The Marshall McLuhan House (The Coach House) at the University of Toronto is an elusive house tucked away on Queen’s Park Crescent. A small and cozy environment for the display of one of Toronto’s most renowned thinkers of media theory, I couldn’t help but tip toe gingerly into the home as if I were a tentative guest of Mr. McLuhan himself. Welcoming me into the home with stark walls were friendly faces and passionate tour guides, explaining the new take on a relevant idea. Robert Bean is a Canadian artist who was commissioned to create new media installations and curate a home of pieces that would animate Marshall McLuhan’s visionary take on media.

From type to written, all media is still seemingly so intertwined, but communicated in varying medium. Vintage visuals such as the telegraph and the first computer (what a sight!) were included in the display.

Always a pleasure. “What are you doing, Mr. McCluhan?”

Learn more about the exhibit as part of Scotiabank’s CONTACT 2011 Photography Festival: http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com/Primary-Exhibitions/491

In the shuffle of getting from exhibit to exhibit, I managed to struggle into a door and realized immediately after that there was a giant open garage door right next to where I was standing. I flitted into 129 Tecumseth St and walked through the stark gallery. Greeted by a friendly gallery employee, I was briefed quickly on how the artists were sharing an exhibit with the theme of “found objects”. Memorandoms by James Nizam is a series of celebrated sculptures that showcase the use of furnishings and seemingly random pieces, as art.

In Memorandoms, James Nizam’s photographs focus on the former Little Mountain Housing Project–the oldest public housing development in Vancouver–recently demolished to make way for a higher-density combination of market condominiums and social housing. Over the course of several months, Nizam documented a series of ephemeral sculptures that he constructed from accumulations of remnants such as doors, drawers, shelves, and various other architectural furnishings. Within these images, the sculptural figure comes to life, introducing the idea that through the performance of transformative, memorializing gestures, loss can be reanimated with purpose and meaning.

Ossington has been a mainstay lately (let the hipster jokes begin). On this fine street exists Gallery TPW at 56 Ossington – the destination for Eric Gottesman’s showcase for “Paths that Cross Again”, a human tale of how he came to know Tenanesh Kifyalew, a young and charming girl with an unfortunate terminal disease. He provides a recollection of his experiences bringing her about town in a white dress, he opens with a dialogue with her mother who has trouble hearing and understanding him. He brings a sullen story to life on stark white walls. It transcends just photography – it embodies a poignant tale of desperation and soul seeking.

And of course, as I couldn’t add any colourful writing in nearly as well as the abstracts could, here it is from the CONTACT Exhibit:

The exhibition is placed within the context of Gallery TPW’s history working with documentary photography and more recently within the field of politicized relational aesthetics–a set of artistic practices that performs and interrogates the social contexts of human relations. As such, the installation is based on acknowledging the complexities and complicities of working transnationally across difference and privilege. The figure/ground relationship serves as a framework for posing a series of questions regarding image/text, subject/artist and world/ institution. This exhibition asks whether it is possible to experience images on multiple registers simultaneously and rework such binary understandings of the image and its production.

Bless.

My first stop was by far the front runner for Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Events – Edward Burtynsky‘s exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum titled “Oil” had me hungrily waltzing the exhibit. Every image had an incredibly and inexplicable visual depth to it. Every photo presented a lingering message.

Oil-filled footprints, images of Alberta oil sands, and over-commercialization. Excess. Motor Culture. Every image was vivid and mesmerizing. I do have to admit to a slight bout of shame, where I didn’t realize that photography within the photography exhibit was strictly prohibited (I guess I was so wrapped up into the exhibit that the sign was unbeknownst to me). Rest assured, once I realized I tucked the camera away for some quality observation time. You’d enjoy it too.

OIL is on until July 3, 2011 – so you still have some time to immerse yourself.

Learn more about the exhibit here: http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com/events/486

I have my share of fandom for the Gladstone Hotel – warm wood paneling, intricate welcome furniture, and boutique, historical elements complete this far, far Queen West Hotel. With Parkdale at the other side of the bridge, the Gladstone Hotel is in the middle of the booming and blossoming.

I started my packed Saturday with the Gladstone first – it’s always a good feeling to begin at something so familiar and inviting. After a quick sneak into the Art Bar and finding the wrong display (though it was lovely nonetheless), I tiptoed up the creaking stairs, and eyed the manual elevator following suit. Martie Giefert’s “reconstruction” was at the forefront.

The remarkable part of this exhibit was how intentional the staging of the art was. It was deceitful on the eyes. Being an exhibit about the setting itself (meaning the pictures were of the design of the floor of the Gladstone), it recreates “spatial encounters”. Deja vu, of the spatial kind. You’d have to see it to believe it.

What I enjoyed was walking through the hallways of the open gallery space, and marveling at the floor’s “Inception”-like qualities. Leo would be proud.