Winnipeg, Canada

Thursday’s ‘Arts&Life’ section of the Winnipeg Free Press ran a full-page cover feature on one of Canada’s leading painters, Wanda Koop, highlighting her solo show which opens today at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG). I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of becoming friends with and working with Wanda over the years (see samples of the identity design and print collateral materials we developed for her a few years back at Circle here) and I’m truly delighted at this opportunity she will have to showcase a lifetime of work.

Following is the text of the Free Press’ online article

by Alison Mayes (link here):

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Wanda Koop is so prolific, so constant in her art-making, that to mount a true retrospective of her distinguished four-decade career, the Winnipeg Art Gallery would have to lease practically all the exhibition space in town. That’s especially true when you consider that many of her paintings are enormous.

“Wanda could take over this building, the Manitoba Museum and maybe the Convention Centre,” jokes Mary Reid, WAG curator of contemporary art. “I’ve never seen anybody work at the level that she works at—flat out, all the time. It’s amazing that it all comes out of one person.”

Reid has been wrestling with the challenge of how to present the oeuvre of the internationally exhibited, senior Winnipeg artist in a major solo exhibition, organized in partnership with Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada. The curator came to the conclusion that she couldn’t tell the 58-year-old Koop’s entire art story, so she would survey 25 years, from about 1983 to nearly the present. The result is an overwhelmingly varied, interconnected, multimedia exhibition titled Wanda Koop… On the Edge of Experience.

Trust us: it really is an experience. The much-anticipated show has a quiet opening Saturday, but its splashy opening will be Sept. 25, when the city throws its first Nuit Blanche all-night art celebration and the WAG stays open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., with free admission. “It will give (viewers) hours and hours to look at things,” says Koop, describing the show as “almost a kaleidoscope of information.”

The show is on view here until Nov. 21. It will be shown at the National Gallery—which has Koop works in its collection, but has never presented a solo Koop show—from Feb. 18 to May 15, 2011, coinciding with the Prairie Scene art festival. A national tour will follow.

The exhibition is a significant honour for the Elmwood product, a daughter of Russian Mennonite immigrants whose childhood talent was nurtured at WAG Saturday-morning art classes, and who first had work shown at the WAG at age 19. “It’s not that often that women artists in Canada get to have what I’m getting—especially when they’re still alive,” says the world-travelled painter and video artist.

WAG director Stephen Borys notes that Koop graced the cover of the inaugural issue of Canadian Art magazine in 1984. “She could have prospered in any city, in any country, but she’s stayed in Winnipeg,” he says.

A number of Koop’s key paintings on plywood are to hang in lobby spaces at the WAG. The gallery space displays huge canvases from important past shows, some of them landscapes superimposed with technological symbols, for a total of 26 large-scale paintings. There are also monitors showing Koop’s video works, and countless other paintings.

One of Reid’s challenges was that so many of Koop’s past achievements were large installations—shows in which the entire gallery space was designed as an immersive environment. Here, the viewer gets to time-travel and see these installations in miniature, thanks to Koop’s partner, Stephen Hunter, who has meticulously crafted 16 maquettes—architecture-style tabletop models—of past shows.

These environments are complete with teeny gallery-goers—simple black, genderless figures—and mini reproductions of the real works. The viewer can play a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” game, says Koop, by spotting which full-size paintings link up with miniature ones, as well as by discovering connections between early sketches, preliminary paintings, and various versions of the paintings.

For instance, Koop has repeatedly painted Native Fires, based on seeing aboriginal people gathered around open fires near The Forks. In the very large version hung in the show, the orange fires are abstracted into teardrop shapes. “She distils images down to their most powerful essence,” says Reid.

Part of the show strives to recreate the flavour of Koop’s studio. On table after table, sketchbooks, notes, drawings, collected photographs, ephemera and even gunked-up paintbrushes are displayed. This “studio environment” provides insight into Koop’s process and the amount of investigation that goes into the major paintings. “These large-scale canvases just don’t appear out of nowhere,” says Reid. “I think of myself as a visual-language researcher,” adds Koop.

One table is covered with hundreds of jumbled Post-it Notes, on which Koop compulsively sketched while watching CNN coverage of the Iraq war. The overarching theme of Koop’s career has been examining how modes of technology affect nature. In the show’s final gallery space, her new installation piece Hybrid Human is the climax of the show. It’s a collaborative work that combines Koop’s paintings, video projections, a group dance piece by Winnipeg choreographer Jolene Bailie, a sound piece by Susan Chafe and lighting design by Hugh Conacher.

An enormous video projection of Bailie, resembling a black silhouette like the tiny people in the maquettes, will be installed after the dance component premieres at Nuit Blanche. Hybrid Human explores, in part, robots and artificial life. Reid notes that for Koop, “a painting is a type of screen that holds the potential to morph into a mirror.” Four huge Koop paintings each depict a tiny human figure contemplating a vast screen. In a fifth painting, the human is missing. As you stand in a rectangle of light, “You won’t know if you’re looking at a painting, or you ARE the painting,” the artist says.

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Photo: Wanda Koop with a piece from Hybrid Human, part of a solo exhibition opening 11 September at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

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Cartoon by Bruce Mckinnon for the Chronicle-Herald (Halifax, Canada); thanks to friend Keith Leinweber for the link.

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As a child, I was raised and imbued with fundamental Christianity (which I’m more than a little ashamed to admit at times like this—though thankfully my parents’ and their community’s focus was primarily on love, compassion, tolerance, and nonviolence). The fanatical antics of Floridian pastor Terry Jones are right up there with the “crusade(r) mentality” of Christendom that has long since driven me to discard all but the most basic tenets of faith.

Toronto, Canada

An essay I compiled for Applied Arts Magazine (pulling from various articles I’ve penned over the past years) appears in the current issue (Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2010) with the following pull-quote featured on the cover…

“NEED is the father of thought. I would like to think that designing and dreaming have traveled in lockstep since our species began to walk upright… Graphic design ignites passion, identifies, informs, clarifies, inspires, and enables communication… Design shapes culture and it influences societal values.”

Read or download the whole essay here (384 KB PDF).

Banff, Alberta

I’ve just returned from my annual holiday sortie to the Rockies, a first with my “new” 1988 VW Westfalia Camper Bettie Blue (which I bought a year ago from her original owner—who I met by chance at Lake Louise). For her part, Bettie Blue performed beautifully (aside from one blown coolant hose that I was able to fix en route) traversing the 3300 km return trip across the prairies in style and comfort.

The weather, unfortunately, crapped out a mere two days after I arrived in the mountains this year (always a risk in late August)—a whiteout on my first summit sortie, snowfall well below the treeline, freezing overnight temperatures in the valleys, and an extended forecast for cold precipitation conspired to push me back eastward earlier than planned—though this did allow me to make it back to Manitoba in time to assist Ev during the past days with The Wave Artists Studio Tour.

Photo: Bettie Blue posed in front of Cascade Mountain on Tunnel Mountain Drive above The Banff Centre (just before the weather turned nasty).

(You can take this one to the bank… thanks Marian).

(from Issue 19 of Geez magazine, by Nicholas Klassen)

I figure we human beings have always been hard on nature. I mean, cutting down trees and killing animals appear to be pretty fundamental to the human experience.

What’s striking about us Western Moderns, however, is the intentionality and aggressiveness of our antagonism towards nature. And it’s not just the fact that we’ve increased in number. No, more than that, the dominant Western worldview is deliberately anchored in a narrative that framed nature as a dangerous place that we needed to subdue and hold “dominion” over. At the same time, wilderness was stripped of its spiritual potency so it could become exploitable real estate to be mined for the purposes of accumulating wealth.

Consider: ancient people didn’t see themselves as distinct from nature, and they didn’t see nature as inanimate. Everything wild was “inspirited” or “ensouled.” Not just animals, but everything – mountains, rivers, forests. As a result, nature warranted a certain reverence, even a divine status.

As we began to farm and later industrialize, however, we created something new to worship: Progress. The corresponding demands for unfettered economic and technological growth meant that the wilderness needed to be “de-spiritualized” and human interests needed to be set up in opposition to nature’s interests. Simply put, we had to justify our assault on the Earth.

The architects of modernity were extremely bullish on this project – though it’s not really fair to single them out, given that they were merely putting a name to contemporary humanity’s urge to exploit. Regardless, Enlightenment thinkers rallied around the assessment of scientists like Galileo and Newton that nature operated as an interlocking series of pushing and pulling mechanisms, devoid of any mystical qualities. With that as the backdrop, philosophers like Thomas Hobbes famously described the State of Nature as a “war of all against all” where lives are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Coercive authority was the salve for that. Francis Bacon – throwing in a dose of sexism for good measure – framed nature as a woman who needed to be enslaved. For Bacon, glorious technical advancements “do not merely exert a gentle guidance over Nature’s courses, they have the power to conquer and subdue her, to shake her to her foundations.” René Descartes considered animals non-sentient mechanical beings and proclaimed the need to “make ourselves masters and possessors of nature.”

By the same token, Christianity’s victory over paganism instilled a new worldview that nature in and of itself wasn’t sacred, but was rather the creation of a transcendent god – that is, a god apart from the world. Add to that a dualistic distinction between the spirit and the physical, and a divine commission in Genesis to exercise “dominion” over creation and “fill and subdue the Earth,” and, well, you can see how nature didn’t stand a chance.

With the weight of philosophy and religion behind it, the narrative of humanity’s transcendency of and mastery over nature was assured. And oh, how it has thrived. Today, many contemporary Christians have embraced it to the point where they are actively hostile to the idea that we should work to preserve the environment. Like the now-deceased but still influential reverend Jerry Falwell who insisted in a CNN interview that the “myth” of global warming was “created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability.” His response to this supposed snow job? “I urge everyone to go out and buy an SUV today.”

Other Christians consider environmentalism a form of idolatry, because they fear the rights of an “inanimate” planet and its non-human creatures are held in higher esteem than God. Others still figure the plight of the Earth doesn’t matter because it’s not our permanent home. If, after all, the Rapture is coming, who cares if glaciers are looking spotty? There is, of course, a healthy contingent of Christians who reject this narrative and are building a new one. It’s a narrative that sees nature as full of divine spirit – a place that is just fine as it is and doesn’t need to be “improved” by humans. Sure, we’ve been tasked as caretakers by an immanent god, but that doesn’t mean we are to preside over nature. Rather, we are called to recognize that we are embedded in it.

This new narrative builds on an ancient one. It’s a reclamation of something our supposedly “primitive” forebears understood. It’s a re-reading of oft-cited Genesis verses with a new lens – this time with an emphasis on our divine appointment to tread lightly and humbly in a life-giving biosphere. It’s a re-alignment with the likes of Francis of Assisi, who understood the holiness of communing with God through the physical, material world – the sun, the trees, the birds. And it might just be the key to our survival as a species.

Nicholas Klassen is a principal at Biro Creative, a former senior editor at Adbusters magazine, and a contributing editor to Geez (which has a fresh new website with lots more great writing and thought-provoking online content here).

[Full disclosure: I have been an avid supporter of Geez magazine since before its launch, and I’m still listed on the masthead as an ‘advisor.’ The above photo is of sun-kissed apples in my garden.]

Vancouver, BC

Ominous clouds move swiftly upon an otherwise placid summer sky, blanketing it in darkness. A brief flash of light gives way to slow thunder that groans achingly in the distance. Our hero looks up past the brim of his dusty, worn hat—knowing and weary. An epic battle is afoot…  and this is how the movies begin.

The notion of a meritocracy

I was raised a capitalist. The child of immigrant parents, I came to believe that capitalism was fundamentally just and egalitarian, with the vast bulk of wealth largely shared amongst those who worked hardest for it. For my mom and dad, and many of their era, this steadfast belief turned out to be both necessary and at times quite accurate. They started with little, toiled deliberately to build a life for themselves, and saved (when I’m sure they would have preferred to do otherwise), all so their kids could have access to opportunities that weren’t available to them.

I have to admit that when I too held to this construct, most things seemed to make sense, and the world appeared infinity simpler: The people who “picked themselves up by the bootstraps” could prevail over anything; Those with the best ideas profited from them; I would have even reasoned that those less fortunate were likely so as a result of their own volition.

I oversimplify how I once pictured things, in part for the sake of this story (any more detail, and I fear you’d nod off). Nevertheless, I must admit that I looked at things in polarizing terms, seeing few other possibilities. Perhaps I was also a bit naïve, believing that most things must “balance out” in favor of the honest and decent.

 The world we’ve created

To think in those same terms today, I would either be a fool, or one of those great many, steadfastly determined to maintain a comfortable illusion (but an illusion nevertheless). This fantasy I speak of is one that persists regardless of its cost to our neighbors or future generations. It’s one that requires us to not ask questions.

In subscribing to it, we can’t allow ourselves to wonder how corporations afford us such (suspiciously) under-priced goods. We can never ask how all our trash magically disappears each day, and why we rarely find it in our own backyards. We must in no way challenge notions that masquerade as plain fact: perhaps best illustrated by the deluge of products brought to market using the words “eco” or “green” as prefixes, with little real consideration as to what such words should actually represent.

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Read the rest of this great online article by Eric Karjaluoto on his blog ideasonideas here… (article re-posted with permission).

Falcon Lake, Manitoba

My rockin’ kid brother John Paul Peters just completed his first 24-hour mountain bike race this last weekend. Not only did he survive, he even managed a 2nd place in the open solo category. Here’s how JP describes the experience on his blog, 29erlove.blogspot.com

“Well, it was great to race, and it was almost as good to finally be done. Each hole punched in the license plate represent a 7-km lap completed. Not an overly fast pace, the course was quite technical in places and fairly rooty and wet in the woods. Dallas told me early on that there would be sections of the trail that, after encountering over and over again, I would absolutely despise. He was right. There was that little mud hole just after the first climb. Had a way of draining my speed EVERY single time as I eventually gave up looking for that perfect line. There was that squishy swamp where I got stung in the butt cheek at least twice by wasps (pain then, Itch now). And there was that technical rocky section about half way through where several sharp rocks tried their hardest to puncture my sidewalls (luckily they were thwarted).

This was my first experience with a 24-hour race and in many ways it lived up to my expectations. There would be periods of intense desire to quit riding. There would be butt pains, hand pains, leg pains, gut pains, and all sorts of pain I’d probably never experienced. I did learn that I can stay on a bike longer than I thought I could. I learned that cantaloupe is the greatest thing in the world after 12 hours of racing. I learned that a little mud added repeatedly over the course of a number of hours has the ability to stop things from working. I learned that having someone to cheer you up and encourage you means that much more so many hours into the race. Vanessa is awesome. Thanks to everyone who was such a great cheering section for the racers (fgbc crew at the top of the list!) Renee T. even took a slow lap with me to help keep me human. Thanks dude!

Things that did not live up to my expectations: my butt is not sore from riding 23 hours—it is only sore from wasp stings.

I had no idea I could last as long as I did. I’m looking forward to getting feeling back into my left hand and being able to bend over to tie my shoes.

Great times… some random photos here…

24 Hours of Falcon Ridge official site here ”

Congratulations, little bro!

Winnipeg, Canada

I’ve always been interested in the oral narratives that are passed on from one generation to another. The launch of INDIGO’s Mother Tongue project provided incentive to begin a series of graphic “copyfree” posters featuring such stories as told by First Peoples. Above are the first two pieces: Two Wolves features the well-known Cherokee tale of the battle between good and evil as told by an elder to his grandson; Turtle includes the Anishinaabe story of how the turtle got its shell, and passes on the knowledge of the 13 large moons and 28 smaller segments that appear on the back of every turtle (many First Nations descendants are taught that the turtle shell represents the perfect depiction of the lunar year—I learned of this from one of our Indigenous clients).

You can read the stories (or download, distribute, or print these posters) here: Two Wolves (1.2 MB PDF); Turtle (1.3 MB PDF).

Thanks to Adrian J. K. Shum for your assistance. Credit for the wolf images goes to www.firstpeople.us

Winnipeg, Canada

The great Canadian educator, philosopher, scholar, literary critic, rhetorician, and communication theorist Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born 99 years ago today and grew up here in the ‘Peg (he attended Kelvin High School). Fitting, then, that I would receive an e-mail today from good friend (and former Circle colleague) Kevin Guenther (who knows that I’m somewhat of a McLuhan fan)… providing a link to a video clip of a classic piece of Woody Allen cinema that Marshall makes a cameo appearance in (Kevin came across it via Boing Boing… Sorry link is broken).

Good fun. Thanks, Kevin!