art works he has collected and subsequently donated to his Whistler gallery and elsewhere.”
And if you need more inspiration, Katherine Ylitalo bravely researched and rounded up Art Books 2023, a hefty shopping list for pretty much every artistic interest. She even has a puzzle recommendation — and a look ahead to new releases we can anticipate in 2024.
Coming up on Dec. 19, our next issue (and the final issue of 2023), we have some thoughtful, powerful big reads to ponder and discuss over the holiday season.
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Paul Gessell, Yani Kong, Becky Rynor, Sarah Swan, John Thomson, Katherine Ylitalo
We acknowledge the support of the Government of Alberta Media Fund, the Government of Canada Periodical Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts.
