January. Blah. It's hard to see past the dried pine needles and chocolate foil wrappers trapped in the floorboards. But if the following is any indication, 2008's arts department looks promising.
Peel away from the Fresh Prince reruns and take the 52 bus to MSVU Gallery to see For Example (January 25-March 23), where Stephen Andrews, Charles Goldman and Ingrid Koenig show off drawings, animation cells and contact sheets, revealing their behind-the-scenes artistic processes. In particular, Goldman's Mixtapes contact sheets are intriguing
In 2000, he made tapes for women with whom he had relationships—real or fictitious. All the songs were photographed as they played on the turntable, and then printed onto proofs.
At this point I don't know much about Kate Wilson's exhibition Microbial Baroque at Saint Mary's University Art Gallery (January 12-March 2), but I do know that I'm taken by the dark, apocalyptic, urban mood of some of her previous drawings, paintings and installations. Same goes for Taking Care of Business by Immony Men (opening January 7 at the Khyber), and the images from his previous show at the St. John's artist-run centre, Eastern Edge.
Men created a room-sized mural from a grid of what must be thousands of photo-printed Post-its, realistically mimicking a typical office scene. Kinda like that '70s photo wallpaper of mountains or ocean scenes found in old-school rec-rooms. The art is in Men's process—he installs the pieces in business-hours shifts, his version of pushing paper.
Marlene MacCallum's The Architecture Uncanny at Dalhousie Art Gallery (opens January 10, until March 2), promises sculptural bookworks and photogravure prints (formed from a painstaking process that transfers images onto copper plates) that redefine how we read words and art. MacCallum's work is so rich and beautiful, you can lose yourself in the details. Hannah Höch is one of my favourite artists, so I'm very curious to see how the Dada collagist's work acts as inspiration for Louise Bédard Danse's contemporary Ce qu'il en reste/What Remains at the Dunn Theatre (January 17-19, 494-3820).
On January 14, bless their little indie socks, AFCOOP's Monday Night Movies return with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which won a handful of awards at Cannes. The story, part of a larger project about the history of communism in Romania, depicts the lengths that two women must endure to end an unwanted pregnancy. That should see your art-movie needs through until February 11, when AFCOOP screens the animated awesomeness, Persepolis.
If this is setting you up for a too-serious bender, maybe it's time to check out the ladies from Women Fully Clothed at the Rebecca Cohn (January 27, 7:30pm, 494-3820). The uber-comedic troupe consists of laff-vets Robin Duke, Kathryn Greenwood, Jayne Eastwood, Debra McGrath and Teresa Pavlinek, star of sadly underappreciated comedy, The Jane Show. Crank dat funny bone.
