Surrealism | NinjaRadio

Frida and Diego by Shadowland

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In today’s show we once again visit the Art Gallery of Ontario. First to see the art and life of the famous artistic pair Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Among the things we discuss are Frida Kahlo’s cause of death. Drag-on and I speculate that Frida died of cancer, but the truth, I’ve discovered, is that no one actually knows. She had so many health problems in her life. I get a new perspective on her art and how her pain informed it. Next we stop by to see the restoration and preparation of the a soft sculpture called Floor Burger. It’s being readied for its trip to the MOMA in New York where it will be on display this month. Other soft sculptures by the same artist Claes Oldenburg will be exhibited as well. The highlight of our visit is Evan Penny’s odd fantastical, mildly horrific hyper realism. Or is it hyper artificialism? Even with all of the works that we see and as hard as we studied the exhibit descriptions, labels, and explanations, we still walked away perplexed, off balance and unsettled – a little like leaving a funhouse where the mirrors distorted us and our world and the tilted floors left us rather dizzy. Have a listen and see what you think – then go see all the Evan Penny you can.

Links:

Frida and Diego at the AGO

Evan Penny at WarmPhotos.net

Pridesource Article on Evan Penny

Evan Penny at the AGO

Claes Oldenburg at the MOMA

More Evan Penny

Evan Penny – Detail

The Floor Burger by Claes Oldenburg

Created with LED filled Ping Pong Balls in Bickford Park Toronto Nuit Blanche 2012

If you don’t know what Nuit Blanche is, it’s a sunset to sunrise festival of art held in cities across the globe. In Toronto, it is normally held the last weekend of September. Originally conceived in Paris in 2002, the name has come to mean “Sleepless Night”. There are far too many art events and installations for any one person to see in a twelve hour period and Special K and I are no exception to that limitation. In my show today I focus on sharing soundscene audio from a mere five out of dozens of events. Glow in the Dark is the first. L.E.D.s inserted into hundreds of ping-pong balls light up the ground in Bickford Park. The result is unexpected. Highwater 2012 is a floating display of objects in the Roy Thompson Hall pond. Objects, somewhat ghostly in their whiteness, float by below us, evoking an odd sense of loneliness and discomfort. Who do or did these objects belong to? Where are their owners now? What were their lives like? Lifecycles, 2012 is a video installation with original soundtrack that shows the time-lapse growth cycle of what we think is kale, that grew in Phoenix, Arizona, home of the artist. We also stop by transparent sealed booths to listen to three masters solving the Rubick’s cube. Each solver has a microphone attached to their sleeve and the sound captured is amplified through speakers. Finally I share the surreal experience we had at the installation Caverne St-Clair 20012. Fragments of culture, writing, and musical scores found in 2012 are re-interpreted by the artist in the year 20012 with some strange and hypnotic results.

Inside: Archaeological Findings From 2012

Enjoy these snippets of Nuit Blanche 2012. By the way, if I haven’t said this before, my shows in recent years are best listened to with headphones for a feeling of actually being there, noise cancelling headphones if you have them.

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