G.W. Hatt Curriculum Vitae and Bibliography

Education

• M.A., University of Toronto, (November 1985)
• Major: History of Art; Area Specialization: Modern
• Language Examinations: German and Italian
• B.A. Hons., University of Toronto, (November 1982)
• Major: History of Art

Directorial and Curatorial Experience

• Executive Director, CAFKA - Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, Kitchener, ON (2008 - 2020).
• Guest Curator, Portrait of a Painter, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, ON, (Jan. 2010).
• Guest Curator, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto (Oct. 2008).
• Director/Curator, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON (2004 - 07).
• Curator, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON (1997 - 2004).
• Programme Coordinator, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON (1988 - 1996).
• Director/Curator, Durham Art Gallery, Durham, ON (1985-1988).

Teaching Experience

• Instructor, Visual Arts Department, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON (2005 - 07).
• Instructor, Department of Fine Arts, University of Toronto, Scarborough College (1986 - 87).
• Teaching Assistant, Department of Fine Arts, University of Toronto (Semester I, 1984 - 85).

Bibliography

• "Make Noise and Be Heard: Benoît Maubrey’s ARENA at CAFKA.18," CAFKA.18: RECOGNIZE EVERYONE, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2018, https://www.cafka.org/cafka18/arena.
• “Mary Ma: Wind Water Wave,” CAFKA.16: WHAT WE DO TOGETHER THAT WE CAN’T DO ALONE, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2016, http://www.cafka.org/cafka16/11-mary-ma-toronto-wind-water-wave.
• “Jaime Angelopoulos: Swoon,” CAFKA.16: WHAT WE DO TOGETHER THAT WE CAN’T DO ALONE, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2016, with files from Rex Lingwood, <https://www.cafka.org/cafka16/02-jaime-angelopolous>.
• “Samuel Roy-Bois: The Brittle Edges of Coherence,” CAFKA.14: IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THIS WAY, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2014, http://www.cafka.org/cafka14/13-samuel-roy-bois, last modified 2015-10-01.
• “NetherMind,” text for website for the NetherMind collective, 2014.
• “Joe Lima: Heaven and Earth,” Joe Lima: Singularity, (Galerie Nicholas Robert, Montreal: 2013).
• “NetherMind: Tom Dean. John Dickson. Catherine Heard. Greg Hefford. Mary Catherine Newcomb. Reinhard Reitzenstein. Lyla Rye. Max Streicher.,” Mirabilia, St. Annes's Church, NetherMind: Toronto, October 4 – 20, 2012
• “BGL: Fancy Fences,” CAFKA.11: SURVIVE. RESIST, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2012, http://www.cafka.org/cafka11/bgl-fancy-fences, last modified 2014-02-01.
• “Lauren Hall: Their Starry Domes of Diamond and Gold Expand Above,” CAFKA.11: SURVIVE. RESIST, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2012, https://www.cafka.org/cafka11/laurenhall, last modified 2013-01-16.
• “Mary Catherine Newcomb: Souvenir,” CAFKA.11: SURVIVE. RESIST, CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, 2012, http://www.cafka.org/cafka11/14-mary-catherine-newcomb-kitchener-souvenir, last modified 2013-01-16.
• “Forum placed provocative art in our public spaces,” Waterloo Region Record, Oct 13, 2011.
• “Truth or Dare,” Veracity, (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, Kitchener: 2011). Also available on-line as “CAFKA.09: Truth or Dare,” at http://www.cafka.org/cafka09/truth-or-dare, last modified last modified 2014-08-14.
• “Chicago sets the standard for public art,” Waterloo Region Record, May 27, 2011.
• “Portrait of a Patron,” Portrait of a Patron: The Dukszta Collection, (University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto: 2010).
• “A Family Tree,” Torontonienesis, (Torontonienesis, Toronto: 2009).
• “David Spriggs: The Architecture of Illusion,” in David Spriggs: The Archaeology of Space, (Southern Alberta Art Gallery/Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Lethbridge/St. Catharines: 2008).
• “Plastic Shit: Katharine Harvey’s Recent Installation Work,” originally written for Locus Suspectus, Spring 2008, published as:  http://www.katharineharvey.com/articles_and_reviews.php
• “Marla Hlady: Playing Piano,” YYZINE, January 2008.
• “Fool for Love,” Susan Bozic: The Dating Portfolio, (Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Simon Fraser University Art Gallery, Rodman Hall Arts Centre: Lethbridge, Vancouver, St. Catharines, 2007).
• Objects of Affection: Press Release (Rodman Hall Arts Centre: St. Catharines, 2007)
• “Max Streicher's Inflatables,” (Unpublished manuscript for Artcore, Toronto, 2005).
• “Ed Pien: A Soft and Gentle Darkness,” Ed Pien: In a Realm of Others, (Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery, Cambridge Galleries: Lethbridge, Oshawa, Cambridge, 2005).                                       
• Anitra Hamilton: Bomb Ride, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2005).
• “Paulette Phillips: The Secret Life of Criminals,” Paulette Phillips, (Oakville Galleries/Cambridge Galleries: Oakville & Cambridge, 2004).
• “The Dream of Painting and Angela Leach's Thirty-Two Colours,” Angela Leach: Shimmy, (Southern Alberta Art Gallery: Lethbridge, 2004)
• “The Art of Gardening,” Cambridge Sculpture Garden, (Cambridge Sculpture Garden: Cambridge, ON, 2003).
• Interior Life: Paintings and Prints by Moira Clark, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2003).
• “Introduction,” Catherine Heard: Effigies, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2003).
• “Learning to Talk,” introduction to the catalogue, Tim Zuck: Learning to Talk, (Museum London: London, ON, 2002).
• Let's Get Lost: The Summer Vacation Show, web text, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON,  2002).
• “Who Means What / Brent Roe / Paintings / 1992-2001,” Agnes Etheringon Art Centre, 5 January - 28 April 2002, Exhibition review, Border Crossings, Summer, 2002.
• Tom Bendtsen: Argument #6 (b), “Interview with the artist,” (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2002).
• Dan Kennedy: Shack of Deals, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2002).
• “Big in Japan,” Big in Japan: Takahiro Fujiwara, Hiroyuki Matsukage, Yuki Kimura, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Risa Sato and Saki Satom, curated by Catherine Osborne, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2002). Simultaneously published in French as "Gigajapon."
• “Toggle Wand: Betsy Coulter and Christy Thompson,” Mercer Union, (Mercer Union: Toronto, 2001).
• “Arnaud Maggs, Les factures de Lupé, Susan Hobbs Gallery, April 19 - May 26, 2001,” Shot Gun Reviews, Lola, vol. 10, Fall 2001.
• “At Some Level, I’m Just Trying To Do Ordinary Things,” catalogue introduction, Daniel Olson: Small World, (Cambridge Galleries, Owens Art Gallery, Southern Alberta Art Gallery: Cambridge, Lethbridge & Sackville, 2000).
• “Mike Hansen’s Minimalism: Melts in your mouth, not in your hand,” Mike Hansen: Structures, (Art Gallery of Peel: Brampton, 2000).
• Lisa Neighbour: Illuminations, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 2000).
• “Introduction,” Larry Towell: Palestine, El Salvador & Home, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• Andrew Wright: The Plausible Impossibility of the Here & Now (Moving Picture), (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• Anette Larsson: Pleasure Vision, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• Oh Baby!, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• The nature of the machine: Jeff Mann, Michael O'Brien, Victoria Scott, Norman White, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• “Mary Catherine Newcomb: A Surrealist in Kitchener,” Lola, vol. 4, Spring 1999.
• “John Armstrong: Affirmative Paintings,” John Armstrong: Sanguine, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• Sheila Gregory: Flip!, interview with the artist, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1998).
• “Re: Work Re: Work,” Work Re: Work: Installations, Interventions, Performances, (Install Art Collective: Guelph/Toronto, 1998).
• “Blue in Green: Regan Morris's MOAT," Lola, vol. 3, Fall 1998.
• “This flesh . . .” Max Streicher: Sleeping Giants, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1999).
• “Brent Roe's Autodogmatic, Antitranscendent Trip,” Brent Roe: Autodogmatic Trip, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1998).
• “You have got to make it your own . . .” interview with the artist, Michael Earle: Sea Change, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1997).
• Michael Wickerson: Mill Gears, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1997).
• J. Lynn Campbell: Offering, interview with the artist, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1997).
• “Carlo Cesta: Modern Romance,” C Magazine, #51, October-December 1996, pp. 17-19.
• Gordon Laird: In Walden's Wake, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1996).
• Mary Catherine Newcomb: Corpus Delicti, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1995).
• “Guelph: The City That Works,” Niche: Installations, Interventions, Performances, (Install Art Collective: Guelph/Toronto, 1995).
• Italica: “alla maniera italiana”: Sara Angelucci, Dino Bolognone, Jane Buyers, Carlo Cesta and Julie Voyce, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1995).
• Lisa Neighbour: Eye on the Square, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1994).
• "Thomas Burrows: Hematomas, Blanket Statements and Drawn Objects," Tom Burrows: Drawn Objects and Blanket Statements, (Canadian Embassy: Tokyo, 1994).
• “Seven Veils & Other Tales: Prints and Sculpture by Robert Achtemichuk,” Extension: A Quarterly Journal Published by the Print and Drawing Council of Canada, Vol. 3, No. 2, Winter 1993.
• William Kurelek, 1929 - 1977, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1993).
• Private Space, Public Place: Robert Achtemichuk, Bianca D'Angelo, Lisa Fedak, Mary Firth, Renata Fitzgerald, Dave Gee, Michael Horner, Brian Johnston, Jack MacAulay, Harvey Meyer, Mary O'Brien, Rick Shrubsall, Mark Stratton, Roger Young, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1993).
• Art Green: Doors of Perception, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1991).
• Carlo Cesta: The Material Image, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1991).
• "Heaven and Earth," John Hartman: Recent Paintings, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1990).
• “Introduction,” Tom Burrows: Dialectical Totems, with Mary Misner, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1990).
• Additive Sculpture: Shirley Yanover and Peter Dykhuis, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1989).
• Carla Whiteside: The First Book of Creation, (Cambridge Galleries: Cambridge, ON, 1989).

Public Address

• Daisuke Takeya: Kara, lecture at the Japan Foundation, Toronto, March 31, 2008. 
• Ars longa, vita brevis, presented at the unveiling of Carol Bradley's sculptural relief Pool, Kitchener, ON, August 26, 2003.

Selected Curatorial Projects (Freelance curating, exhibition production and thematic group exhibitions)

• CAFKA @ CONESTOGA MALL: Paul Chartrand: CO2 Sequestration via Trees, September - October, 2019, Conestoga Mall, Waterloo, Ontario.
• CAFKA @ THE WALPER 2019 featuring Vessna Perunovich, Shaheer Zazai, Jordyn Stewart, Amy Lockhart, Audrey D'Astous, Call Again Collective, March - April, 2019, Walper Hotel, Kitchener, Ontario.
• CAFKA.18: RECOGNIZE EVERYONE featuring Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron, Anna van Milligen, At The Reception, Benoît Maubrey, Dawn Matheson, Don Russell, Eunjung Hwang, Lucy Pullen, Marcia Huyer, Marie Claire Leblanc Flanagan, Robert Dayton, St Marie φ Walker, Susan Blight, June 2 - July 1, 2018, Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, Ontario.
• OPEN SESAME PROJECT WINDOW 2017 - 18: LÈCHE VITRINE featuring Anna van Milligen, Mélika Hashemi, Nicole Beno, St Marie φ Walker, Kitchener City Hall, Kitchener, Ontario.
• CAFKA.16: WHAT WE DO TOGETHER THAT WE CAN'T DO ALONE featuring Acapulco, Jaime Angelopolous, Claire Ashley, Lisa Birke, Paul Chartrand, DodoLab, Meghan Harder, David Jensenius, Jimmy Limit, Mary Ma, MAW Collective, Jamelie Hassan, Ed Pien, Scenocosme, May 28 - June 26, 2016, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, Ontario.
• CAFKA.14: IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THIS WAY featuring Dagmara Genda, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper, Ann Marie Hadcock, Mary Mattingly, Nova Jiang, Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli, Laura Moore, Steve Lambert, Sara Graham, Robert Hengeveld, Darren Copeland & Andreas Kahre, Samuel Roy-Bois, Don Miller, Seripop, José Luis Torres, Dylan Reibling, SWINTAK, Robert Seidel, Jesse Scott, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Gary Kirkham, May 31 - June 29, 2014, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, Ontario.
• CAFKA.13: BETWEEN THE EARS & CAFKA @ THE WALPER HOTEL featuring Scott Carter, Christof Migone, Laura De Decker, Ellen Moffat, Stephanie Vegh, Manuela Lalic, Janet Morton, Tor Lukasik-Foss, Dave Dyment, Daniel Olson, May 2 - August 11, 2013, Walper Hotel and Kitchener City Hall, Kitchener, Ontario. 
• CHRISTIE/CAFKA ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM 2012 - 14: Dylan Reibling, Jesse Scott, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Laura De Decker, Pascal Dufaux, Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli, Kitchener, Ontario.
• CAFKA.11: SURVIVE. RESIST. featuring Michael Ambedian & Sheila McMath, BGL, Broken City Lab, Andrew Burton, Vincent Chevalier, David Clark, Kim Morgan, Rachelle Viader Knowles, Dr. David Ogborn, David Court, Patrick Cull and Barbara Hobot, Soheila Esfahani, Lauren Hall, Lucy Howe, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Zeke Moores, Mary Catherine Newcomb, Jenn E Norton, Roadsworth, spurse, Reece Terris, Aislinn Thomas, Walter Van Broekhuizen, September 16 - October 2, 2011, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, Ontario.
• I Heart Video Art FFFFour: Brad Tinmouth, Jasper Elings, Johannes Zits, McLean Fahnestock, Meesoo Lee, Paul Wong, Saki Satom, Simon Payne, Steven Hoskins. CAFKA - Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area: May 13, 2011, Communitech Event Space, Kitchener.
• CAFKA.09: VERACITY featuring David Atkinson & James Nye, David Diviney, Graffiti Research Lab: James Powderly and Evan Roth, Luke Hart, Robert Hengeveld, Marla Hlady, David Hoffos, Andrew Hunter, Iga Janik, Don Maynard, D. Bradley Muir, Mariele Neudecker, Susy Oliveira, June Pak, Pipilotti Rist, Stefan Rose Isabella Stefanescu, Carlito Ghioni & Klaus Engel, Max Streicher, Fujiwara Takahiro, Brandon Vickerd, Kate Wilson, Andrew Houston & Lisa O’Connell, Jihee Min, September 18 - October 4, 2009, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, Ontario.
• Modular Nature: Sandor Ajzenstat, David Armstrong-Six, Eric Glavin, Ernest Harris Jr., Gunilla Josephson, Kristiina Lahde, Gareth Lichty, Andreas Rutkauskas, Art Gallery of Mississauga, October 30 - December 5, 2008.
• Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, "Zone A: The New World," with Project Blinkenlights, Fujiwara Takahiro, BGL, Daniel Olson, John Armstrong & Paul Collins, Jillian McDonald, Luis Jacob, Tom Bendtsen, Adam David Brown, Katharine Harvey, October 4, 2008.
• Objects of Affection: Susan Bozic, Meesoo Lee, Maria Legault, Jillian McDonald, Tanya Read, Warren Quigley, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, St. Catharines, October 5 - December 2, 2007.
• Hic: 18 Installations and Interventions, Hart House, University of Toronto, featuring work by BGL (Jasmin Bilodeau, Sebastien Giguère and Nicolas Laverdière), Tom Bendtsen, Diane Borsato, Carlo Cesta, John Dickson, Lee Goreas, Catherine Heard, Kristiina Lahde, Jennifer McMackon, Lisa Neighbour, Fabrizio Perozzi, Kristen Peterson, Ed Pien, Lyla Rye, Susan Schelle, Brian Scott, Max Streicher and Mel Ziegler.  Member of the curatorial collective with Carlo Cesta, John Dickson, Catherine Heard, Lisa Neighbour, Lyla Rye and Max Streicher, March 2 - April 16, 2006.
• That Obscure Object of Desire: A Group Exhibition of Visions of Delight, Fascination and Desire, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON, featuring work by Jane Adeney, Sara Angelucci, John Armstrong, Santo Barbieri, Dianne Bos, Gabrielle de Montmollin, Phil Delisle, Evergon, Lee Goreas, Catherine Heard, Clarissa Inglis, Amelia Jimenez, Dan Kennedy, Anda Kubis, Kristiina Lahde, Bonnie Lewis, Joe Lima, Jennifer Linton, Gwen McGregor, Michael Morris, Lisa Neighbour, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Kris Rosar, Mona Shahid, Joanna Strong, Diana Thorneycroft, Philip Vanderwall and Rhonda Weppler, July 9 - August 14, 2004.
• Video Heroes: Music Video by Artists, Liane and Danny Taran Gallery of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, November 20, 2003 to January 11, 2004; Cambridge Galleries,  January 24 - March 07, 2004,  featuring work by David Armstrong Six, Tyler Brett, Nikki Forrest, Skawennati Tricia Fragnito, Meesoo Lee, Tim Lee, March21 (Jeremy Shaw), Kelly Mark, Anne McGuire, Tricia Middleton & Joel Taylor, Monique Moumblow & Yudi Sewraj, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Daniel Olson, Rob Ring, Kevin Schmidt and Althea Thauberger. Curated in collaboration with Sylvie Gilbert.
• Let's Get Lost: The Summer Vacation Show, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON, featuring work by John Armstrong, Karma Clarke-Davis, Jason Dunda, Dave Dyment, Katharine Harvey, Alexander Irving, Mara Korkola, Stacey Lancaster, Dionne McAffee, Wendy Morgan, Jan Noestheden, Daniel Olson and Kate Wilson, July 5 - August 24, 2002.
• December, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON, featuring work by Sara Angelucci, Janet Bellotto, Robin Hesse, Ron Hewson, Tania Kitchell, Thérèse Mastroiacovo, Laura Millard, Janet Morton, Isabella Stefanescu, Joanna Strong, Larry Towell, and Aidan Urquhart, December 1 - January 12, 2002.
• Big in Japan: Takahiro Fujiwara, Hiroyuki Matsukage, Yuki Kimura, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Risa Sato and Saki Satom, curated by Catherine Osborne, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON, October 13 - November 18, 2001, travelled to the Liane and Danny Taran Gallery, Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal, and to the Gendai Gallery, Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre, Toronto.
• Oh Baby!, Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge, ON, featuring baby pictures by Lorène Bourgeois, Margaret Belisle, Sheila Butler, Clair Cafaro, Cathy Daley, Sybil Goldstein, Ron Hewson, Tom Dean, April Hickox, Rae Johnson, Gordon Laird, Judy Major-Girardin, Sally McKay, Mary Catherine Newcomb, Aidan Urquhart & Julie Voyce, July 9 - August 7, 1999.

Video Production (Editing, Graphic Design, Subtitling, Camera)

• LÈCHE VITRINE: Mélika Hashemi, 6:34, CAFKA: 2018.
• CAFKA.18: Don Russell, 14:30, CAFKA: 2018.
• CAFKA.18: ARENA Open Mic Night with Izzy and Fred, 5:21, CAFKA: 2018.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Susan Blight, 35:39, CAFKA: 2018.
• CAFKA.18: ARENA Open Mic Night with Spooloops, 2:17, 2018.
• CAFKA.18: Negotiating +/- by Marcia Huyer, 0:45, CAFKA: 2018.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Michael Roberson, 1:23:25, CAFKA: 2018.
• CAFKA.16: Lisa Birke, 6:08, CAFKA: 2016.
• CAFKA.16: Jamelie Hassan, 6:16, CAFKA: 2016.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Paddy Johnson, 1:10:29, CAFKA: 2017.
• CAFKA.16: DodoLab, 6:32, CAFKA: 2016.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: What, How & for Whom/WHW, 1:13:29, CAFKA: 2017.
• CAFKA.16: Mary Ma under Wind Water Wave, 0:40, CAFKA: 2016.
• CAFKA.16: Scenocosme, 2:43, CAFKA: 2016.
• CAFKA.16: Tristan Perich Machine Drawing, 0:17, CAFKA: 2016.
• Mary Ma Test 5, 0:16, CAFKA: 2016.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Alex Römer, 1:03:11, CAFKA: 2016.
• CAFKA.16: Mary Ma Test 2, 0:16, CAFKA: 2016.
• CAFKA.16: Mary Ma Test, 0:46, CAFKA: 2016.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Nadija Mustapić and Toni Meštrović, 47:32, CAFKA: 2015.
• CAFKA Shorts: Queen Victoria, 0:49, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA Shorts: Scenocosme, 0:31, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA Shorts: CAFKA Opens Doors, 0:27, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA Shorts: CAFKA Seeks Higher Ground, 0:16, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA Shorts: Lauren Hall, 0:31, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Mary Mattingly, 4:30, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Darren Copeland and Andreas Kahre, 3:32, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Swintak, 3:31, CAFKA: 2014.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Althea Thauberger, 28:28, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Steve Lambert, 3:41, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Sara Graham, 4:35, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Jefferson Campbell Cooper, 3:19, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Anne Marie Hadcock, 3:38, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli, 2:47, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THIS WAY, 5:12, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Nova Jiang, 3:00, CAFKA: 2014.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Luis Jacob, 57:27, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Laura Moore, 3:03, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Robert Hengeveld, 4:57, CAFKA: 2014.
• Christie/CAFKA Artist in Residence: Krzysztof Wodiczko, 5:38, CAFKA: 2014.
• Christie/CAFKA Artist in Residence: Pascal Dufaux, 5:18, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Seripop, 3:05, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Don Miller, 6:28, CAFKA: 2014.
• CAFKA.14: Samuel Roy-Bois, 4:02, CAFKA: 2014.
• Krzysztof Wodizcko and Gary Kirkham: Queen Victoria, Amy #1, 1:34, CAFKA: 2014.
• Krzysztof Wodizcko and Gary Kirkham: Queen Victoria, Amy #2, 2:57, CAFKA: 2014.
• Krzysztof Wodizcko and Gary Kirkham: Queen Victoria, Lamees #1, 1:51, CAFKA: 2014.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Rick Lowe, 53:59, CAFKA: 2014.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Postcommodity. 1:16:21, CAFKA: 2013.
• Big Ideas in Art and Culture: Krzysztof Wodiczko, 1:14:56, CAFKA: 2013.

Juries, Advisory Committees

• Grants Committee Member, Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation, 2016 -.
• Juror, ION Public Art Jury, Region of Waterloo, 2016.
• Steering Committee Member, FLASH Contemporary Photography Here, 2014 - .
• Advisor, Engage! KW, Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation, 2012-14.
• Committee Member, Art and Art History Program Advisory Committee, Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, 2010 - present.
• Juror, Region of Waterloo Public Health and Social Services Building Commission, April/June 2009.
• Outside Examiner, University of Waterloo MFA Thesis Defence, May 2009.
• Chair, Public Art Working Group, City of Kitchener, 2008-2011.
• Board Member, Ontario Association of Art Galleries, 2006-2011.
• Arts Community Representative, Public Art Advisory Committee, Regional Municipality of Waterloo, 2002-2004.
• Juror, Cambridge Sculpture Garden, 2002.
• Board Member, Waterloo Regional Arts Council, 2000-2001.
• Juror, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant Annual Juried Exhibition, 1998.
• Juror, City of Kitchener Victoria Park Public Art Commission, 1995-96.
• Committee Member, City of Kitchener Public Art Advisory Committee, 1995-96.
• Juror, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery Juried Exhibition, 1995.
• Juror, Burlington Cultural Centre Juried Exhibition, 1992.
• Committee Member, Acquisitions Committee, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, ON, 1987-88.
• Advisor, Ontario Arts Council:
• 1998, Special Projects
• 1990, Special Projects
• 1988, Artist in Residence Projects
• 1987, Public Galleries Application for Assistance
• 1986, Public Galleries Application for Assistance

Panels and Colloquia  

• Moderator, Will You Paint Me? panel discussion with artists Rae Johnson, Michael Merrill and Phil Richards for the exhibition Portrait of a Patron: The Dukszta Collection, University of Toronto Art Centre, January 19, 2010.
• Panel Discussion Moderator, Passing Through: Iain Baxter& Photographs, 1958-1983, with exhibition curator James Patten, Derek Knight and Iain Baxter&, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Friday, March 2, 2007.
• Colloquium Moderator, Is Drawing Dead?, with John Armstrong, Lucy Hogg and Lisa Steele,  University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, ON, October 24, 2002.
• Panellist, Hungry Eyes: Issues in Contemporary Abstract Painting, with Monica Tap, Elizabeth MacIntosh and Dan Walsh, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, NS, October 18, 2002.
• Colloquium moderator, Daniel Olson: Small World, with Martin Arnold, Daniel Olson and Christina Ritchie, Cambridge Galleries, Camrbidge, ON, January 12, 2001.
• Panellist, Art Works! Round Table: "What Public? Whose Art? Current Issues in Public Art, Kitchener City Hall, Kitchener, ON, September 12, 2000.
• Panellist, Visual Arts Ontario Professional Development Seminar, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, February 5, 1999.
• Colloquium Moderator, John Armstrong: Sanguine, with John Armstrong, Gary Michael Dault and Lisa Gabrielle Mark, Cambridge Galleries, January 8, 1999.

Make Noise and Be Heard: Benoît Maubrey’s ARENA at CAFKA.18

Benoît Maubrey’s ARENA was an incitement to be make noise and be heard. 

ARENA was the centrepiece of the CAFKA.18 biennial exhibition of contemporary art in the public spaces of the Waterloo Region. It was CAFKA’s largest ever fabrication project involving collaborations with the artist and architects, carpenters, electro-acousticians, programmers, students and volunteers. The 320 speakers that made up the work were sourced by donation from both friends and supporters of CAFKA and from complete strangers who had heard about the project and wanted to help or who just wanted to clear out their basements. We bought speakers too, from thrift shops and junk stores from across Southwestern Ontario. 

ARENA was built at Lot 42, a former steel factory in Kitchener, Ontario. The vast building complex had been rented by Communitech to be the site of the 2018 True North Waterloo technology conference. Communitech generously allowed CAFKA to use a portion of the convention floor as an assembly space. Rex Lingwood oversaw the construction of the four-module support structure and was helped in the construction by Mark Resmer. Benoît Maubrey project-managed the speaker assembly with help from Jago Whitehead, Johnny Camara and volunteers. Work on site began on Monday, May 13 and was complete by May 23. 

We had intended to make ARENA available for viewing during the three days of the True North conference, however it soon became apparent that acquiring a suitable installation space during the giant conference would be difficult. It was decided to place ARENA atop a disabled rail car opposite a hospitality tent outside of the main building. It was a curiosity for sure – an inaccessible and somewhat quirky looking PA system. 

ARENA came alive following the True North Conference when it was moved to Carl Zehr Square in front of the Kitchener City Hall. It remained there for the duration of the CAFKA biennial. ARENA was live and interactively accessible to the public from 11 AM to 8 PM daily. It became a stage, a seating area and a public address system to groups and individuals who brought their smart phones, microphones and musical instruments to perform for themselves and passersby. CAFKA also programmed a series of performance events intended to highlight the interactive potential of the artwork. ARENA was the site for dance parties, wedding pictures, selfies and photo-ops by politicians, for guerilla theatre, for poetry and for all kinds of music. Through it people of all ages connected. It was pure fun. 

As a work of art ARENA literally visualized the sounds it helped amplify. The 320 speakers weren’t louder than any commercial PA. Not even all of them worked. The visual effect of the different shapes and sizes and speaker styles were like a metaphor for the infinite variety of voices of people invited to participate in the ARENA event. And they felt it. People were fascinated by ARENA’s details, the hundreds of speakers, old and new, big and small, and the fact that they all, or almost all of them, seemed to be working. They were drawn to its functionality but they were inspired by its theatricality. They brought their phones, their guitars, their microphones and they were drawn to the way ARENA worked as an amphitheatre and defined the city hall square a performance space. 

ARENA incited people to dance and sing, to play music, recite poetry and profess their love to each other. They made noise: Really happy, soulful noise. And they were heard.

NetherMind: Notes from the Underground

NetherMind is an artist collective that organized four annual exhibitions in Toronto from 1991 through 1995. The collective’s members shared an interest in sculptural approaches to surrealism and produced sprawling exhibitions in rough, dark warehouses and industrial spaces. Following their fourth exhibition in 1995, the collective took a 17-year hiatus and pursued individual exhibition careers. They re-emerged in October 2012 with an exhibition that took place in St. Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto. Today the collective is comprised of the artists Tom Dean, John Dickson, Catherine Heard, Greg Hefford, Mary Catherine Newcomb, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Lyla Rye, and Max Streicher. Other artists also associated with NetherMind in the nineties were Miki McCarty, Carl Skelton, Anastasia Tzekas, and Manrico Venere.

The term “artist collective” sometimes refers to two or more artists working together to produce and exhibit a body of work. Of that type of artist collective, the N.E. Thing Company may be the original Canadian manifestation, and General Idea the most notable over the last 50 years. The NetherMind collective model refers quite simply to a group of artists who come together to “put on a show.” The ChromaZone group of painters active in Toronto in the 1980s is perhaps the best-known Canadian art collective of this type.[1] Money is raised, a suitable exhibition space is acquired, and each artist contributes work to the exhibition.

Gary Michael Dault noted the proliferation of this latter type of artist collective in Canada in the 1990s was a product of the period’s economic and cultural context.[2] Just as the great post-war expansion of university and visual art education had begun to produce new artists in record numbers, the Canadian economy entered its second major contraction in a decade. The small and shrinking trade in Canadian fine art had neither the capacity to absorb the production of this new generation of artists nor the ability to represent installation, new media and time-based art forms. The educational sector, traditionally an important support structure for the art community, had stopped growing. Victims of a boom and bust economy, artists with graduate degrees took on odd jobs – a career path more exceptional at the time, but which today has become a commonly accepted career path for MFA grads.

Against the backdrop of today’s massive redevelopment of Toronto’s downtown, it’s hard to picture the community 25 years ago. The garment industry’s move out of lower Spadina in the seventies (the parts of the city now called the Fashion and the Entertainment districts), manufacturing’s exit from Liberty Village in the eighties, and Parkdale’s post-war economic decline created inexpensive working class neighbourhoods and decaying commercial districts with large chunks of cheap industrial space.[3] [4] Warehouse spaces were converted into clubs, lofts, live/work arrangements, galleries and studios supporting a low-rent economy of both established and emerging artists, musicians and people just wanting to be part of the alternative downtown community. It was a distinct sub-culture, supporting a mythic narrative of urban pioneering and social belonging, and defining itself in opposition to the dominant Canadian mass culture.

The process was of course not unique to Toronto. An artistic and urban counter-cultural movement of squatting in vacant buildings took root across the UK and Western Europe in the sixties. Galleries in converted storefronts, warehouse spaces, and factory lofts, began to emerge in London and New York.[5] These new alternative exhibition spaces addressed two issues: They were a creative response to economic and cultural exclusion from institutionalized spaces and they were part of the emergence of minimalist, conceptualist and performance-based art – a reaction against the neutrality of the “white cube” gallery space.[6] The “white cube,” the clinically white painted four walls of the gallery space was however, still the dominant paradigm for exhibitions, and through much of the eighties, the first thing the new artist tenants did was to put up drywall and paint it white.

Painters typically wanted as little visual activity as possible in the surrounding environment to suppress possible distractions from the surfaces of their work. But sculpture is inherently more engaged in the surrounding space and framing a three-dimensional work against a white wall only works from a single point of view.[7] Limited ambient lighting and focused spots, after all, may be all that is needed to bring sculpture into dramatic relief. Initial discussions among the NetherMind artists focused on the treatment of the rough industrial space and what degree of preparation it might need. The question of whether the floor should be swept or left as it was engaged the idea of the space as a found object in the exhibition.

The character of the “found object space” and the low-level ambient light became it’s own event in the NetherMind exhibitions of the early 90s. It contrasted sharply with the dominant modernist showroom aesthetic characteristic of the department store and the futurist, antiseptic minimalism associated with science fiction set decoration in films like THX 1138.[8] The dominant contemporary architectural aesthetic of the recently constructed art schools that many of the artists had attended as students, featuring glass walls and studios bathed in sunlight, was nowhere to be found in the NetherMind exhibitions.[9]

The darkened exhibition space may have reflected another characteristic of the time – the profound pessimism and communal despair that accompanied the ongoing crisis of the AIDS epidemic. The documentation of death had become a recurrent subject in the contemporary art of the early 90s, prompting Adam Gopnik, writing about the 1993 Venice Biennale, to identify this work as part of a new “Morbid Manner,” in tune with what he saw as an obsession with “the display of images of death, decay, and violence,” a tendency he attributed to the influence of the work of Bruce Nauman:

The immediate model for almost all the grimmest work – for the macabre fragment, the tortured videos, the cryptic neon signs, even the simple idea of assembling a lot of morbid bits and pieces in a darkened room – is the art of the American Bruce Nauman . . . It is Nauman’s mood – the sense of building memorials-in-advance to an apocalypse whose causes are ill defined but whose inevitability is grimly certain that dominates the exhibition.[10]

These influences certainly exist, but it would be wrong to suggest the NetherMind exhibitions were a downer. They weren’t. If the exhibitions existed against the background of social and economic crisis, the installations by contrast communicated energy and vitality. The NetherMind collective emerged at a time when the prospects for individual artists were few and the institutions of contemporary art were being assaulted on all sides. As for many Canadian artists in the 90s, banding together in a collective made sense as a mechanism of survival. But more than that, the NetherMind members deftly negotiated a middle space for the collaboration of emerging and established artists, and for collective action and individual art practice. The collective produced a series of exhibitions that had a distinctly “NetherMind” feel, style and energy that did not describe a grimly certain apocalypse, but an alternative way of making and exhibiting art. Where Gopnik saw a sterile Mannerist, fin-de-siècle end game at work, NetherMind and similar artist collectives in Canada were exploring alternative spaces, extending the possible resonances in their work and initiating new conversations within the community they called home.[11]

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[1] Andy Fabo, Sybil Goldstein, “ChromaZone / Chromatique: A Brief History 1981-1986,” November 2009, CCCA Canadian Art Database: http://ccca.concordia.ca/chromazone/chromazone_history.html.

[2] “Toronto artists, brought into contact through university friendships and certain congruencies of sensibility, began to band together into groups: groups in search of their own funding, their own exhibition spaces, their own promotion, their own curating, their own documentation. Untethered, as Fabo puts it, to real estate, which none of them could have afforded anyhow, these new collectives set about exploring the city for suitable sites to bend to their temporary purposes: vacant warehouse spaces, ghostly abandoned industrial basements, empty storefronts (the advertisements for recession), rooftops, hallways, the walls of the pubs where they drank beer and doodled their next procedural moves on wet cocktail napkins.” Gary Michael Dault, “Amid the rubble of the recession, a new generation of inner-city Toronto artists is blooming,” Canadian Art, Vol. 11 #4, December 1994.

[3] During the late 1970s and early 1980s, manufacturing operations within Liberty Village began to decline due to a shift from rail to road shipping, the need for larger manufacturing facilities, and lower manufacturing costs in suburban or offshore locations. In 1990, the Toronto Carpet Manufacturing plant on Liberty Street shut down, and the Inglis plant (owned by Whirlpool since 1985) ceased operations in 1991. The Inglis factory and Massey-Harris factory (with the exception of 947 King St. West) were demolished. Decreased industrial activity and lower property values caused many Liberty Village buildings to fall into neglect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Village

[4] Tom Slater, Toronto’s South Parkdale Neighbourhood A Brief History of Development, Disinvestment, and Gentrification, UrbanStudies, University of Bristol, U.K., Excerpted, condensed, and updated from an article in The Canadian Geographer, Fall 2004, titled “Municipally Managed Gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto.” http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/researchbulletins/CUCS-RB-28-/lm’Slater-Parkd.pdf

[5] See Sandy Nairne, “The Institutionalization of Dissent,” pp. 387 -410, Thinking About Exhibitions, eds. Reesa Greenberg, Bruce W. Ferguson, Sandy Nairne, Routledge: New York, 1996.

[6] Brian Doherty analyzed the politics of representation with the white space in Inside the White Cube - The Ideology of the Gallery Space, The Lapis Press: Santa Monica/San Francisco, 1976.

[7] Formalist aesthetics in the sixties had argued for the expansion of the field of art from the surface of objects to include the surrounding space. See Grégoire Mueller, The New Avant-Garde, New York: Praeger, 1972, and Rosalind Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” October, Vol. 8. (Spring, 1979), pp. 30-44.

[8] THX 1138 (1971), Dir. George Lucas, 86 min., (USA).

[9] The new architecture of art schools emphasized the brightly lit white cube. See Raymond Moriyama’s airy glass, brick and concrete York University Fine Arts Phase II building in suburban Toronto built in 1973 and the Glyde Hall studios at the Banff Centre, 1976.

[10] Adam Gopnik, “Death in Venice,” New Yorker, 2 Aug. 1993, pp. 67-73.

[11] An early example of exhibitions in alternative spaces in Canada would include the Embassy Cultural House in in London, Ontario. See Christopher Régimbal, “Institutions of Regionalism: Artist Collectivism in London, Ontario, 1960–1990,” ArcPost Online Space for Artist-Run Culture, <http://arcpost.ca/articles/institutions-of-regionalism> and Christopher Régimbal, “A Fire at the Embassy Hotel,” FUSE Magazine, Summer 2010, 12–15. 51. <http://fusemagazine.org/2010/09/a-fire-at-the-embassy-hotel-2>. Other examples of intervention and site specific collective projects in the 90s include the 23rd Room collective that produced the Duke-U-Menta exhibition at the Duke of Connaught hotel in Toronto, 1994, < http://www.myrectumisnotagrave.com/writing/dukeumenta.html>; the Farrago collective’s “The House Project, a site specific exhibition,” Toronto, 1994, and Eileen Sommerman’s exhibition “In Lieu: Installations in Public Washrooms,” 1998.

Joe Lima: Heaven and Earth

I lived in the country once. There it seemed during the cold winter nights, the night skies had the ability to uncannily change, to transform themselves at once from awe-inspiring to suddenly terrifying. The night sky could invert itself; its infinite space of possibility could begin to seem an oppressive weight. The constellations and galaxies and unending darkness – those million points of light – could somehow change and begin to feel like a million nerve endings. When the cold quiet stillness of the winter nights becomes an oppressive silence, and in the summer, when the hum of the cicadas becomes a deafening roar, then for many it is time to leave, and the promise of life begins beyond the boundaries of what is known.

The recurring story of departures, of more perfect worlds left behind, of the inexorable tug of the new and the unknown, and of a longing for home, is as old as the story of the Garden of Eden. The movement and change in our lives distracts us and entertains us but also leaves us with a sense that our lives are provisional, improvised and lacking in connection and rootedness. This dysphoria may be a characteristic of the modernist age, where rootlessness and dislocation are a common condition.

Joe Lima’s work is informed by the anxiety of dislocation. He speaks of his desire to articulate in a traditional method a contemporary experience of the world – a “contemporary uneasiness.” His characteristic images of isolated figures in great spaces remind me of the morphology of night skies, whose vast emptiness often turns to a spectre of impending suffocation.

The Azores has been a place of departures for centuries. It is the place of origin for a diaspora of emigrants to Canada, the United States and Brazil. For Lima, born on the island of São Miguel, but raised in the southwestern Ontario community of Woodstock, the Azores was a magical place, the source of his mother’s stories both folkloric and true. His mother’s stories made a great impression on him. As a painter and graphic artist, Lima took over the role of storyteller from his mother. His frescos, oil paintings and woodcuts, are influenced by her stories and his series of fresco portraits are based on characters from the Azores. His work today continues to draw on those characters from religious parades and festivals.

Lima’s process of art making begins with his collection of photographic and video images. From these images he creates collages, which then begins a process of distancing and abstracting. First he photographs the collages and then draws the rephotographed image on the wood. Separating himself further from the original image he draws only the white areas of the photographed collage. Carving out the light areas, the negative spaces, he further removes himself from the image. The drawing and the hand carving is carried in the wood block, communicating the physical process of the image’s creation. He then inks the board. There is often no printing. For Lima, the woodblock alone can be the work, permitting the viewer to share in the manual process of the image’s making. Printing for Lima can be anticlimactic.

When I imagine the Azores, I think of a cluster of small islands sprinkled amongst the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean and I imagine how the experience of the ocean enveloping the archipelago would shape my life. The heavens, when seen from the Azores, must feel like a celestial reflection – as though each verdant island was a star in the Atlantic Ocean. When I see Joe Lima’s figures, I see them living under that same celestial dome, alternatingly awe-inspiring and terrible. In these paintings and wood engravings, everyday is a titanic struggle of earth and sky.

Gordon Hatt, 2013