Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
"Internalization of Land, Body." Camera obscura photographic print by Julia Abraham. Photo by Lauren Dzenis.
"That room looks like a student art show," says one, pointing way up to the second- or third-floor windows of Connaught House, lit up in an electric whirl of colour.
"That room looks like MGMT is DJing it," says another.
Well, same thing.
All three girls look high, though no higher than expected, given that this is, in fact, a student art show. And it's not at OCAD, where we imagine that students sniff oil paints and "try opiates" in an effort to spin their suburban teenage worldviews into something more like Basquiat's New York. That doesn't fly on the lawn of 1 Spadina Crescent, so much. If it's time to get high and go to school, and that school is the University of Toronto, well, you'll smoke proper homegrown pot, thank you.
Up the creaking spirals of stairs and to the point: every spring, a bright new Thesis Class graduates from U of T's Visual Studies Programme. The spelling could irk; why not just "program," you ask? Ah, but there is no "me" in program, and there is plenty of it here, in the aching reflexivity of this year's art show-off. It's called For What Is Not Said, which is a great title, and an even better hint: if you want to like the work here, don't listen to the artists talk about it. (Certainly, do not read eight of the ten artist statements, unless you are well-equipped with ibuprofen. Here's one particularly wincing line: "Not necessarily comprehensible, but possibly arguing in favor of the incomprehensible, these works issue from explorations of structuralism and feedback, all of which are self-referential states, activities or processes.")
"Wallpaper Disaster," intaglio and monotype, by Lauren Dzenis. Photo by Lauren Dzenis.
Lauren Dzenis knows this best. Pressed for the details of her mixed-method paintings—they have the lightly surreal, photographic quality of lucid dreams—she smiles tiredly and offers to talk about any of her peers' efforts instead. This instantly makes her the most likeable student artist in student art history. (True confession: we already knew and liked her. But still.)
A lone brunette wants to know where Macy's work is; she means Macy Siu, a name that promises to be much-looked-for in Toronto's art-slash-culture scene. When she's not voicing her "culturally mixed" self-identity and "personal narrative" through film and photographic hybrids—in which the "eye" of the camera reflects the "I" of herself—Siu is writing and taking pictures for independent publications, interning at art galleries, editing the Hart House Review, and serving as co-president of the English Students' Union. Whew. This girl could make Rory Gilmore feel bad about herself.
Looking for an idea not ripped from dense textbooks, or the pages of Us Weekly (see: the worst painting ever, of three tabloid starlets done far too literally as Catholic saints, by Nicole Clough), we find ourselves in a room full of Julia Abraham's camera obscura photographs. These are ripped from her body instead, it seems: using her mouth as the camera, she placed torn bits of photo paper in her throat and used a black shield with a pinhole to create black-and-white "internalizations" of land and sky. The result is blurred and sparely beautiful, and it's a rare example of an involved—and, yes, self-involved—process that adds a bit of poetry to the work, not just complicated contextuality to the artist's statement.
But we're not finished here. There's an older, balding man with a drooping backpack on, and he's standing almost too close to the pretty Ms. Abraham, hoping—it would seem—to achieve heat between them, if only in debate.
He demands to know why she scanned the negatives at a super-high DPI and printed them on black squares, the torn edges a reproduction, as opposed to developing them in a more organic way. She argues for the augmented clarity of the result. He shoots back that the "physical connection is lost by going into this dark digital process." (When he says "physical connection," the whole room seems to cringe. By now, several bystanders are pretending, badly, not to eavesdrop.) She says something about the tears in the photo paper being more visible this way. He says, well, couldn't she have developed and enlarged the photos, and then torn the edges again? To achieve real physical tears, as opposed to the scanned and printed ones? "But that would be two tears!" she protests, and nearly sounds as though she's in tears herself.
The farce goes on, forcing us to leave before we forget that we had instantly loved the photographs.
For What Is Not Said continues through Saturday, April 18. For hours and details, visit the website.
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Okay, so there's an end of year art show. This happens in most university and college programs. Yay. Take out art, and an end of the year display of some sort happens in even more programs.
Why then does the coverage need to be this long? And pointless? Other than of course to talk about your friends?
I can hardly stand Now Magazine for it's attitude of 'look at these idiots, we know so much better.' And I see Torontoist is trying this tack now. I think it's totally pathetic that you went to an end of year student exhibition and publicly wrote this piece, just shitting all over their work no apparent reason. And if there is a reason for your 'distaste,' it's not expressed here. You simply mock these kids - why? What makes you think anyone cares about what you say in the paragraph about being high? Did you not realize before you published this that all the 'jokes' and sarcastic 'burns' aren't funny, original or insightful? You're just ripping on art students, people who've resisted the push into business, science and all those 'practical' degrees and are producing culture. I remember that great article Torontoist published on the signs at Honest Ed's. Imagine if that article were written with the tone of this one; making fun of the signs, taking digs at the artist's work space, etc. And I think you need to be reminded that 'biting satire' and irony is an art unto itself and nothing is more pathetic and wincing when it is done poorly.
I hate to rag on Torontoist because I do like the blog but this article is very poorly written.
It carries an arrogant tone of someone who cares little about art and is just there to report what their friends are doing. It casts the work and the show in a very negative light and doesn't generate any further interest in the program or any of the artists.
It sounds like a review of a party or an event-nothing in depth about the work.
Commenting on how high the artists were and OCAD students sniffing oil paint sounds really lame. Having to take an ibuprofen..omigod. THis sounds like it was written by one of the artist friends who just happens to write for a blog and doesn't know anything about the work. Wait. I think it was.
If I were any of the ladies in this show I'd be begging Torontoist not to post this article. Way to rain on someone's thesis show.
Most of this article didn't make any sense. What did sniffing glue have to do with MGMT and a photographer arguing about her printing methods with an old man?
I'm pretty confused upon first reading and am going to avoid Sarah's writing from now on. Keep this convoluted trite off Torontoist. If i wanted to read a teenager's livejournal - i would.
This is Sarah's most coherent article in weeks.
FOR WHAT WAS SAID: I wanted to comment on the efforts and pretensions of student art, and thought a U of T exhibit might be interesting and less expected than one at OCAD. I'm aware student art shows happen all the time; that doesn't mean they're not worth covering at random.
I do know one of the artists, Lauren Dzenis, as she's the younger sister of one of my great friends. I didn't cover the exhibit just to talk about her, as was suggested. I like writing about whatever strikes my fancy, and this show did (have any of you clicked over to the website? www.forwhatisnotsaid.com >> really good-looking.)
And I only mentioned the fact that I knew and liked her — prior to the show — in the interests of fair disclosure.
Lauren was also kind enough to lend me pictures for this post, but that's all. The opinions and observations are all mine. (Just saying, you know, so Lauren's fine fellow grads don't dump a bucket of blood on her at commencement.)
FOR WHAT WAS NOT SAID: I didn't hate the show. I specifically talked about things I loved. I even used the word "loved."
This was not satire, though part of it was satirical. It was not a rant; my intent, at least, was never to rip on art students. Why would I? For someone like Macy Siu (with whom I'm not acquainted, for the record) I have nothing but admiration.
I didn't want to rain on anyone's thesis show; I'm also not Mary Sunshine. If that's what you want, maybe you shouldn't be reading a blog. Or maybe that blog should be BlogTO.
FOR WHAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID: "Worst painting ever," in reference to Nicole Clough's piece. Sure, that was an opinion shared by several of my fellow attendees, but it shouldn't have been written, by me, in the form of such a harsh and juvenile putdown.
FOR THE REST OF THIS IDIOCY: You people are far, far too easily confused. You want a straight-up review? You want a rating out of 10? You want meek, simple, uncritical praise? You want black, you want white, you want no hint of grey, and certainly no colour? You don't want to read between the lines, you don't want to connect any dots, you don't want to reread or rethink? Well. Do like the rockabilly girl above me and avoid my "convoluted trite." (You're missing a noun there, Miss Thing.)
If you want experiential, observational, often dashed-off, always honest writing, then, by all means, keep sending me private messages of appreciation while leaving cretins to cry in public.
Rockabilly?
PS T-Rek, that's because I've recently stopped taking acid. Three days clean!
come on, guys, you don't have to like her writing.
the last couple articles of hers i've seen on here have had nothing but negative comments. maybe next time just don't read it?
i think sarah nicole's writing is among the most interesting featured on torontoist. sure it's a bit obtuse, and maybe deals with things more "scene" than you care about.
but her writing has a certain satisfying flow about it, and relies on the reader to think a bit more than your typical boring journalism.
perhaps she wanted to show this art show in a different light. maybe it wasn't even intended to be a review. if you want to judge the art, go see it yourself. don't always expect a writer to spoon feed you a play-by-play of the whole fucking thing.
and to suggest that she is ripping on people who "resisted the push into business, science and all those 'practical' degrees and are producing culture" is ridiculous. if you haven't noticed, she reports on fashion, for fuck's sakes.
i'm not trying to start anything here, i just thought someone needs to come to the defense of this writer.
Criticism of Torontoist is always okay, but frankly, I don't see the merit here at all. This article is excellent, and Sarah remains one of Torontoist's best writers, which means that—unless she decides by herself to stop writing for us—she's not going anywhere. It's too bad that a select few of you don't like her work, but I very much do, and no-one's yet been able to convince me otherwise.
Hello,
This has been a very interesting read all the way through.
i am the artist who wrote the 'wincing line' about reflexivity.
just though i would share some simple thoughts about being trashed.
I am far from selfless, though work hard to be, but my interest in being reflexive and in systems of reflexivity, of trying to be fully aware of ones thoughts and ways of being in the world, is not some self-indulgent process.
It is to avoid pathologies and become a better person, more positive and productive in an otherwise fractured, negative world.
Its funny/ironic to hear a fashion writer have issues with some one she thinks is self-obsessed.
I also thought the drug remarks were quite off the mark and generalizes way too much about art and art students.
I mean if you don't know anything about contemporary art, maybe you shouldn't write about it?
Then again it is kind of interesting and teaches me a great deal on how to attempt to make relevant contact with people who don't understand contemporary practices.
Thanks for covering the exhibition and i hope you will take an interest in what it is you write about in the future.
After the line that made the author cringe in my statement because she didn't understand it, there was the following:
"These works are optimistic and aim to celebrate our humanity, our many endeavors, while asking of us to suspend our sense of the known . . . to open up the horizon for a moment of clarity amongst the chaos, which is undoubtedly harmonious" .
Happy wednesdays.
I've been thinking about this a lot since I first commented on her fashion week posts.
I don't think the general disdain and incrowdery in her work is going anywhere. I feel like that flavour of snark carries a lot of water in fashion writing, and until her industry says "Hey, let's start writing without sounding like we're sighing tiredly, but politely, into our hand" there's nothing anyone can really do about it. I don't like it, but some people do, and that's okay - what feels cruel and unusual to some in the Torontoist crowd would undoubtedly get eaten up in a fashion magazine. However, come on, Prickett, I know you can see how putting double quotes around the individual words in someone's art thesis doesn't exactly say "I've got nothing but admiration". I'd be interested in seeing if your tone changes at all if you start writing in the first person singular. Maybe it wouldn't. But I'm curious.
The coherence issue is another beast entirely. To imply that we're all stupid (or cretins) for not "getting it" reminds me of tech support guys I work with who get thirty questions a day about the same thing and still conclude the problem lies with the user. Some criticism is crap, and I won't deny spewing plenty of that (criticism, that is, girls don't poop) but some might have a little credence.
I do think Prickett can improve her writing without sacrificing her voice. For example, she cuts a lot of qualifiers. It makes her writing seem sparse, which I like - it's a great contrast to that matter-of-fact editorial voice in blogs - but sometimes it leaves too much to speculation. I feel sympathetic because I can imagine it's difficult striking a balance between aesthetic pleasure and clarity of meaning.
For example, if I were Prickett, I might have just written:
Sans qualifiers, the writing is sparse. Inscrutable? Perhaps. But elegant. I sympathize; the balance of beauty and meaning is laboriously pursued.
It would be a much prettier sentence, no doubt. But if I hadn't already fully explained what I meant a paragraph earlier, it might also be a little cryptic. With a few more qualifiers, we could enjoy those measured, staccato sentences without having to wonder what she's getting at.
This qualifier problem hits paragraphs as well as sentences. For example, "A lone brunette wants to know where Macy's work is". What I picture in my head is Prickett, idling around, overhearing a brown-haired girl asking someone "Hey, where's Macy's work?" and writing it down. Normally I'd take it as a somewhat inane interlude into describing Macy's work, but that never happens. The paragraph just sort of peters in and out without telling me anything. Is Macy's work even exhibiting? Much like the elevator girl paragraph in the AGO party piece, it always seems like there's one paragraph that adds nothing to the experience, that lies purposeless and out of place. It could have been edited out; it ends up taking away from her description of Abraham's work, which I think is written just beautifully. And the wistful concluding sentence is potent and satisfying. When she's good, she's really good. (I used to read her blog more, and I recall hunting down a post several times just to reread this lovely sentence: "Porcelain-flesh satin, a bared zipper down the back, and a form at once covered, enhanced, and revealed: this is the kind of sex for which politicians pay thousands and risk careers. Donatella Versace, too, would kill to achieve this much appeal.")
I'm not demanding a grocery list of "significant highlights" - I like the little insignificances of life too - but I want them to be either relevant and interesting, or utterly irreverent. This is half-way in between, like saying "good-bye" to a friend before realizing you'll still be walking into the subway together. There are words that just hang there, stagnant.
There's also the over-use of commas - not in the grand scheme (for example, her comma-per-words rate is virtually identical to the much-loved Boards of Ed article; 60 per 750 words) but within a few individual sentences. I want to reread a sentence because it was conceptually challenging, not because I couldn't get the bare bones of it. For example, I had to reread the following:
You get the idea.
Anyway, I apologize if this looks like exceptionally long-winded complaining - perhaps it is. But what I'm trying to show here is that a) Prickett's not a bad writer just because she's a snarky one, and b) Prickett's not a perfect writer either.
Now I'll shut up about Prickett forever. Back to work I go.
Your analysis indicates that there should be tighter editing as well as better writing. That is something Torontoist should consider administratively. On the whole, the shorter articles have few typographical errors, good grammar, and are interesting to read. Longer pieces with more style would benefit from more collaboration between editor and writer.
Your comment assumes that there isn't already substantial collaboration between editor and writer for longer pieces.
Nope, I assume there is a substantial collaboration. Montauk's gotta point though - you could use more, or better editing.
A full interview with the drooping backpack guy should have been done, heh heh.
I like this review, it's an honest look at some of the small dramas involved in a show like this as well as a taste of what to expect.
Thanks, montauk, for the nice critique. I didn't realize SNP is a fashion writer - it all makes sense now! haha - jk. I appreciate her taking the time to respond here, though I find her last paragraph (with all the fake 'questions') rather insulting. I'm not an idiot (and I don't think SNP is either); I just don't like this snarky style of writing that's so rampant now. It's not just boring, but destructive and self-serving. I think jolt's point is incredibly apt here:
jolt's position is much more courageous, though I'd suggest the 'snarky style' is itself an attempt at "a moment of clarity amongst the chaos." But it's an 'easy out.' It's like there's a collective sense of not being able to deal with the increasing complexities of contemporary life, and it's easy to just roll your eyes and say "like, omigod, that is sOooO lame, y'know!" It is much more difficult to "suspend our sense of the known" and give respect to what other people cherish, let alone cherish something ourselves.