Back Issues: a Conversation About Art Writing and Publishing

Last night I attended a panel talk -- Back Issues: a Conversation About Art Writing and Publishing -- at the Western Front. On the bill, representatives of four visual art-related magazines past, present and intermittent -- Maxine Proctor (BlackFlash), Jacquelyn Zhong-Li Ross (The Capilano Review), Susan Gibb (Front Magazine) and Zool Suleman (Rungh).

There were maybe thirty people in attendance, some of whom were old guarders like former Western Front co-owners and long time residents Hank Bull and Eric Metcalfe (together they represent a combined occupancy of 100 years), and many more students, or likely students, given their youth. I sat alone with what I knew of these magazines, having contributed to all but Rungh, which, when it is up and running, privileges BIPOC and LGBTQ+ contributions, and I'm happy to leave it at that.

Some things I learned: that the opposite of a "thematic" issue is a "fallow" issue (Proctor); that if a magazine mandated to experiment is not publishing experimental writing, it can conduct its business through "social experimentation" (Ross); that a magazine's hard copy archive is not definitive because what is printed in advance of an event does not take into account substitutions, as was the case in an early Rungh reading, when George Elliot Clarke was caught in a snowstorm and Ashok Mathur took his place (Suleman); and that sometimes the building in which a publication is housed is in itself a form of publication, as alluded to by the ED of the centre we were in (Gibb).

"Dead" Stump in the Middle of the Fence

D. and R. live on a south facing slope on the North Shore. Their property is larger than a standard city lot and is bordered by large cedars that give the backyard its cathedral feel. Although I did not speak with them about this, it occurred to me that the fence they erected on the yard's east side is rich with encouragements -- in one instance, a dead cedar stump that is in fact a life giving force, a ground for berries, bugs and bird life. D. and R. could have removed it -- extracted it -- but that's murder, and they're not like that. 

Visual Art in Canada

The seasoned patron can tell what a fundraising museum means to the artists it solicits donations from. Judging from the donated work on display at North Vancouver's Polygon Gallery, the Polygon appears to be well-respected (see Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill's Braided Grass, 2013 above). I wish I could say the same of the donated work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which, for some reason, chose to overlap its silent art auction with Polygon's. 

Speaking of the VAG, it is now rumoured that its new building (or location, since it will be housed in a mall) will no longer be built to the scale it was first announced, but to budget. What that budget is remains to be seen.

Just how long the new VAG building remains to be seen is anybody's guess. Will news of the latest version of the VAG be announced in the "preeminent platform for journalism and criticism about art and culture in Canada"? That, too, remains to be seen, as the Canadian Art Foundation has once again hit "pause" after withdrawing its plan to send Canadian Art to a re-education camp (OCADU, for a "10-weeks process of reimagining") due to public protest.

Speaking of visual arts magazines, yesterday evening I received an email from C Magazine publisher Kate Monro announcing that C was named "Best Magazine: Art, Literary and Culture" at the 2021 National Magazine Awards. I am honoured to have a piece in C's "Issue 145", just as I am honoured to have sat on the board of the gallery that moved from Presentation House to become what is known today as the Polygon.

Articles, Letters, Questions

On Wednesday former Canadian Art Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher David Blazer published in Hyperallergic an article on/called "The Persistence of Structural Racism in Canadian Cultural Institutions." He's right, of course. Hard to fuck that one up. But apart from some sentences detailing the horrors of corporate sponsorship, he does.

Yesterday Canadian Art published "A Letter" by its staff stating that Balzer "implicated" them "without [their] consent," and in doing so "reproduces the structures being critiqued, including white arts leaders capitalizing on the labour of BIPOC staff," one of whom took to Twitter, not with threats but with promises:

A couple things: Did the editors of Hyperallergic fact-check Balzer's article with Canadian Art staff, or was this article intended as a surprise? Not nice if it was. Also, Canadian Art concludes its letter with a strange paragraph:

How is it that a letter such as this can conclude with the magazine "pausing [its] online publishing." Shouldn't a "pausing" occasion another letter (like the one we never received explaining why Canadian Art wasn't publishing a Summer issue)? Canadian Art's online publishing began gearing down months ago; more recently it has trickled. Yet never before (since the closing of museums and galleries in March) has its non-exhibition-based, infrastructural-interrogative content felt so necessary, so relevant.

What is going on at Canadian Art?

Swarm 18, Part 2

The flow at VIVO Thursday night was steady but gentle. Soft conversations with Jordan Strom, Jamie Hilder and Steven Tong, who invited me to his wedding in October. Last night's openings at the Or and Artspeak were a little busier, a little louder.

Behind the bar at the Or were Steffanie Ling and Kate Noble. Both Steffanie and Kate were in a special topics course I initiated at ECUAD a few years back. Steffanie's recent book of fiction, Nascar (2016), feels like equal parts Charles Baudelaire (Paris Spleen, 1855), Nathalie Sarraute (Tropisms, 1939) and Roland Barthes (Mythologies, 1957). I recommend it. You can find copies at Pulp Fiction. Kate is the Acting Associate Director of the Or.

The Or's new Director/Curator Denise Ryner was there, so I introduced myself and congratulated her on her appointment. Guest curator Kathleen Ritter was there, too. I had not seen Kathleen in ages, so we had a quick catch up. Kathleen is teaching at Parsons Paris. Click here and you will see a picture of Kathleen and her colleagues. Everyone looks so striking! Maybe it's the black-and-white photography. Ghosts from Bande à part (1964). That scene, or this one.

Sky Goodden was visiting from Toronto, and we spoke. I congratulated her on three years of Momus, and she appreciated that. I will throw a party for Sky when she returns in April.

"Barb," I called out to a woman passing by. She turned around. "I'm not Barb." But like Barb would say, "Who's Barb?" and I told her.

This went on for some time, with lots of laughter, before "Barb" reached for her notebook to write down "Barb Choit". "My name's Michelle -- Michelle Weinstein," she said, and we talked about her Old Powerhouse project in Portland, Oregon, and I said I would look it up tomorrow.

Tiziana La Melia was there. So was Julian Hou. Lauren Marsden and her partner arrived with their pram and their tiny two month old daughter inside.

I returned my glass to Kate and headed down Hamilton to Artspeak.

Vancouver Hold'em

While Vancouver City Hall was besieged by anti-Densificationists, others opened the Globe to find Michael Audain considering the blow-moulded resort town of Whistler, B.C., as home for his substantial collection of B.C. art and artefact. How is it that the man who is spearheading the VAG's move from the former courthouse to Larwell Park (where presumably his collection will be housed in a new purpose-built building) is suddenly thinking Whistler?

This can only be a ruse, a response to Bob Rennie's earlier suggestion that the VAG consider "8 to 10" smaller galleries spread about the city. But why would Michael Audain fall prey to this, especially when the optics have him looking like he is abdicating his role of Moses to the VAG's Egyptian slaves? Is Michael Audain that egotistical that he can no longer refuse Bob Rennie's invitation to sit at the poker table and play Vancouver Hold 'em? The same Bob Rennie who already has the City, who is also at the table, beholden to him for saving its ass over Olympic Village? The same Bob Rennie who has made it his business to run VAG director Kathleen Bartels out of town? What is the great-great-grandson of the man who ran trade unionist Albert "Ginger" Goodwin off the planet thinking!

Enough! It is time these two half-billionaires stop treating Vancouver's cultural ecology as their own private casino and start living up to the standards they espouse when echoing their pals in the provincial Liberal government, who claim British Columbia to be the "best place on earth." Until then, I will return to this topic, and when I do I will bring to it every ounce of dirt these two turn over.