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Toronto is one big snow day today--or "snowmageddon" as those meterological wags like to call it. So it's a perfect day to stay in with good web reads, with some print thrown in for old-school nostalgia.
Over at digitalmediatree, Sally McKay and Lorna Mills have started their annual, and annually enjoyable, top-ten fiesta. Best so far is RM Vaughan, who uses Britney's lack of panties to demonstrate how we are all celebrities. Or something like that. All folks, self-designatedly famous or otherwise,are welcome to submit, so toss that snow shovel aside, do a shot of eggnog and type away.Year-end best-of lists also show up at Akimblog, which has their critics from Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, Calgary and Toronto weigh in for a nice cross-Canada feel.EYE Weekly and Toronto Life art critic David Balzer offers his view on '08. I don't share the same vitriol he has for museum panels and larger exhibition venues, but overall his stance, as always, worth reading. My part-time boss, Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, offers his top ten of 2008 at canadianart.caAnd in case anybody in Canada is interested in what's happening in New York--how unlikely is that?--Peter Schjeldahl's top ten shows of the year provides a guide.No best-ofs but definitely some good info over at the recently launched shotgun-review.ca, which brings more frequent reviews from Alberta to the nationThe Coast reports on how Halifax arts orgs are being impacted by Harper's late-summer arts cutsOn a related note, Canadian Magazines reports that the Canadian Conference of the Arts is urging Canada's finance minister to stimulate the economy through arts fundingMuseum 2.0, as ever, delivers interesting peeks behind the scenes of museums' attempts to get accessibleAnd, in old-school print:
The 100th edition of C Magazine launched in Toronto last night. (In a strange feat of synchronicity, it's focusing on pedagogy/education, just like the winter issue of Canadian Art. Stranger still that Border Crossings and Canadian Art both had Marcel Dzama on their fall covers.) I got my hands on a copy prior to the launch, and have so far enjoyed reading Gabby Moser's feature on curatorial programs, as well as Earl Miller's summary on the state of art criticism--though he almost completely excludes the web from his considerations, what up? Lydia Perovic's report on private art philanthropy was also informative.Border Crossings's winter issue, themed on photography, is also out. So far the interview with Philip Lorca diCorcia, though somewhat overlong, was worthwhile for me. The winter issue of FUSE is also out; I've only skimmed it so far but look forward to the article on the Textile Museum's excellent Afghan War Rugs exhibitionAs previously mentioned, the winter issue of Canadian Art is out. So far I recommend John Kissick's essay on failings in art education.Artforum's year-end issue is something I'm still wading through. I did like the geographic reports a lot: Caroline Busta and Linda Yablonsky on New York, Walead Beshty on Los Angeles, Emily Pethick on London, Dominikus Müller on Berlin, etc.And, in a strange admixture of web and print:I self-consciously recommend some old articles from the Canadian Art archives that I scanned and put on their website. Call me an eighties queen, but I loved seeing old photos of now-well-established artworld figures, as well as old photos of those whose legacies have, well, pretty much evaporated. Here you can find links to articles on Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto; and here's one on Halifax/NSCAD, all full of 80s goodness (just click through the slideshow till you get to the article.)Happy reading!
UPDATE Hill Strategies just released a report on museum and gallery revenues. It's dry as hell but has some interesting stats -- like that attendance at 113 public museums and galleries was 10 million last year. Nice.