INSTALLATION: TORONTO
Making Arrangements
Canadian creatives are using a multimedia approach to explore the urban-suburban relationship in a new exhibition at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre entitled Making Arrangements. A highlight is the work of Toronto-based printmaker Alexia Bilyk, who takes her 2D art form into the 3D realm by layering paper-stencil shapes so that their repetition creates a series of abstract impressions. Like the experience of flying over a planned urban (or suburban) space, the beauty in these works lies in the ambiguity between smaller individual details and the larger, organic mass that those smaller elements help form. Whether you’re a city slicker or a suburban homebody, Making Arrangements’ loose narrative about the complexity of linking up different communities might just hit home with everyone – wherever they might be.
Toronto Habourfront Centre, Bill Boyle Artport, 235 Queens Quay West. Open Monday to Saturday, 10.00-23.00; Sunday 10.00-21.00. Until 28 December.
ART: LYON
Rétrospective Erró
Musée d’art Contemporain (MAC) in Lyon is now exhibiting a retrospective of Icelandic artist Erró, famous for creating comic-strip-style characters with an always provocative undertone. His body of work spans almost seven decades and has captured the ebb-and-flow of pop culture since the 1950s onwards. The 500-strong range of pieces on show in Lyon features collages, films, watercolours and drawings that comment on topics such as politics, propaganda, conformity, sexuality and violence, to name but a few. “I paint because painting is a private Utopia,” he has said of his art. Head along to MAC to steal a glimpse inside Erró's Eden.
Musée d’art Contemporain, Cité Internationale 81 quai Charles de Gaulle. Open Wednesday to Friday, 11.00-18.00; Saturday and Sunday, 10.00-19.00. Until 22 February.
PHOTOGRAPHY: ISTANBUL
Maura Sullivan: Lost Dream
US-photographer Maura Sullivan’s solo show Lost Dream is at Istanbul’s Pg Art Gallery this weekend. The exhibition presents a series of portraits that thematically explore memory, love, loss and dreams, inviting audiences to uncover the story behind each monochrome impression. Sullivan’s use of analogue film infuses her work with a tactile and lively quality that suggests classic cinematic imagery of years gone by. But these photographs require viewers to project a story of their own rather than just simply sitting back to watch – so hopefully there’ll be a happy ending.
Pg Art Gallery, Bogazkesen Cad.No.76/B, Tophane. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11.00-19.00. Until 25 October.
PAINTING: LONDON
Paula Rego: The Last King of Portugal
Marlborough Fine Art gallery is showing the work of veteran Portuguese-born, UK-based artist Paula Rego. Called The Last King of Portugal, the exhibition features three series of pastel and watercolour art inspired by Rego’s regular muse – the folk tales and literature of Portugal. The first series explores the short-lived rule of the nation’s King Manuel II, who was ousted 1910. The second series interprets Portuguese author Eça de Queiróz’s novel, The Relic, about a money-hungry individual’s odyssey to the Holy Land and the final set of images displays illustrations from Rego and her daughter Cas Willing’s collaborative book Stone Soup. Head down to learn a little about Portuguese heritage and also some of the nation’s tall tales.
Marlborough Fine Art, 6 Albemarle Street. Open Monday to Friday, 10.00-17.30; Saturday, 10.00-16.00. Until 25 October.
MUSIC: GLOBAL
Lydia Ainsworth: Right from Real
Canadian musician Lydia Ainsworth has taken an unconventional journey up to her debut album Right from Real – a dizzying assault of abstract pop dressed up in strings, synths and a constantly surprising sense of wonder. Ainsworth is a trained cellist but has also studied film along with acting, too, and it was while pursuing the latter that she began to record songs as a hobby in secret. The fact that this seemingly carefree approach has produced such an impressive, focused debut – one that recalls Kate Bush at her most flamboyant and the dance-influenced tunes of Ainsworth’s fellow Canadian contemporary, Grimes – is a little odd. You sense that a lot of passion and hard work surely must have also gone into this record in order to make it all click. Maybe Ainsworth is a better actor than she thought.
‘Right from Real’ is available to hear now.
