Akimblog
Toronto

posted by Terence Dick - July 26th, 2007.
I used to think that summer was the slow season for the art crowd, the lull when we could gather our strength for the onslaught of autumnal openings, but most galleries have come to realize that not everyone heads to cottage country come June, July, or August. In fact, artists, groupies, and downtown locals (not to mention tourists) are hankering for things to do and see during these dog days. Lucky for us, there is a bounty of stimulating exhibitions out there and some of them are even air conditioned!

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art has got a good thing going with their summer group shows and the current one is foolproof in its audience-baiting strategy. Love/Hate: New Crowned Glory in the GTA is purposefully contentious but diplomatically resists identifying which of the thirty participating artists are loved and which are hated; that decision is left up to the viewer. My summer crushes include painters Raffael A. Iglesias and Margaux Williamson, industrial boombox maker Steven Laurie, and asphalt artist Shelly Rahme. It’s not hard to find something you like amidst this crowd of artists; there’s even some agit-prop porn for the family!

About the exhibition:

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is pleased to welcome the arrival of the Summer of Love and Hate with our spectacularly contentious blockbuster exhibition Love/Hate New Crowned Glory in the G.T.A. taking place in our galleries from June 21st through August 19th. Curated by MOCCA partners in crime Camilla Singh and David Liss, the exhibition features over 30 of some of Toronto’s most loved and despised artistic icons, including those who we see and hear far too much from and others who deserve to be seen more often. This exhibition is full of contenders – and it’ll be up to audiences to decide who is who in that regard.

Traditionally it is the role of museums to sort through a particular theme, idea or art scene or movement and arrive at some sort of exhibition that will distill an idea down to a palatable, life-force sucking antiseptic theory that assumes an audience need for clean, easily definable and consumable product. But that approach is, like, sooooo last century and naturally compels MOCCA to peel off into the completely opposite direction. And, more importantly, the best thing about the current Toronto art scene is that it is anything but a neat, clean, easily definable, generic mass or school like the scenes in other Canadian cities that won’t be mentioned here. The Toronto scene is far too complex and far too interesting to be tagged by branding geniuses, marketing focus groups or pointy-headed academics. It’s a big, contentious, eclectic, messy and confusing scene filled with as many armchair curators and critics as there are Maple Leaf coaches and that’s what’s so great about it! And that’s what this sprawling exhibition celebrates – the unruly spirit, the gnarly soul, the dirt in the grooves, the talent, the eccentricity, the beauty and the unappealing splendour of it all! Love it, hate it, hate to love it or love to hate it. It’s bold, it’s loud, it’s unwieldy, its flamboyant – and this exhibition is proud to state that it’s… TORONTO!!