Toronto might be one of the most exciting art centres in North America but the city has not yet been able to find its own identity and its place in the international Contemporary Art scene. All the ingredients are there… It is all about finding the right mix.

Part 1. What does the city need?

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Part 2. Interview with David Liss, artistic director of MOCCA.

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Part 3. Interview with Olga Korper and Fela Grunwald.

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Part 4. Interview with Ben Portis.

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Part 5. Interview with Jessica Bradley.

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There has been much debate over whether a national style, philosophical outlook, or unified and cohesive culture exists or ever has existed within Canada. The country is large geographically, with many distinct regions, and its population is diverse and made up of varying national and ethnic backgrounds. more »

For the sixth time, Viennafair takes place from May 6th to May 9th, with a focus on Central and Eastern European art. We spoke with Edek Bartz, the artistic director of the fair.

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Viennafair - Part 1 - Focus on CEE Countries

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Viennafair - Part 2 - Focus on Film and Art

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As is the case everywhere, the financial crisis has separated the wheat from the chaff—in the art market as well. In the meantime, the storm is past, and the art market has recovered. Sales records have once again been reported from London, New York, and Paris.

As is the case everywhere, the financial crisis has separated the wheat from the chaff—in the art market as well. In the meantime, the storm is past, and the art market has recovered. Sales records have once again been reported from London, New York, and Paris.

In Vienna, the Viennafair is entering its sixth year. Optimism is the key word at the moment. “Cooperation is the key to success”, as noted in the press release for the most important art fair of Austria. In this case, necessity breeds inventiveness. more »

In the early twentieth century, in the course of the modern art’s search for the “very early origins” of art, so-called “outsider art” was discovered. At the same time, psychiatrists who hoped to be able to use works of psychiatric patients for diagnostic purposes began actively collecting for the first time on a large scale. Along these lines, the art historian and physician Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933), received a commission from the Heidelberger hospital in 1919 to extend the small educational collection of the institute and to find methods that would help to gain insides into the type of the patients’ illness using their creative works. However, Prinzhorn rejected taking a purely clinical psychiatric approach to the works. Instead, he set the works into an art-theoretical context and thereby brought the aesthetic beauty of the until-then marginalized “mad art” into focus for the first time—a pioneering achievement.

Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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In 1922, Prinzhorn published the book, Artistry of the Mentally Ill, in which he documented and interpreted a large part of the collection, drawing parallels to other forms of artistic patterns and contemporary art. While his colleagues mostly rejected the book, it was enthusiastically received by the modern art world. It inspired artists such as Max Ernst, Alfred Kubin, and Pablo Picasso, and had a substantial influence on twentieth-century art theory and reception, which is reflected in—not least of all—today’s occupation with “state-bound art” and “outsider art“. more »

The American sound artist, Douglas Henderson, studied composition and theory at Princeton University under Milton Babbitt, a pioneer of synthesizers and Pulitzer Prize winner, Elie Yarden, and J.K. Randall, co-editor of the magazine, Perspectives of New Music.
Henderson currently resides in Brooklyn and, after receiving a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service in 2007, in Berlin.

Visible Sound

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Part 2. Playback

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His artistic work has been supported by renowned foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Foundation of Contemporary Art New York, and numerous other grants; his list of exhibition activities and performances is as noteworthy as it is international. His compositional work has been presented at countless computer and new music festivals ranging from Seoul to New York. He has collaborated intensely with modern dance choreographers, composing for the likes of Jeremy Nelson, David Zambrano, and Meg Stuart, as well as for numerous dance theatres across Europe and the US. more »

Most of his sound installations are not recorded. They would not function on loudspeakers or headphones, says Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, because his compositions typically use the entire body as an acoustic reception space. It can be good that the sound does not penetrate the through the eardrum, but instead, for example, through the soles of the feet - for those who would stand on their own loudspeakers. Sonntag’s artistic achievements involve interfaces between the human body, technical media systems, and sound-mediated space perceptions. For example, in one project, he plunges a randomly vibrating column into the earth, whose upper edge serves as ground-level manhole. Those who step on the manhole can sense the depth of the earth with their bodies through the oscillations of the manhole, as well as experience space in a different, nonvisual way.

The Architecure of Sound

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The Essence of Electricity

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Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag was born in 1965. He studied trombone under Heinz Fadle at the University of Music Lübeck, then he studied eight different subjects, ranging from art history to philosophy, in Oldenburg. Since then, he has taught at universities in Istanbul, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Oldenburg, and Darmstadt. more »

In Canada, private funding for the arts has become more important. This is not because there are many wealthy people with philanthropic ambitions in the art sector, but because in Canada, as in other countries, the government has cut down significantly on art funding. An aging but very expensive infrastructure on the one hand, and changing concepts of art and a growing artistic population on the other hand, are circumstances that are putting more strain on public resources. In this context, the private sector plays an important but almost invisible role in the promotion of art in Canada. This circle of art patrons is limited to approximately five to ten financially secure backers.



Audio interview with John Zeppetelli, curotor at the DHC/ART

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Audio interview with John Zeppetelli, curotor at the DHC/ART

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The DHC Foundation for Contemporary Art is located in the port city quarter of old Montreal, where it operates its own art space. It was founded in 2007 by Phoebe Greenberg, Penny Mancuso, and Tammy Lee. Greenberg is considered to be DHC’s driving force, as well as the financial backer of the foundation. As artist and entrpreneur, she has experience in the field of endowment and as a film producer, as well as possessing the necessary persistence for realizing the foundation. Fifteen years of conviction, planning, and implementation went by until the first exhibition could open.

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By mid-January, the London Art Fair kicks off the international art fair season. At year end, offerings such as Art Basel Miami or alternatively, the Contemporary Art Fair in Istanbul are up for grabs to art dealers, buyers, and onlookers.

Videomoods from the ViennaFair 2009

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Audiointerview with Edek Bartz artistic director of Vienna Fair

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The business of fine art is conducted at these fairs. Depending on which art information site that one consults, anywhere from 30 up to 100 art fairs pave the way of artistic-financial exchange between London and Miami each year. In view of the vast range of fairs to choose from, it has become increasingly important in the last few years for fair directors to develop a comprehensive profile of their event. more »

Carlos Sandoval is a sound artist. Sandoval’s own definition of his work includes sound design, sound speculation, improvisation, classical composition, and a combination of all of the above. In the work of the artist, the dissolution of the composer as the ruling subject of the music plays an important role. For example, for his installation of trees, “Baumberauschen”, in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, nature is the designated composer of the music. The trees are equipped with sensors which detect their movements, caused by wind and growth, and direct these impulses with sounds from sound archives.

Paring Down. Part 1

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Wind in the Trees. Part 2

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The artist teaches improvisation and composition as complementary strategies at the Universität der Künste Berlin. The multifaceted approach to planning and spontaneity is a reflection of Sandoval’s focus: the withdrawal of the controlling subject from the music, which can also be found in Sandoval’s 2008 collaboration for the program of the “Interaktion Festival”, called “The Tilt Group”. Sixteen musicians participated, paired up randomly, in a competition for the best musical interaction.

The artist has an experimental and unusual concept of music. His works are sound manipulations, sound improvisations, sound installations. His raw material includes everything from the cries of a flock of birds to street noise to electronic toy sounds to the moans of couples in the throes of ecstasy. The instruments of the artist are experimental developments. For example, over the course of one decade, during repeated stays at the STEIM Foundation in the Netherlands, Sandoval has developed a digital data entry glove from which he is able to control and work on sound samples live from the computer.

Carlos Sandoval was born and grew up in Mexico. After earning his bachelor’s degree, he was trained in piano construction and tuning at Bösendorfer in Vienna. He then completed his studies in Mexico at the National School of Music Composition, studying theory with Estrada. Presently, Sandoval works as a freelance composer and musician in Berlin. (wh/jn)

In the Austrian Alps, a modern private museum was set up between Vienna, Linz, Graz, and Salzburg in 2003, after five years of construction. Within a few years, it was awarded the Austrian Museum Prize for its innovative design and in recognition of the unusual dedication of its private owners to the preservation, presentation, and promotion of art.

According to the director of the collection, Michael Braunsteiner, the owners of the museum demonstrate a style that is “absolutely relaxed and somehow cooler”. This is surprising considering that the owners are not newly-rich young idealists, but the monks from the Benedictine Admont Monastery, which dates back over 1000 years, and whose monks are aged over fifty years old on average.

The developing years of the museum. Part 1

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Developing the contemporary art collection. Part 2

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Since the renovation, the Benedictine monastery does not only house the newly reconstructed, largest monastery library in the world, but also a museum complex extending over several floors, which includes an art-historical and natural history museum, as well its own permanent collection of contemporary art and exterior monastery spaces used for art installations.

In 1998, Michael Braunsteiner was assigned to lead the transformation of the museum Stift Admont and to curate the development of the contemporary art collection. CastYourArt spoke with him about the developing years of the museum, especially in regard to the arrangement and layout of the contemporary art collection. (wh/jn)

People go through life with open ears – they cannot close their ears, as they can their eyes, to the sounds of the world, unless they physically block them. The ear is a completely closed off sensory organ. We hear, even when we sleep. We hear sharply only rarely and perceive differently, those noises which surround and penetrate us. If we tune into ourselves and back in time, not only the sounds from streetcar, cow-, door-, recess, fire brigade, church, or bicycle bells resonate within us, but also an amazingly extensive audio cosmos. We come to learn that sounds have emotional connotations, that our feelings have different intonations.

A Hearing Perspective

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Sam Auinger is engaged with the world of sounds, tones, and noises and their geographical-cultural as well as historical differences. He thereby carries on a tradition of artistic involvement with sound in which people such as Erik Satie, Luigi Russolo, John Cage, and Murray Schäfer made history. Trained at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz and University Mozarteum Salzburg, more »