Grants: provide funding to individual professional artists and arts organizations through a peer assessment process.

Endowments and Prizes: award annual fellowships and prizes to some 200 artists and scholars.

Research, communications and other activities further its mandate to support, promote and celebrate the arts. 

 The Canada Council Art Bank, the Killam Program, the  Public Lending Right Commission and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO are all administered through the Canada Council.

The Canada Council Art Bank

With some 18,000 paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures by over 2500 artists, The Canada Council Art Bank is home to the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art. All are available for rent by corporations, institutions, government departments and agencies.

As a self-sufficient organization, it supports Canadian artists by purchasing work from its earned revenues through a system of peer assessment.

From its inception, the Art Bank was created to supplement the income of artists whose works are purchased and to bring large numbers of Canadians in direct contact with contemporary Canadian art. It is also intended to provide stimulus to commercial galleries.

As one of three Art Consultants at the Art Bank, I serve eastern Canada: the National Capital Region, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

The goal of this 3 step project is to generate an indefinite number of musical compositions from common source material.

Step 1. Canadian pianist, composer and arranger David Ryshpan created a soundtrack for Rick Leong's painting entitled Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet (2006), a recent addition to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' Permanent Collection.

Step 2. Musicians, DJs and producers across Canada and the world are invited to remix/reinterpret the original score.

Step 3. The remixes are showcased online and as part of an exhibition taking place at the Bourget building from May 1 to 31, 2009.

A selection of the collected remixes are featured on a limited-edition CD and performed live at The Goods at Sala Rossa on May 23, 2009.

To download the source material and share your own interpretation, visit biennalemontreal.org/soundscapes.

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Rick Leong, Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet, oil on canvas, 183 x 244 cm, 2006

www.biennalemontreal.org/soundscapes/

limited-edition CD

Rick Leong, The Hidden Din, oil on canvas, 183 x 244 cm, 2009 (painted in response to the music)

Rick Leong, A Still Melody, oil on canvas, 183 x 244 cm, 2009 (painted in response to the music)

Having worked on the project as assistant curator, I had a great time building the exhibition and putting together the catalogue with such an innovative group of international artists and designers.

FEATURED ARTISTS: Arno Piroud, CutUp Collective, Designo Patagonia, Gilberto Esparza, Graffiti Research Lab, Gunjan Gupta, Jan Konings, Jason Eppink, Ji Lee, Joshua Allen Harris, Kwangho Lee, NL Architects, Nothing Design Group, Mark Jenkins, Marti Guixé, Martín Ruiz Azúa, Leon Reid IV, OSA, Posterchild, Rebar, Roadsworth, Sagmeister Inc., SpY, TheGreenEyl, TruthTag, WindowZoo, You Are Beautiful

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Joshua Allen Harris, Air Bear, 2008

Various events took place during the exhibition, including an interactive evening with experimental New York artists Graffiti Research Lab, refacing Tate Modern with graffiti light projections, and the finals of the Nissan Qashqai Challenge, an international moutainbike freeriding competition, which sponsored the event and through which I became involved in the project as a consultant in the selection of featured artists.

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Street Art at Tate Modern / Nissan Qashqai Challenge, 2008

FEATURED ARTISTS: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Gustavo Artigas, Éric Baudelaire, Rebecca Belmore, Candice Breitz, David Claerbout, Stan Douglas, Patrice Duhamel, Adad Hannah, Bettina Hoffmann, Mike Hoolboom, Teresa Hubbard & Alexander Birchler, Douglas Gordon, Jesper Just, Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry, Thomas Kneubühler, Emmanuelle Léonard, Christelle Lheureux, Norton Maza, Valérie Mréjen, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Josée Pedneault, Paulette Phillips, Marisa Portolese, Kelly Richardson, Elina Saloranta, Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Zineb Sedira, Trine Søndergaard & Nicolai Howalt, Eve Sussman & The Rufus Corporation, Ron Terada, Althea Thauberger, Salla Tykkä, Eve K. Tremblay, Chih-Chien Wang, Myriam Yates, Shao Yinong & Muchen

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The Sanchez Brothers, Between Life and Death, 2006

FEATURED ARTISTS: 2Boys.tv, Scoli Acosta, David Altmejd, Stephen Andrews, Michael Awad & Evan Penny, BGL, Eleanor Bond, Dana Claxton, Lynne Cohen, Chris Cran, Daft Punk, Christine Davis, Beth Derbyshire, Julie Doucet, Geoffrey Farmer, Jeff Funnell, Noam Gonick & Luis Jacob, David Hoffos, Ignacio Iturria, Sarah Anne Johnson, Brian Jungen, Jesper Just, Janice Kerbel, Will Kwan, Lesbians on Ecstasy, Virgil Marti, Les Georges Leningrad, Luanne Martineau, Scott McFarland, Kent Monkman, My Barbarian, Numa, Paper Rad, Graeme Patterson, Paul P., Peaches, Pil & Gallia Kollectiv, Annie Pootoogook, Carole Pope, Iran do Espirito Santo, Theo Sims, Ryan Sluggett, Bill Smith, Scott Treleaven, Susan Turcot, Paulo Whitaker

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Daft Punk, Electroma, 2006

As we begin to realize the immense potential of digital networks for the preservation and free exchange of global culture, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that the private interests of the few will not take precedence over the educational and expressive rights of the many, as is currently occurring with the “calcification” of the public domain.  

Fair use allows for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material for purposes such as criticism, comment, parody, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, and research.  Similar provisions exist in most European and Commonwealth nations, though their name and specific clauses may vary.  In the UK, the comparable defence is known as ‘fair dealing’, though parodies are not included in its list of potential applications.  Because of its unpredictability, the high cost of defending it in court, and the crushing liability that may result if one guesses wrong, it is becoming exceptionally difficult to build a reliable fair use defence. 

The fair use provision can be invoked for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

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Influenced by prevailing forms of youth counterculture, the most unifying trait shared by this new generation of artists is a strong affinity for the ʻdo-it-yourselfʼ ethos, coupled with a remarkable range of multi-disciplinary aptitudes.  Contrary to their graffiti-writing predecessors whose tools were usually limited to cans of spray-paint and industrial markers, todayʼs street artists are incorporating traditional brush-based painting methods, photography, collage; as well as graphic-design techniques such as screen-printing and wheat-pasting; while some are even pushing the genreʼs technical boundaries by including still and moving image projections, music and other digital media.        

The double connotation implied by the use of the word legitimate in this essayʼs title, is not only meant to introduce the ambiguous nature of the debate over “post-graffiti as fine art”, but it also points towards a much broader question regarding the actual role of art galleries and museums as so-called “tastemakers”.  One of the primary definitions of the term legitimate, when employed as an adjective, indicates that something complies with the law – which all forms of graffiti, by their very nature, do not.  A second fundamental meaning, this time in the form of the verb to legitimate, entails the consecration of an artistic manifestation (physical or intellectual) to the realm of ʻseriousʼ or ʻhighʼ art – that is, in stpopular expression.

This essay explores the methods through which contemporary forms of street art have managed to claim their own particular brand of art world legitimacy.  The first section draws on the examples of two recent, large-scale, graffiti exhibitions – Ill Communications II (Urbis, Manchester) and Beautiful Losers (national tour, United States) – as a way of introducing some of the enduring presumptions that affect the publicʼs perception of this specific genre.  The second section looks at the inherent incongruity of pursuing public recognition via an art form that is founded on principles of anonymity.  In the third and final section, we examine the commoditization of street art by way of online visibility and corporate associations. 

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Banksy at the Brooklyn Museum, 2005

It seems as if the reconfiguration of museums in terms of experiential consumption has encouraged viewers to approach them as they would other sites of contemporary entertainment.  It follows, nonetheless, that the contents and collections of a great many institutions have been subordinated to what has come to be known as ʻimage architectureʼ.  In an article entitled “Museum or Amusement Park?” featured in the lifestyle magazine Travel and Leisure, Alice Rawsthorn addresses the trend of the museum as adult theme park by asking whether visitors are more interested in the venueʼs architecture and overall brand identity, or in the actual artwork it is meant to contain.  By mentioning the “attraction value” (in the tour-guide sense of the word) of Daniel Libeskindʼs Jewish Museum in Berlin, she emphasizes the success of its structure, despite publicized indecisions regarding its content. 

Maintaining their role both as instruments of historical representation and powerful social metaphors, museums and galleries continue to be significant barometers of social change; most recently embodying the essence of postmodernity by feeding the “anything goes” market eclecticism of late global capitalism.  As a matter of fact, the mechanisms of commercial globalization have been driven to the forefront of the managerial agendas of most mid- to large-scale arts institutions, with serious thought now being given to the development of worldwide franchises (referred to as satellite museums), travelling exhibitions, and the standardization of administrative practice in the hopes of facilitating international exchange.   

In this essay, we apply the theories and empirical findings of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, to the question of how contemporary artists, the museums or galleries that promote them, and the general public each rely on or respond to corporate sponsorship.  In the process, we will examine some of the marketing methods employed to secure popular interest, maximise attendance and ensure economic sustainability/growth, whilst competing with other forms of cultural entertainment.

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Beck’s beer bottles with labels by Tim Head, Damien Hirst and Rebecca Horn, 1992 - 1995

The Blend. 1., 30 min (2006)

The Blend. 2., 30 min (2006)