Art: Painters, Music, Writings Group shows Toronto, Borenstein Retro Montreal, Warhol, Basquiat, Deborah Evans Price, Jimi

TORONTO EXHIBITIONS ...

Reviews of 3 Summer Group Shows in Toronto, Gary Michael Dault, "Art with Little Afterglow," Globe & Mail, July 30, 2005. Gary Michael Dault branched out from painting and other artistic pursuits, to become a leading reviewer of Gallery exhibitions in Toronto. I've read his write-ups off and on for some decades now. He's still at it, and is superiour to most such guys, as he draws you into an atmosphere and then the works within it. Even when he pans a show, he manages to be interesting; he reassures that you that its worthwhile to describe and make judgments about artistic works then pass those results on to the public which bothers with the whole endevour. In these reviews he pinpoints some contributions that he found quite worthwhile, so the title may or may not be his. - Owlb

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MONTREAL

Online Tour thru Art of Little-Known Canadian, Sam Borenstein (1908-1969 Troubled Cosmic in Bright Colours amidst Snow. CBC.ca Photo Gallery, by Matt Hays, no date for duration online, so view it now; 10 slides; from a major retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
I enjoyed the set of Borenstein's pieces online; take a look. - Owlb

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WRITINGS ON PAINTERS

Snap, crackle, and pop art - Warhol exploited the system on which his art and celebrity was based., by Timothy Cahill, Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2005. Andy Warhold actually wrote up his philosophy of life as art, From A to B, and Back Again. In it he celebrates surfaces and superficialities. but with such nuances that that the complexities overwhelm, at least by way of talk talk talk about the images that he was ever repeating and changing only in small details and superficial ways. He got shot in the head by the radical militant feminist who wrote the SCUM Manifesto. In Canada, his general idea was taken up by a trio of artists (what then used to be called "an art collective") called General Idea. You get the geneal idea, I'm sure. I understand they were largely funded by the government - oops! hands-off ... (or is it?) ... arms-length arts councils.- Owlb

Short life, big impact: Basquiat, by Gloria Goodale, Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2005. Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) "came to personify the art scene of the 80s, with its merging of youth culture, money, hype, excess, and self-destruction. And then there was the work, which the public image tended to overshadow: paintings and drawings that conjured up marginal urban black culture and black history, as well as the artist's own conflicted sense of identity." There's a major exhibition of his work, July 17-October 10, 2005, at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. - Owlb

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MUSIC

Christian artists breathe new life into old hymns,Deborah Evans Price, Billboard via Detroit News, July 31, 2005. "Their modern spins on the classics feed the soul of the religious revival in America." There's a whole new round of that "old-time religion" when it comes to its music. A major process of transformation and renewal, while keeping the essential core in new musical idioms turns out to be a nationwide powerful renaissance of song that the "mainstream" culture has few antennae to discern. - Owlie Scowlie

Flashy, raucous, sad: the Jimi Hendrix experience, by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Christian Science Monitor, August 02, 200. "Book recounts contribution: By the age of 27 he had revolutionized rock music." He flourished during the years of 1968 thru 1970, but in that time he gave new meaning to the guitar, now electrified, as a virtuoso instrument. I remember the first time I heard his version of The Star-Spangled Banner which can be taken as a political statement (if so, then one knows the difference from this experience of listening that there's a vast difference between "political" music, and political music). But I never got hung-up on his disaffections from the political system. I responded to the sheer inventiveness of his taking something old and familiar, however difficult to sing, and transforming it into an instrumental of great power, dissonance and all, that still carried in its midst the familiarity of the tradition of American national anthem. The new book about Jimi tells of his evading the draft by pretending he was homo; and, of course, it has to tell the story of his addiction, and of his death most miserable. I hope he has found peace at last. I believe that at death, we begin to dissolve in all aspects of our life, until as mere electromagnetic ripples our forensic traces waft out into the universe, held together in some altered state of being by the power of the Lord in an Interim State, wherein to each of us the Lord Jesus comes in dreams to encounter us, to dialogue with us, to heal us, to bring us into communion with Himself, and prepare us for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life Everlasting. Only those who thru that process refuse the encounter have the fate of being granted separation from God in Christ - folks like Hitler, I presume. Unlike the refuseniks, I trust to see Jimi after he emerges from the Interim State again to play his guitar. Peace at last. Someday. - Owlb