New Art Exhibition: Lost Cat by the Wilson Family

The Wilson Family is a guerrilla art collective based out of Prentice Drive in Toronto whose exhibitions across the city are garnering much attention from the establishment. Their previous works include the much-lauded Garage Sale on Saturday exhibition and the limited edition piece entitled Please Do Not Park Here. Their latest work, Lost Cat, is their most ambitious yet.

Lost Cat takes the same form as the Wilsons’ previous projects: 8 x 11 inch paper in the portrait orientation, stapled to various telegraph poles and fences around the Prentice Drive area. Fans of the Wilsons are encouraged to seek out the artworks in a four-block radius of the Wilson abode, as there are four different posters, each of which appears to have been duplicated and displayed at least fifteen times.

The subject matter of Lost Cat differs from Garage Sale and Please Do Not Park Here. Whereas the previous two were scathing commentaries on capitalism, property ownership and personal space, Lost Cat is a poignant paean to loss and regret.

The first artwork that I found was delicately stapled to a wooden telegraph pole. At the top of the work was the title, “Lost Cat”, and underneath it was a black and white photograph of an adult tabby. At the bottom of the paper was information on the cat’s name, age and a number to call if we, the viewers, see this feline. The other three posters in the series all conveyed similar information, with slightly different wording and pictures.

The first thing to strike me about this artwork is that it truly captures the sadness and disappointment that comes with loss. Here, the loss of something precious has been conveyed through a beloved family pet, but the artists could so easily be talking about the death of a relative, the theft of an heirloom or the pain of a love gone astray. When the thing can no longer be found, and when it is something that is not responsible for its own non-being, then we are forced to try and find it ourselves, and here the exhibition evokes a new emotion: futility.

The more posters that one sees displayed in this exhibition, the more one feels the sense of desperation and ultimate failure that the Wilsons are trying to convey. The wording of the posters, with their plaintive ‘please’ and ‘reward offered’, also creates tenderness, false hope and a sense of impending mourning.

The pictures of the cat are a wonderful masterstroke. He looks for all the world like a regular household pet, lounging in that way that cats are wont to do, ostensibly in better times, when he wasn’t ‘missing’. The viewer is brought in by this added layer of interaction, our mind’s eye can picture this poor, lost feline trying to find its way around the city, not knowing where its favourite blanket is. Extend this mental picture to a vision of a deceased loved one or forgotten romance, and it become all the more sad; we see the cat as a representation of our doomed affairs, and it becomes clear that we will never again have that innocent love.

I also love the placing of the artworks. Each is held up by a single staple, showing an almost tactile fragility that could allow it to be blown away in a strong wind. The breeze creates a movement within the pieces that bring us closer to them. This movement and fragility also shows us how fleeting our relationships are; how quickly they can be taken from us.

I would certainly recommend that anyone in the Prentice Drive area check out this exhibition, which is running until all the posters are covered by ads for roofing companies, or until Ruffles is found, whichever comes first.

Admission to the Lost Cat exhibition is free. If you have any information about the whereabouts of Ruffles, please call the Wilson family on 416-555-5055.

Performance Art Review: Guelph Psychiatric Hospital Annual Festival

For fans of performance art, it’s one of the biggest days in the year. Guelph Psychiatric Hospital opens its doors to the public for one day in January, and art lovers are able to enjoy the wonderful and thought-provoking works by the very talented artists in the building. 2009’s event was last weekend, and I went along with high hopes of a day chock full of art, and shit.

I certainly wasn’t let down, either. It’s amazing to think that one mental health institute is home to so many people with incredible ability in the world of performance art.

Take relative newcomer Justin Scroat, for example. His performance piece, in which he stood in a corner for six hours, shouting “You!” at the top of his voice and pulling out his hair, was highly moving. It really conveyed the frustration and twenty-first century ennui one feels for simply existing as a physical entity. When I approached Justin to discuss the piece after his performance had appeared to have finished, he merely wept to himself; such was the power and poignancy of his work.

Baron Fleeek von Habbitty Habbitty Cotswolds is, by contrast to Justin, an old hand at the performance art game, and a perennial favourite at this event. This year’s piece, in which he dressed as a policeman and pretended to fellate a tree in the garden, was no different. The subtlety and depth of meaning – no doubt about the inadequacy and futility of a society led by toothless seniority figures – was quite beautiful in its execution.

A visiting group from the Guelph Society of Art-Loving Young Ladies of a Weak Disposition were so shocked by the artwork created by Timothy Ultimate Frisbee that they fainted and had to be brought round by smelling salts. Mister Ultimate Frisbee’s performance piece involved him deconstructing a teabag using his face. It was powerful, powerful stuff, full of animalistic intent. And tea leaves.

Ian Ian is another newcomer to this festival, and wasn’t as well-received as some of the others. Maybe his piece, in which he stood still for great periods of time before attacking random festival-goers with a sardine tin with the key missing, was too subtle. He was, I believe, conveying the message that failure can creep up on anyone, but it was lost to most. I hope he will improve next year.

Finally, the most disappointing piece of performance art was the one executed by David Wrent. I was most saddened by the fact that it was exactly the same as the one he used for last year’s festival. In it, Wrent follows various festival-goers around the event, pretending to be a sane man trapped in an asylum and imploring them to get help so he could be rescued. The idea, though interesting, swiftly became tiresome when he refused to let go of one’s ankles, and I for one was moved to surreptitiously kick him in the head.

So, as always, this was a generally good selection of performance art from a highly talented group of artistic individuals. I can’t wait for next year, when organisers tell me the participants will – if the behave – have access to power tools.

For year round access to the artists at Guelph’s finest artistic enterprise, simply stand in a car park, signing Frere Jacques at the top of your voice while pleasuring yourself, and wait for the authorities to pick you up.

The White House Collection of Presidential Romance Novel Cover Portraits

When George Washington became the first president of the United States, he was worried that the people of America would not accept him as a strong, unifying leader. To make sure he was seen as someone worthy of being in charge of the country, he had a portrait commissioned by one of the greatest artists in the country at that time. Being wary of the public’s suspicion of the English monarchy, Washington paid the artist to paint him in a scene that would show the American public his strength, sensitivity and intelligence. He was painted as the hero in the cover to a romance novel.

Since then, one of the lesser known parts of the constitution makes it essential for all American presidents to have their portraits painted in this way. Until now, the pictures have been hidden away along a corridor of the White House, seen only by the presidents themselves and their families (and lovers!), but now the collection has been released for a world tour, and I was at the press premiere, like a dashing international playboy/thief.

The paintings show a wealth of different artistic talent from the decades of American history. Each canvas shows a world leader in a different romantic pose, their muscles bulging and with a fair maiden in their arms. All bosoms are understandably ample.

It is interesting to note the personalities of the presidents shining through in each picture. John F. Kennedy, for example, is shown as a dashing buccaneer, swinging on a rope from ship to ship with a knife between his teeth and a buxom blonde in his large, muscled arm. The expression of intent and fearless derring-do in his eyes looks all the more tragic with the benefit of hindsight.

Fast forward some decades and George W. Bush’s romance novel portrait looks somewhat odd in comparison. The reason for this, undoubtedly, is that the current president did not adequately explain the purpose of the picture to the artist, and Mister Bush was painted as the damsel in distress, rather than the hero. The wags present at the exhibition commented on how prescient the artist must have been. I stifled a giggle.

The delight in many of these paintings comes from the details. For example, note in the portrait of Bill Clinton (reproduced here), the bulge in his trousers as he clasps his arm around the infatuated redhead. The long knife in his other hand, situated to the left of the groin area, gives some impression of the size of what lies within Clinton’s tight beige pants.

Ronald Reagan’s portrait shows him dressed as a fire fighter, rescuing a nightgown-clad woman from a blazing building. What sets this painting apart from the rest of the collection is that while the females in the other paintings are universally attractive (allowing the American people to envision themselves as the second half of the President/Public Partnership that makes democracy), here Reagan is rescuing a rather aged, ugly woman. On closer inspection, the love interest appears to be Margaret Thatcher. An interesting and telling detail, and no mistaking.

All in all, this exhibition is a thoroughly enjoyable one, and shows off both the greatest romance novel cover artists of successive generations, as well as the way that American presidents were seen by them. If you can get over the disturbing nature of some of these pictures (The one portraying Richard Nixon as a Victorian-era Schoolmaster actually made me burp up a little bit of sick), there is a lot to enjoy here. And while you do, why not try to picture the next president of the US, whoever that may be, as the subject of a romance novel cover painting? It’s fun! Really it is!

The White House Collection of Presidential Romance Novel Cover Portraits will be travelling all over the world, starting in Australia on Monday, Japan on Tuesday, Russia on Wednesday, Germany on Friday (it’s having a rest on Thursday) and Mexico all weekend. Postcards are available, but none have pictures on them.

Art Review: Men at Work by Allied Construction Ltd and Davenham Estates Inc.

The new collaboration by up and coming art punks Allied Construction Ltd and Davenham Estates Inc. has got the art world salivating like a bunch of Pavlov’s dogs in a doorbell factory. Located on the corner of St Clair and Avenue in downtown Toronto, the installation – entitled ‘Men at Work’ – is an absolute triumph.

Both emotionally stirring and beautiful at the same time, Men at Work features a group of adult males pretending to work on the creation of a new building. No detail has been spared by the artists; trucks full of supplies come and go, scaffolding has been erected around the shell of the ‘building’, signs have been put up to warn the spectators about the dangers of the site and it really does look like actual work is taking place. There is even a sign advertising a sales office complete with ‘Show Room’, claiming that finished apartments will be available from Summer 2010 from two million dollars.

Looking at Men at Work, one is filled with an immense feeling of satisfaction, of man as creator, as artist, as constructor. It is clear that the artists are saying, ‘Look at us! We’re creating! We’re constructing!’ and they do this by comparing their own vocations to those of their fellow creators. The assorted detritus scattered around the site show us that no act of creation is without its waste, and that art is not always as simple and clean as the galleries would have us believe, sometimes. Art can be messy.

And while the gloomy carapace of the unfinished building can take on a certain gloominess in its surroundings, the artists have added some wonderfully playful touches to the piece. Take, for example, the bright yellow hats worn by the ‘builders’, which brighten the mood as well as protect their wearers from any falling masonry.

Men at Work is a thrilling piece of art, both bold and fragile at the same time. In the several hours I stood watching it I felt a sense of awe at the creative power of mankind, and yet I was also compelled to fear how easily it could all be brought down, by the barbarians at our gates or an overtired crane operator.

Few things will prepare you for the tremendous piece of art that is Men at Work. I recommend that you go and see it. With daily showings until 2010, you have no excuse.

Men at Work by Allied Construction Ltd and Davenham Estate Inc, on display on the corner of Avenue and St. Clair, Toronto, until summer 2010. Price of admission: Free. Price of finished apartments: $2m to $8.5m (Penthouse). Prices include valet parking and personal elevators. For enquiries, please call Matthew on 416-555-6913. Post no bills.

Photography Retrospective - Gunchen Maladroit: A Life in Frame

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Gunchen Maladroit's contribution to photography. Well, it's not impossible, so to speak, but rather ill-advised. The last person to play down Maladroit's artistic worth (Daily Schneisser art critic Justav Fliminim) was executed by German authorities using a giant pestle and mortar; his body turned to paste that was later fed to his children in baps. Such is Maladroit's sway over the art world.

Now the Tate Gallery in Lincoln is hosting a retrospective of the diminutive German's work, and the Imaginary Review was the first reviewer camped out at the gallery gates on the day of opening, beating Marina Hyde of the Observer by three minutes.

The earliest stage in Maladroit's career can be summed up by the stunning photograph seen right, 1956's Oh my God! It chafes! It chafes!

As the rest of Germany was struggling to get over the Second World War and that wall that was built, Maladroit focussed on more 'at home' problems, like the inability to purchase cotton underwear. When it was first displayed in 1958, Oh My God! It Chafes! It chafes! caused a sensation in Berlin and twenty-seven people had to be castrated.

The composition of the photograph here is less importart to Maladroit than the message, so there is somewhat of a naivety about it; rules of perspective are unknown and therefore disregarded with an unknowing glance.


The next picture that we have paid a great deal to reproduce is Track 5: Insect Royalty from Maladroit's 1966 series entitled Entschuldegung! (pictured right). The work is among some of Gunchen's finest, with pathos, bathos and pathetic fallacy all jettisoned in favour of some black and white stuff. It is said that Maladroit went to some of the most beautiful places in the world using his grant money, and then refused to take photos in those locations, instead enjoying watersports and nightlife. His reason for this, he claimed, was that 'life is not beautiful, so why just I represent it that way in my photographs?' His detractors asked why he would piss away his grant money in exotic locations, but once a few of them started disappearing, dissenting voices were few and far between.


1980's I Have Lost My Cat XIX shows a low point in the photographer's life, when he lost his cat and was unable to think of any pretentious names for his pictures. Despite this, his work from this period displays a wonderful sense of ennui and sadness, to which I'm sure anyone who has lost a pet can relate. The vivid greys, the stilted light blues, all point their fingers towards a cloud of despair, but in some ways the pictures themselves have clouds that are shaped like aubergines.

Maladroit's cat was found in 1982. It had moved to Finland to be with a postman named Maurice.


Between the years of 1982 and 1990 Gunchen Maladroit began his 'black period',
when he would arrange the most beautiful still lifes and reclining nudes (evoking the most ostentatious art of the previous few centuries) but photograph these scenes with his lens cap still attached to his camera. Most of these works are rubbish, but one from 1988 stands out: the quite atypical Gamera Hollow Chestnut Maxim IV: A Man Named Len Goodman Will Come and He WIll Judge A Dancing Competition. The black lines and crosses are from the Japanese symbol for 'poetry'; the picture was taken by accident when a small Brazillian child stole Maladroit's camera and, thinking it was a gun, tried to shoot his mother with it. Maladroit was so enamoured with the photograph and the child that he adopted the boy as his own son, and passed the picture off as his own.


In 1995 Maladroit re-emerged on the photography scene with a big bag of pictures and some scabby knees. Apparently he had been trapped underneath a fallen portrait of Casper Hauser in his living room for several months, and nobody had noticed he was gone. He survived on a diet of carpet dust and gin, but luckily his camera was with him at all times. Here is one of them, Won't Somebody Please Come and Get Me Out of Here? I've Pissed Myself Eighteen Times Now and I'm Really Cold. It shows Gunchen's marvelous eye for detail and dedication to his art; despite having been trapped on the floor of his house for many weeks by this time, he still paid attention to the composition of the piece.


Gunchen Maladroit has taken some more photos especially for this exhibition, and for the accompanying coffee table book. The one that we have been able to show here, Wikipedia Can Kiss My Arse, Non-Notable Artist My Foot (2007) again displays the versatility and talent of the artist. If only we knew what it was supposed to be. If you tilt your head a bit it looks like Cameron Crowe.

So, Gunchen Maladroit: A Life in Frame contains all the pictures that you need to see on a rainy Lincoln afternoon. Plus it's free to enter, so that's a bonus. But the food in the restaurant is extremely overpriced. So this exhibition gets four stars (out of five).

All the pretty pictures will be on display until 2011, when the gallery will burn down mysteriously. The book accompanying the exhibition, Gunchen Maladroit: A Life in Frame: The Book Accompanying the Exhibition will be available in shops priced twenty quid, or three hundred quid for the special limited edition which comes with its own coffee table.

Art Exhibition Review: Saint Whopp's (CofE) Primary School

I attended the opening night of Saint Whopp's Primary School's annual art exhibition with my son, Monty, hoping that this year's festival of paint would be better than last year's godawful shiteshow. How wrong I was.

Take Tommy Chapstick's work, for example, if you want to see why St Whopp's school is famed for its laughable art. The thick strokes of blue, yellow and red are daubed on the paper in such an amateurish fashion that I initially thought someone had mounted dog vomit on the wall. If only they had. Chapstick (6 and a half) should be ashamed of the drivel to which he is subjecting the world. It was all I could do to stop myself from spitting on the painting, entitled, incidentally, My Mummy.

Suzie Bedknobs (5) is another artist whose work would be better off used as toilet paper in the elephant house at the zoo. While her vivid swirly circles are no doubt intended to evoke the spirit of Kandinsky, instead they evoke the kind of bloated indigestion that one gets after eating too many snails. Maybe the swirls are supposed to be snails. Who can tell? Who cares? Not I.

I have never felt as physically sick when looking at a work of art as when looking at seven year old Robert Fromme's painting, My House. Not even during Pierre Gabstank's installation that comprised of nothing but rotten eggs and deer crap. The shit on the paper was enough to make me shout obscenities at Fromme's father, Bill. Fromme Sr. became angry with me so I resorted to punching him for raising such an untalented child. Then I punched Robert for being so crap.

The only saving grace in the entire show was the wonderful work by brilliant genius child Monty Reviewer. The beauty of the subtle, gradiated colours in his painting, Daddy, were enough to put tears in my eyes. That the hands of the figure in his painting had seven and ten fingers, respectively, was unimportant. The child really caught the essence, the spirit of his subject. This work alone is more than enough to make up for the rest of the dross on display here. So come and see for yourself!

Saint Whopp's Primary School's art exhibition is on until their next art lesson, when the paintings will be sent home with the kids. To discourage nonces, all male visitors to the school must leave their testicles with the bursar.

Art Exhibition Review: Timpani Suicide by Gustav Chichester

Wandering through the Marsupial Art Gallery in Whentwich, I find myself staggered by the innocuousness of the exhibits on display. Nothing of Gustav Chichester’s new show, Timpani Suicide, makes me fear for my safety; nothing looks like it’s going to jump out and attack me, rendering my flesh and using my eyeballs as fancy dice. Despite this, I try to enjoy the experience, but the lack of any perceivable threat keeps coming back to hamper my visit.

Take the massive installation piece, ‘Gradhat’, for example. The centre of the piece is a statue of a girl who looks about eight or nine, holding a bear’s head and looking very pleased with herself, while around her a group of giant dragonflies hang playfully from the ceiling. My initial reaction to this work was one of great joy, but this was soon curtailed when I realized that the sounds of screams and sobbing accompanying the work where not actually intended by the artist, but were actually coming through an open window from the cemetery next door. His other installations also lack a similar sense of dystrophy. ‘Reductionist Landscape’, featuring ten stoats hanging by their necks from the ceiling, has far too much comforting nuance in it for my liking. I didn’t feel moved by the lifeless animal corpses; I felt comfortable, at home, as if I was back in my penthouse in High Wycombe.

Chichester’s canvasses evoke a similar mundane verisimilitude. The red and blue-lead abstract works are reminiscent of the much-imitated Brian Topp, though without the latter’s wonderful sense of anger, pain, fear and aggression. ‘Untitled 4’, ‘Formerly Untitled, Now Called “Florence”’ and ‘Titled (But I’m Not Saying What the Title is)’ would not seem out of place in a doctor’s surgery. Indeed, the cow’s heart pinned to the latter with tent pegs reinforced my viewpoint.

Timpani Suicide marks a period in Gustav Chichester’s oeuvre when he has moved from bold, brash statements of intent to cloying, safe, drama-less tat. I look forward to his moving from this unfortunate lull.

Timpani Suicide is on at the Marsupial Art Gallery, Whentwich, until September. Entry is free to breastfeeding mothers.