The Projects: Port Credit closes tomorrow

Mississauga is a challenging place for hosting contemporary art.  With a handful of small commercial galleries, the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Blackwood Gallery at UTM and Laidlaw Hall at the Living Arts Centre, the scene is limited.  In fact, dare I say, there really is no scene in Mississauga. Unfortunately.  Since I grew up in Mississauga, I've seen the city grow and grow and grow, but the cultural scene has remained virtually stagnant.  I'd be happy to engage in an argument about it, in fact!

Until now.

Christof Migone, Director/Curator of Blackwood Gallery conceived The Projects: PORT CREDIT as an off-site exhibition highlighting the construction and possibly even the cultural boom of Port Credit (in my opinion, the most picturesque and dynamic area in the City of Mississauga).  This year, 10 artists (including, Claudio Ghirardo, Cheryl Rondeau, Gwen MacGregor and Peter Flemming) were invited to  create their reflections of a changing city.  The artists explored public transit, bicycle routes, public sculpture, graffiti and the act of commemoration.

Set in a condo building's sales office, the exhibition itself on a whole could have been better executed.  Arriving at the office, I wasn't sure if I was in the right place as in fact, there were sales agents on site presenting plans to prospective buyers who also did not know about the intervention.   Perhaps this unobtrusive intervention and its subtlety is what makes the exhibition itself successful.

My favourite work by Mississauga resident, Sonja Hidas was titled Large Items.  Sonja was commenting on the fact that the City of Mississauga does not have a public art policy in place. By taking used appliances and using them as a canvas for text-based interventions that meditate on domestic life and essentially look at the issue of public art within the cultural development of Mississauga.  The items were place in a parking space on the private property of this condo office.  Sonja commented that it is often that we look at discarded items that are placed at the end of people's driveways.  These ARE the public sculptures of Mississauga.  Sonja quietly, but effectively comments on Mississauga's missing cultural link.

Bring it on!  As a cultural stakeholder of Mississauga, I welcome more and more contemporary art and installations within this city!

PS - I saw the exhibition on Sunday, June 27th.  On Tuesday, June 29th, Sonja Hidas' Large Items were reported missing and haven't been seen since.  I think this is Mississauga's first cultural crime!  Will these art thief's be caught?

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition - the dash tour!

We had a chance to check out this year's Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition on Saturday.  Mostly, I wanted to visit and say hello to my friends.  I also wanted to check out and hopefully buy something.  As if our little man was going to let us do that!  With baby and grandpa in tow, a casual stroll through the stalls it was not.  The heat did not help as well!

Smaller this year and frankly the same as year's past.  I want to go because I feel I'll miss out, but once I'm there, I feel a bit 'meh'!  I wish I could have checked out the programming that was on offer, that would have been terrific.  I never read or heard if that was successful or not.

All in all, it was a great social!  And, I managed to drink a delicious Americano from Starbucks!  I was so happy to have a quick catch up with my wonderfully talented friends: Nicole Kibath, Jenny Kuri, Tara Gilchrist, and Kal Mansur.

Once our sweet boy fell asleep for a brief nap, we could relax and in fact, were able to buy two small prints from Jacob Rolfe who won an honourable mention in Printmaking!  The water-based inks produced such rich colours!  I'm excited to have such a talented artist added to our small art collection.

Reworking this blog!

It's been far too long, but baby has been keeping me away from my precious laptop!  But, he hasn't kept me away from some fabulous art exhibitions that I've seen recently and will post about shortly!  The craziness of my life is being documented on another blog mamasdirtylittlesecrets.wordpress.com.  I find I can post snippets of my life very easily at that blog.  Taking the time to write reviews requires much more brain capacity that I can muster right about now!  And, that's why I've changed the blog title to Escape From Momcatraz!  This is my reprieve, albeit brief!