Articles

Barry Schwabsky’s PictureLibrary: Fine Focusing

Danger lives in close proximity to joy.
The Occidental Hotel by John Bentley Mays

And although it touches on many ideas and things, and is deeply pleasurable to read because of the masterful quality of Mays’s gifted language, it is finally and fundamentally a critique and satire of Western white supremacy and the attending wickedness and lunacy of that historical and current force.
Caroline Monnet

Buildings matter, and can tell a story of either contextual purpose or haphazard malfeasance. Using the raw, off-cast building materials of flawed intent, Caroline Monnet’s works address both but also tell a story of positive responses and of renewed possibilities.
Sheila Butler

Numerous and diverging logics abound but never settle, accounting for works that feel primeval and prescient all at once.
Belle Lettrists: Nicola Tyson, Maria Lassnig, Amy Sillman

I have two very particular books of letters on my desk. Particular in that neither is the collected correspondence of one writer in touch with a number of recipients over time, nor gathered together to reflect the breadth of the recipients, nor the myriad points of connections the writer made in a lifetime, nor focused on an event of significance—a crisis lived through and reported on, personal or universal. More particular than that.
Ideas of North

On March 27, 2021, Qaumajuq, the new Inuit art centre, opened to the public. The word means “it is bright, it is lit,” and the naming is perfect. The 40,000-square-foot building was designed by Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan, who is described by Dr Stephen Borys, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s director and CEO, as “an architect who thinks like an artist.”
Status Upbeats

For five of those years, he entered into a collaboration with Cliff Eyland, an artist, close friend and one-time academic colleague. Eyland responded with 1,600 visual interpretations of Toles’s status updates, and Winnipeg’s At Bay Press has published a tidy 100-page book offering a mere tease of their delightful collaboration.
Pictura Oasis

The most recent exploration of the practice of painting as viewed from Montreal is “Pictura: Painting … in Montréal’s image.” The exhibition was conceived and organized by Montreal artist Trevor Kiernander. His commitment to the idea of painting in Montreal is directly connected to the medium’s history in the city.
Sweetened with Beauty

The interview that follows was prompted by the exhibition at Whitechapel, “Kai Althoff goes with Bernard Leach,” in tandem with our own long-standing interest in the artist’s work.
Picasso Remixed

Responding to Picasso’s enduring influence, Barry Schwabsky writes: “The only way to become a historical successor to a Picasso was to transcend him completely.”
The Future Past: Painting in Our Time: Manuel Mathieu, Shaan Syed, Bea Parsons, Amanda Boulos

For our annual painting issue, Border Crossings went to Parsons and three other painters (Shaan Syed in London, UK; Haitian-born Manuel Mathieu in Montreal; and Amanda Boulos in Toronto) to talk about their engagement with this centuries-old storied art form.
Painting the Impossible Paintings

For our annual painting issue, Border Crossings went to Parsons and three other painters (Shaan Syed in London, UK; Haitian-born Manuel Mathieu in Montreal; and Amanda Boulos in Toronto) to talk about their engagement with this centuries-old storied art form.

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