TORONTO — Wendy Snyder MacNeil is as much a documentarian as she is an artist.
Author Archives: Catherine Kustanczy
Catherine Kustanczy is a freelance arts journalist and broadcaster. She has worked in Dublin, London, Toronto, and New York City, in a variety of editorial capacities for film, TV, radio, and digital. She has interviewed a range of award-winning cultural figures from the worlds of theater, music, television, movies, and food, and has been part of cultural panels on HuffPost Live, Pivot TV, and CBC Radio. Find her at @catekustanczy.
Looking Back at Toronto’s Radical 1980s Underground Art Scene
TORONTO — The Rebel Zone provides insight into a scene that set the stage for a whole generation of artists, ultimately leading to one of the city’s earliest examples of gentrification.
In a Time of Displacement, Arab Artists Negotiate the Meaning of Home
TORONTO — Home Ground provides a kind of vast cosmos that reflects the rootlessness of the immigrant experience and the challenge of finding, developing, and maintaining an identity.
With Work by Living Composer, Canadian Opera Company Embraces the Edges of Its Art
TORONTO — What do you get when you pair the work of a living composer with that of one from the 17th century?
Seven First Nations Artists Who Fought for a Place in the Canadian Canon
KLEINBURG, Ontario — People often generalize indigenous art, confining it to images of totem poles, bears, and eagles.
Canadian Modernist Emily Carr Finally Gets Her Due
TORONTO — In the discussion around underrepresented female artists in the art world, one name is slowly becoming more well known.
Douglas Coupland Wants to Give You Brain Orgasms
TORONTO — “I like art about art. I think many people pussyfoot around this issue.”
The Many Faces of Suzy Lake
TORONTO — Artist Suzy Lake is many women at once in her work, but in life, she is a singular, deeply influential artist who began exploring the constructed nature of femininity and identity before Cindy Sherman ever donned a wig or set of buck teeth.
A Roving International Art Fest Kicks Off with Ragnar Kjartansson in Toronto
TORONTO — If pain can be funny, and funny things are sometimes painful, then Villa Toronto was off to a hilariously macabre start on Friday night. Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson held court at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), offering “an evening of misery,” complete with sad songs and black humor.
Canadians in the Shadow of Matisse
KLEINBURG, Ontario — With a much-lauded show of cutouts at MoMA and a group exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, Henri Matisse seems to be experiencing (yet another) moment in the North American art scene. Canada’s McMichael Collection has joined the fray with its exhibition Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse.
Making Michelangelo Contemporary
The near-mythic name of Michelangelo conjures many things: the divine, swirling figures of the Sistine Chapel ceiling; the almost-touching hands of human and divine; Charlton Heston’s grimacing mug; a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Getting to Know the New Terence Koh
KLEINBURG, Ontario — In 2007 he described himself as “the Naomi Campbell of the art world.” Now he’s now hugging trees and talking about staying “in the moment” like a Buddhist zen master.