Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
15 June 2021 Vol 6 No 12 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2021
Portia Priegert
From the Editor
It’s a real pleasure to congratulate Sarah Swan, who writes for Galleries West from Yellowknife. Sarah was honoured with a Silver award in the Essay category at the Alberta Magazine Awards earlier this month for her wonderful year-end piece, In Defence of Art from Small Places.
The title echoes a sentiment many of our readers will likely endorse – and one that obviously caught the eyes of the jury, as well as the 373 readers who liked the story and the 879 who shared it with their networks. Sarah is a talented writer and understands art. I know from the first lines of anything she writes that I’m in for an interesting journey.
Sarah is one of a small group of freelance arts writers participating in a Galleries West pilot project via Zoom that allows the exchange of ideas about issues that crop up when writing about art. Our writers are scattered across Western Canada and the North so the group has helped us feel more connected, particularly during the isolation of the pandemic.
As part of Galleries West's commitment to professional development for arts writers, I recently posted links on our writers page to several articles about arts writing (and one hilariously frank and lively piece by British journo Ian Dunt, whose nine tips for political writing carry lessons for every freelancer).
We’re always interested in new voices with something to say – and we're not as intimidating, I hope, as Dunt – so do feel free to pitch ideas for reviews, stories, profiles, essays, commentaries and Q & A formats, particularly those with a Western Canadian vibe.
Now, back to Sarah: You can read her latest essay – The Zeitgeist of Instagram – in this issue. In it, Sarah ponders why she spends so much time staring at Instagram posts by artists. Her catalogue of impulses includes this existential howl from the pandemic wilderness: “It is easier to take comfort in the familiar, easier to yearn irrationally for a fictional past, than to make sense of the wreckage that is right now.”
This issue also includes some fine analytical writing by Yani Kong, who looks at the latest iteration of Vancouver Special, this one subtitled Disorientations and Echo, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Meanwhile, Amy Gogarty, a writer clearly in charge of her craft, visits a Vancouver exhibition of ceramics and floral drawings by the late Charmian Johnson, and Barbara Tyner takes her well-honed pen to Ericka Walker's show in Kelowna, B.C. In Saskatoon, Maxine Proctor, the managing editor of BlackFlash, a critically engaged contemporary art magazine, checks out two outdoor projects – one by José Luis Torres and the other by Shellie Zhang.
Finally, Paul Gessell, a veteran arts journalist in Ottawa, looks at a touring show with work by Maud Lewis, the popular Nova Scotia folk artist, that’s opening in Calgary on Saturday. He ponders the enduring popularity of her colourful naif paintings – which Sarah Milroy, a former editor of Canadian Art magazine and now chief curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection near Toronto, calls “a guilty pleasure.” The best explanation comes from Shannon Parker, a curator at the Art Gallery of Halifax: “So many people try to explain what draws them to her artwork. And they just say: ‘She makes me smile.’”
It’s great to be publishing stories about exhibition openings in Alberta's public galleries after a long pandemic hiatus. Some shows are nearing the end of their runs, despite the pandemic lockdown, while others, long in the planning stage, are finally getting a green light.
We’re excited to be adjusting our coverage to reflect these new realities. It’s been a long journey, as both Galleries West and the galleries we write about were forced to innovate to retain audience engagement.
We’ll be continuing some of our successful experiments and hope galleries will maintain things we found fascinating, like virtual studio tours and Zoom presentations by leading artists and thinkers.
Looking ahead, stay tuned for Lissa Robinson’s review of an exhibition by famed French artist Louise Bourgeois at the Esker Foundation in Calgary. The show is nearing the end of its run, so make a beeline there if Bourgeois interests you.
We also have a two-part series on mentorship in the arts by Galleries West intern Megan Klak, one of the many special series we have published during the pandemic. We will also run Paul Gessell's review of a new book about Bruno Bobak and his wife, Mary Lamb Bobak, who were both official Canadian war artists during the Second World War.
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Paul Gessell, Amy Gogarty, Yani Kong, Maxine Proctor, Sarah Swan, Barbara Tyner
We acknowledge the support of the Government of Alberta Media Fund, the Government of Canada Special Measures for Journalism Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts.
