The rise of fall arts: visual arts

This season's cultural events will have you exploring inside and outdoors, with its stellar line-up of visual arts, theatre, dance, comedy, movies and more.

by Sean Flinn, Mike Landry and Laura Kenins

Nocturne
October 17 at various locations, dusk-midnight, free, artgalleryofnovascotia.ca
Last year's inaugural Nocturne festival brought 5,000 people out to local streets and galleries from dusk to midnight. Following up on that success, this year's after-dark art festival will feature 32 gallery spaces opening their doors and more than 30 artists setting up installations and performances around town. Things to check out include performances by Michael Fernandes, Graeme Patterson and Mitchell Wiebe at the AGNS, as well as a project by artist-in-residence Lisa Lipton, who will also be playing with new band Library, featuring other ex-members of i see rowboats. Artists Scott Saunders, Nikolai Gauer and Wes Johnson will be making a sound and video installation with a close-up perspective on incoming tides.

Outside Dalhousie Art Gallery, you'll find a video projection by Glynis Humphrey, while Saint Mary's University Art Gallery will open an exhibition by NSCAD alum Sara Angelucci, and the Khyber ICA will host a show and performance by Elinor Whidden. The "art buses" that Metro Transit donated to schlep viewers from site to site feature musical performers this year, including Mary Stewart, Ryan McGrath and heavy meadows. CKDU is also producing podcasts for the event, which you can download beforehand and take with you for a personal audio guided tour. –Laura Kenins

Somewhere Along The Line
October 10-November 22, Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, 166 Bedford Highway, free. Opening reception, October 17, dusk-midnight, msvuart.ca
This country is way beyond bilingual. Like the wider world, it is multilingual---a polyphonic conversation. There are spoken languages, results of the partnership between brain and tongue. There are also languages of drawing, productions of process involving the mind and mechanics of the hand. In Somewhere Along the Line, several artists (Ed Pien from Toronto, Lucie Chan, recently of Halifax, and Lucy Pullen from Victoria, among others) speak their minds---with their hands---to show how, according to the MSVU Art Gallery website, "a drawing can be thought of as the record of its making, showing the interventions of chance, system and intention in the decision-making process of the artist." –Sean Flinn

Sara Angelucci, Somewhere In Between
October 17-November 22 at Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Loyola Academic Complex, 5865 Gorsebrook Avenue, free. Opening reception, Saturday, October 17, dusk-midnight
Photographer and video artist Sara Angelucci comes back to Halifax, where she completed her MFA at NSCAD, from Toronto. She returns to this city of arrival and departure, historic and contemporary, for Somewhere in Between.

Curated by Ivan Jurakic and originating at Cambridge Galleries in southwestern Ontario, the exhibition continues Angelucci's ability to understand and illustrate the past, and its place in the present, in a universal way. As she has before in several series, Angelucci relates to her family's Italian-Canadian identity.

The show's opening coincides with Nocturne, but in the meantime, check out close-ups, installation views and artist statements at sara-angelucci.ca. –Sean Flinn

The Edible Show
October 12-25 (including a special Nocturne event) at Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1891 Granville Street. October 19-November 1 at PortLoggia, 1107 Marginal Road, nscad.ca
Leave it to NSCAD to turn a bake sale into a three-week art show spanning two galleries. Co-curated by sculptor Jesse Walker and third-year student Karen Hawes, The Edible Show features work from across the country in a variety of media dealing with food as either subject matter or material. The collection provides a comprehensive look on how we experience food. The pair hopes to promote creativity with food, pique interest in contemporary art and get people involved and aware of the food industry. And like all good potlucks, you can contribute to the show by bringing non-perishables for the food bank. –Mike Landry

Steve Higgins, All Things Considered: thoughts about cities and history, war and peace
October 23-November 29 at Dalhousie Art Gallery, 6101 University. Opening reception, Thursday, October 27, 8pm, artgallery.dal.ca
Steve Higgins has "some real beefs with urban planning." Mostly, his frustrations have to do with the assumed authority of those in charge. Working between planning, architecture and sculpture, the Halifax-based veteran artist has explored this authority for 30 years. Although Haligonians will no doubt identify with urban planning foibles and difficulties, Higgins' work isn't location-specific and it's not an easy show. But with a mix of miniature-city sculptures, etched blueprints, inkjet prints of the white space in War and Peace, and a large wall drawing, there's plenty there to give you time to link the work together. –Mike Landry

Mathew Reichertz, Garbage
November 6-December 2, Studio 21, 1223 Lower Water Street, studio21.ca
As a boy, Halifax-based painter Mathew Reichertz didn't collect comics---he devoured them. That knowledge is now the foundation of his latest series, Garbage---a giant comic with Smart Car-sized pages. The story is penciled in for about 15 pages, and two or three will be on display, along with studies this fall. Building on past narrative-based work, Reichertz decided if the work was about stories he should just tell a story this time. It's a semi-autobiographical, "fairly mundane plot" about a garbage dispute between neighbours taking place in Halifax's north end, although the people with flames for heads and such are pure symbolism. –Mike Landry

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