Art Burn

LIZ GARLICKI Enlarge Image

Urban Shaman’s 50-500 members’ show was a great place to find locally made, affordable art. Too bad.

While few of us in the arts community are exactly the strident anti-consumers with exquisite taste we might purport to be, the fact remains: those of us whose aunts and uncles call "artistic" (always with tremulous finger-quotes) can, come gift-giving season, cause anxiety for the well-meaning normals in our lives. With those apprehensive loved ones in mind — and in the frenetic spirit of the week — here’s a whirlwind recap of the art you should have bought but didn’t, the art that’s still there for the buying, and the art-related, non-artwork gifts that you should probably actually get for your favourite underemployed aesthete.
   
Did you go to Urban Shaman’s 50–500 members’ show, which closed Saturday? Did you buy everything? If not, you are a fool (or broke, or both) because, unlike most such events, it felt like an honest-to-goodness exhibition while still offering fire-sale bargains. I don’t know who bought Rebecca Belmore’s Brush, a house-painting brush with flowing, black human-hair bristles, the metal band stamped "CANADA" (a steal — take my word for it if necessary — at $500), or sibling Michael’s Island V, a smaller version of a piece included in this summer’s Close Encounters exhibition, or KC Adams’s glittering aerial landscapes and handsome black ceramic pieces, or any of the other stellar work in the show. Sadly, it was not I, and I’m kicking myself now.
   
You also missed standout works by treasures local and national at PLATFORM Gallery’s Higher Ground auction (with highlights not limited to Karen Asher, Suzy Lake and Paul Robles — Guy Maddin also had a thing) and Aceartinc’s last-ever Winter Warmer, at which wading through the tremendous, varied output of our community was always half the joy.
   
Fortunately for you procrastinators, gifts of artwork often become white elephants. (You realize that you’re responsible for framing, right? And that you’re not allowed to act all shady if your gift doesn’t garner pride of place on the recipient’s walls?) But if your heart is set (and your budget permits), there are plenty of worthy (if bigger-ticket) works and editions inventoried at Martha Street Studio (Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Micah Lexier, Sylvia Matas, etc.) and Plug In ICA (Rob Kovitz, Royal Art Lodge, Jennifer Stillwell, etc.). Honestly though, I do the bulk of my own holiday shopping at Plug In’s Art Book Store (the best contemporary selection in the city, plus assorted giftable gewgaws) and Martha Street’s Print Shop (nothing over $100, all made by fine Manitoba printmakers).
   
Still, nothing strokes the ‘artistic’ ego quite like saying, "The best artwork I could give is the artwork you’d be making if you weren’t so talentless and broke." Classes, workshops and gift certificates for supplies are perhaps your real best bets for further indulging the self-styled artiste. Literally any of the workshop offerings in Martha Street’s winter catalogue would make an excellent, skill-building IOU, while the WAG’s intro-level courses offer additional structure for those newer to the idea of art-making.
   
Just try to be gracious if the fruits of your largesse wind up under your own tree next December.

• • •
   
Aceartinc., PLATFORM Gallery and Urban Shaman are closed for the holidays and will reopen in January. Plug In ICA will be closed Dec. 24 and 25, and Jan. 1. Martha Street Studio will be closed Dec. 23 to Jan. 1.
   
Steven Leyden Cochrane is an emerging artist, writer and educator. This Christmas, all he wants is to be your pretentious art friend.