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