Goodbye Galerie PUSH

I am sad to see Galerie PUSH disappear. Working with Megan Bradley always made things seem so much more possible. Getting into trouble, trying to eek out how to keep going, feeling like family..... working with Galerie PUSH made "business as usual" take its proper place as the way to do things if everything else fails. I loved you best with a tiny Boris beer in my hand up in that weird space on St. Laurent.

Entropy always, but I feel a little chicken little as I watch good things end and power consolidate in the hands of fewer...but this too will change. Always more plurality in the art world, please.

Good work, Galerie PUSH. Things will never be as exciting as my solo show there in 2009. That is the high point so far. Good luck to Megan as she moves over to Parisian Laundry, they are lucky to have her.

Papeeee-er Dick, sorry Ohnze.

PUSH Gallery decided to swoop in an unleash some ass-kicking at this year's PAPIER fair in Montreal. All works on paper....including some of the My Vagina Has A Second Name... series and a few collages.

Wish I could tip some bottles at the opening in Montreal, but I am too busy getting ready for my show in Berlin.

Tip some for me!

Little Black Book - The Drake Hotel, Toronto. Feb. 11th to Apr. 18th

LITTLE BLACK BOOK

February 11 - April 18, 2011
The Drake Hotel
1150 Queen St. W. Toronto, Canada 001 416 531 5042

Drake’s mid-winter exhibition highlights a group of international artists who are on the edge of something great. These painters, sculptors and installation artists are all at different points in their careers – ranging from a recent grad to a museum veteran, all working in a wide range of media. Brought together loosely by a mutual fascination with pop-culture and a refined sense of craft, these artists have held our attention for sometime, consistently creating thought-provoking works that are at once on the cutting-edge of new directions, yet filled with familiar references that keep us coming back for more. So, this is it: a Little Black Book of artists and projects that have been so inspiring that, at one time, we would have been tempted to keep them secret!

The show opens with a vestibule installation by L.A-based Alise Spinella, a recent graduate of CalArts acclaimed Masters program. We’ve had an eye on Spinella since her early school days and have been struck by how her sculptures expand on the painterly space, much like the work of Jessica Stockholder, but in more ephemeral and seemingly spontaneous ways.

Three paintings fill the chalk board in the front lobby. These works by New York’s Scooter LaForge are a newer discovery, having participated in a recent show with Drake-alumni Shoplifter. A mix of Saturday-morning-cartoons and German Expressionism, these paintings are familiar yet totally fresh.

The back lobby features a painting by Australian Anthony Lister, a street artist who has been turning heads in the fine art community for the last few years with successful gallery shows and hybrid projects like the Hello Kitty Pop-Up Shop during Art Basel|Miami Beach. Lister has a knack for turning our most beloved pop-culture figures on their heads with a wry wit and deft brushwork.

Wil Murray combines the explosive painterly energy of Les Automatistes with vibrant patterns that are reminiscent of background details from vintage Loony Tunes cartoons. Here the painting spills over the confines of the canvas, filling the hotel stairs with vibrant abstract colour and the subtle suggestions of wallpaper patters, balcony railings and landscape details slipping across the screen on a Saturday morning.

The staircase to the Underground has been re-imagined with a new permanent installation by celebrated Canadian artist Ken Lum. Jim and Susan’s Motel illustrates Lum’s keen interest in the tension between the marketing of public messages and more private exchanges.

NYC’s Patrick Griffin shares Lum’s interest in messaging, replicating vintage lapel buttons. Polka dotting the walls, these buttons transcend the clichéd phrases and quaint sayings of the original, with a new preciousness, hand-crafted in sizes that stretch 2ft across.

Special thanks go to Show and Tell Gallery and Galerie Push who made this exhibition possible.

My Guide To The Toronto Art Fair

Nadia Moss @ Galerie PUSH Opening March 18th

The show I am most excited to see before leaving Montreal:
Nadia Moss
Still river still leaving
18 mars 25 avril 2010

VERNISSAGE
JEUDI 18 mars 2010 18H - 21H

Les dessins à l’encre ainsi que les peintures par Nadia Moss rassemblent une variété d’êtres flottant sur un espace indéfini et qui semblent se mouvoir sur la surface plane de paysages artificiels. Insufflant le geste à ses figures Moss crée des êtres ambigus qui semblent entretenir simultanément une dépendance et un ressentiment à l’égard du groupe qui les définit. Des motifs gravés ornent des personnages et indiquent leur expérience ou l’inéluctable passage du temps menant à la mort. Les scénarios dépeints évoquent un état de latence, de stagnation, un « lieu » à mi-chemin de tout. Actifs, bien que confinés aux marges de la page de l’artiste, les figures semblent se mouvoir avec résolution dans une avancée qui ne mène nulle part d’autre qu’au même endroit.

**NOUVELLE ADRESSE DÈS LE 15 MARS 2010: 372 SAINTE-CATHERINE OUEST / SUITE 425 / H3B 1A4**

GALERIE PUSH 5264 SAINT LAURENT / MONTRÉAL QC canada /
514 544-9079 / INFO@GALERIEPUSH.COM
GALERIEPUSH.COM

Twice As Much Faggot, Twice as Much Drugs

Settling into Berlin nicely after a very good, very hazy art fair in Toronto.
My second arrival here has been even more spectacular than the last. It rains here, but I've not felt a drop.
I stopped checking the weather or the date.
The painting pictured is very big. You can click on the photo and see it bigger. It was exhibited at Art Toronto and in my show at Galerie PUSH. I can never remember it's proper name: Them Faggot Drug Them New Faggot Standard Breasts Shape Drug(144" X 89" X 14" Acrylic & Polyethylene Foam On Board, 2009).
Photo by Yannick Grandmont

One of The Best Nights Of My Life

From the night of the vernissage for "We Pet Your Cat To Death?" at Galerie PUSH. A group shot with some of my favourite folks in the world.
L to R: Marie Brassard, Dana Gingras, Justin Evans, Wil Murray, Olivier Borxeix

Photo by Javiera Ovalle

We Pet Your Cat To Death? at Galerie Push September 10-October 11

we pet your cat to death?
10 septembre 11 octobre 2009

VERNISSAGE
JEUDI 10 septembre 2009 19H - 22H

Wil Murray’s explosive and seductive work presents paint as subject in We Pet Your Cat to Death?. Murray shoots paint up onto a pedestal of foamy stability while hanging it off to experience three dimensional spaces away from the surface that somehow holds it all together. He constructs locations for paint to occupy, making it stand up and stand out, carefully moulding, pouring, lifting, folding and intertwining it. Revelling in the act of assembling a painting, Wil Murray humanizes his subject and makes it bleed and ooze and cry and scream.

Wil Murray was born in Calgary in 1978; he studied painting at the Alberta Collage of Art and Design and has lived in Montreal since 2004. In September 2008, Murray received an honourable mention in the 10th annual RBC Canadian Painting Competition (the largest of its kind in Canada) for his painting, Sexe Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac. Murray’s work was chosen for publication in Carte Blanche, Vol. 2: Painting, released in 2008, and his work will be presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in November 2009, for ESSE Magazine’s 25 year anniversary auction. Wil Murray is represented by the Diane Farris Gallery in Vancouver and Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Ottawa. Wil Murray’s We Pet Your Cat to Death? is proudly presented at Galerie PUSH from September 10 until October 11, 2009 courtesy of Patrick Mikhail Gallery.
Texte en francais

GALERIE PUSH 5264 SAINT LAURENT / MONTRÉAL QC canada /
514 544-9079 / INFO@GALERIEPUSH.COM
GALERIEPUSH.COM

Wil Murray Baby Ghost from the 1900s Says Beat it With Your Chain, 2009, acrylique et mousse polypropylene sur panneau
73’’ x 60’’x8''
© Wil Murray, 2009

New Painting: If They Bottled Sex With The Curator...

If They Bottled Sex With The Curator I Would Buy It But Spill It On The Way Home, 2009
Acrylic & Foam On Board, 49" X 59" X 7"

To be sold at ESSE magazine's 25th anniversary auction November 11th at Musee De Beaux Arts in Montreal.

ESSE Magazine 25th Anniversary Auction

"If They Bottled Sex With The Curator I Would Buy It But Spill It On The Way Home"(pictured above) will be featured in ESSE magazine's 25th anniversary auction this fall. Happening November 11th, at the Musee Des Beaux Arts in Montreal. This piece will also be exhibited in my show at Galerie PUSH in September.

Details: If They Bottled Sex With The Curator I Would Buy It But Spill It On The Way Home. Acrylic & Foam on Board. 49" X 59" X 7" (click on image fore larger version)

Interview with Megan Bradley of Galerie PUSH

Axis posted an interview called

Do we still need to bother about feminism?

Oh, it's perfect that large!
The interview included Megan Bradley, the director of Galerie PUSH here in Montreal.
I am currently working on my exhibition for the gallery, that will open the 10th of September. Tentatively called "We Pet Your Cat To Death?", and exhibition text is being written by Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf.