NEXT: Emerging Art and Artists at Art Toronto 2014
2014 is a milestone year for Art Toronto, as it marks the international contemporary art fair’s 15th year of existence. This was also the first year I attended, making this a banner year for me as well. I spent a significant amount of time at the fair because I wanted to make sure I saw absolutely everything it had to offer. Initially the experience was overwhelming and over-stimulating; perhaps the best comparison I can make is a weekend trip to IKEA. This isn’t to say the work on display was kitschy or poorly produced, in fact for the most part the opposite was true: the majority of the art objects were displayed with an acute level of care and polish. Instead it was the labyrinth-like maze of galleries and meandering visitors that made the whole experience feel overwhelming.
About two and a half hours in I started to feel that my legs and eyeballs needed a break from all the walking and the looking, so I sought out Thrush Holmes’ BREAK ROOM and took a seat on one of the upturned plastic buckets that he so generously provided. BREAK ROOM marked the center of NEXT, a section of the fair dedicated to emerging artists and galleries. As soon as I sat down on my bucket I looked up to my left and saw a wall of abstract paintings, many of which had interesting textures and compositions. The wall belonged to a gallery called WAAP, or Wil Aballe Art Projects from Vancouver, also a part of the NEXT section. The booths here were smaller and more evenly spaced out than any of the spaces that I had encountered previously, lending an air of modesty to much of the work.
Thrush Holmes, BREAK ROOM
Selection of paintings on the wall of WAAP’s space
At one point I stopped in the Robert Kananaj Gallery space to get a look at Oscar Figueroa’s humorous found object installations, and he came over to have a chat with me after he caught me taking pictures. He gave me some advice on life after graduating from art school, and even showed me a book of reference drawings when I asked for an explanation of his work. In fact, many of the galleries in the NEXT section had a slightly casual ambiance to them, and there was no shortage of gallery owners and artists that seemed interested in talking to me. The work here too felt almost experimental compared to a lot of the work set up in some of the more established gallery spaces, and there seemed to be a large emphasis on heavily textured paintings and abstraction. All in all, the entire exhibition was worth seeing but it was the galleries, artists, and artworks featured in and around the NEXT emerging art and artists section that engaged me the most.
Oscar Figueroa, Path Around a Burnt Pizza, Robert Kananaj Gallery
Text and photo: Madeleine Till
This year’s show was packed with unique pieces of artwork from all over the world. Certain standout artworks included Nap Station by VSVSVS, who are a seven person art collective in Toronto. Nap Station is a two story sleeping chamber which lets participants step in for a snooze. Similarly, BGL’s Canada Fancy– a large scale spinning carousel built of steel fence invited spectators to take a ride and encouraged audience participation.
Nap Station by VSVSVS
BGL’s Canada Fancy
Other exciting fan favorites included Evan Penny’s infamous hyperrealist stretched human sculptures, and Xiaojing Yan’s Cloud Cell– which is a instillation piece made of twelve thousand suspended freshwater pearls to give the appearance of a floating cloud formation.
Xiaojing Yan, Cloud Cell
Text and photo: Ella Gorevalov