Thank you for your “review”. It was nice to have met you and your acquaintances last Friday night at The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same. Unfortunately, the opportunity for discussion did not present itself there. Perhaps, the Saturday editorial would provide a chance for dialogue to take place.

I am obliged to respond to your text for a number of reasons. The most important one being that the project at my apartment is a collective effort- a work of generosity perhaps. Hence, I need to clarify a couple of points on behalf of all the artists who have contributed to this project. Another reason is that writing might provide the “time” for the works to speak, once more, since the works there reveal themselves slowly.

I do not agree with the label “conceptual art”, with which you designated the work in my apartment. It was too arbitrarily employed. Perhaps it is more beneficial to forego pigeonholing, especially when it is not warranted by precision. It is necessary, however, and especially in a scenario such as Way Up Way Down, to look at the way the works disclose themselves. A number of the works there, the double-hinged door by Yvonne Lammerich for example, directly implicate my practical life. I would say all the works are experiential, that they courteously transformed my perceptions and my daily life in the apartment. Somehow I feel your designation of the works as “conceptual” is an erroneous approximation based on the appearance of the works-- the way all the works introduce themselves with restraint, and hence respectfully into someone’s dwelling.

Also I am not certain if you are informed that I am not a collector. Perhaps your comparison with me to a Victorian collector is an attempt at humor. But you missed an important point. I do not own the works. They are entrusted to me. I have a different responsibility to these works from that of a collector: I have to transmit their spirit to an audience. So the works are not in my possession, they are animated and animating the space on their own terms, according to which I must negotiate. In most cases I worked attentively with each artist to produce a work, which is never determined in advance. Way Up Way Down is an artist’s project. It is interesting to note that you characterized me as a “proud collector”. I do feel privileged to be involved in the process of the artists whom I admire. These are the artists who outline the contour of a community for me. I live in Toronto partly because of them. I merely hope this positive energy of trust and generosity initiated through this project can be transmitted.

yam

3. Jon Sasaki responds to Yam Lau's response

Dear Yam,

Thank you for your response, and the opportunity to clarify my previous comments regarding The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same. I have a great deal of admiration for, firstly, the work that I encountered at 5 Grafton Ave, and secondly, the decision-making process that went into bringing together such a harmonious group of participants. It is to this second part that my Victorian Collector comparison was intended to speak. It was a respectful analogy for the astute curatorial decisions you have made in assembling these artists. To paraphrase my original review, and hopefully put it a bit more succinctly, the comparison was along the lines of: "analogue to the way the Victorian collector assembled objects using a rigorous discipline of value judgements, Yam Lau has exercised careful consideration to assemble participants with remarkably congruent art practices." That being said, however, I understand that "conceptual" can be seen as an inadequate umbrella term to describe said art practices. I like your term "experiential," and wish I had thought to use it. Better yet, I wish I could have commented individually on every piece I experienced at The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same. They were, every one of them, worthy of the kind of precise and considered attention that was sadly prohibited due to space considerations. As we're all aware, in a review of two-hundred word duration, one or two of them will often, unfortunately, be inadequate shorthand, and for this I apologize. As far as my review attempting to include an element of humour, I was fully counting on the Baboon skull comment to serve that function. The Victorian Collector analogy was really an acknowledgement that you, Yam, have played a key role in shaping the entity that is The Way Up and the Way Down are One and the Same, and are deserving of commendation for it.

Jon

4. Sobey's Art Award Ceremony | John Tupper

Whenever I visit Halifax I always stay at the Waverley Inn on Barrington, not because it was where Oscar Wilde stayed when he traveled to that city in 1882 but because of the extensive use of chatchka as a decorating strategy. And because it’s cheap.

This trip was no different, I was in town to attend the Sobey Art Award Ceremony and after a quick check in at the Waverly, including a change of clothes of course, I rushed off to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia with Shauna McCabe, the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. We showed up at the AGNS door 5 minuets before the ceremony was to start and the place was already packed with what appeared to be a mixture of NSCAD students and business people.

The Sobey family has one of the best private collections of historical Canadian art that they keep in a house in historic Pictou County, NS. If you are ever in Pictou on a Wednesday in the summer you can get a tour of this wonderful collection in the Crombie House. The collection, which includes all the Group as well as Emily, Tom, and Cornelius, has a special emphasis on Atlantic Canada in the subject matter. The Sobey’s support for young contemporary artists seems to be in sharp contrast to the historic nature of this collection.

The Sobey Art Award is for Canadian visual artists under the age of 40, in value it ranks with major international visual arts awards like the well publicized Turner Prize in the UK. The top prize is $50,000. and there is also a runner up prize if $15,000. The Sobey Art Award has a distinctly Canadian regional focus in the selection process. Five curators, one each from different part of Canada are chosen to select 5 artists from their region. The list of 25 names is then narrowed down to a short list of 5 and from that the winners are chosen.

After we got past the crack AGNS security we muscled our way through the crowd, Jessica Bradley, Curator of Contemporary Art at the AGO was the first familiar face we spotted, representing Ontario on the selection committee. She was wearing a stunning purple dress which looked great with her signature hair style. While trading kisses with Jessica I spotted Bruce Grenville, the VAG Senior Curator and BC rep on the team. Bruce always looks great because he follows the “good shoes and good haircut” style rule. He has to be the hands down most honest curator I ever met in Canada. Next I caught sight of David Hoffos, the selected artist from the Prairies (chosen by James Patton the former curator of contemporary art at the WAG). David shops for his clothes at the Catholic Charities in Lethbridge and pulls off that disheveled retro look incredibly well.

Before I could spot anyone else my attention was distracted by the ceremony which were starting on the stage where AGNS board chair Don MacVicar was setting the event up by introducing the MC for the night - Ray Cronin the curator of contemporary art at the AGNS. Ray was also the Atlantic representative on the curatorial selection committee. He's young but has a great curatorial eye and quickly introduced Pierre Théberge, the Director of the National Gallery of Canada, who gave a great talk about the importance of the Sobey Art Award and philanthropy in Canada in general.

I was thinking that this is about as close as I’ll ever get to the Academy Awards and tried to compare. Of course it is different but I can see why the Turner Prize had Madonna as give the award in 2001, it’s the celebrity thing that adds a little sparkle. Just as Donald Sobey was about to announce the prize I noticed I was standing right beside Mark Holton. Mark is a member of the Sobey Art Foundation and, like Shauna and I, was representing Charlletown at the event.

Donald said a few brief words before Ray handed him an envelope! Great there is an envelope I thought, just like the Academy Awards. Apparently the final decision on the winners was just made a few hours before the event. The room got very quiet in anticipation, it was like everyone had their favourites, just like me, and were anxious to see if they were right or not. Donald Sobey leisurely opened the envelope and adjusted his glasses to read the names of the winners.

The first to be announced was the runner up which turned out to be David Hoffos. David came up to the stage holding a white rose. After he thanked his mom and dad he gave props to a long list of curators and other artists who he has worked with over the years. Most of the people on his list weren’t in the room but it didn’t matter to David, he is such a sweet guy. And a great artist. Next up was the announcement of the winner and it was Brian Jungen, to almost nobody’s surprise except apparently him. Brian went on stage and looked genuinely astonished that he had won. Like most artists from Vancouver he has incredible taste in clothes and looked great on stage.

With the announcement of the awards the rest was going to be anticlimactic, we applauded the artist and curators and then I noticed for the first time that all the curators were together on one side of the room and all the artists on the other, given what seemed to be a close relationship between them that seemed strange. After the applause an old school jazz band started playing and it was time to schmooze. Bernie Riordon, the previous director of the AGNS had come down from Fredericton to attend the event, and I heard that somebody saw Jeffery Spalding, the incoming AGNS director there as well, though I didn’t see him so can’t confirm. I saw a brief glimpse of Ingrid Jenkner, the director of the Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, but she must have left early because I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. I did get a chance to talk to James Patton though and we traded stories about working at the WAG, he has just left there to work as a curator at the Art Gallery of Windsor. Gordon Laurin, the director of the Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery showed up wearing this great lime green shirt and with his trademark sense of humour. I hear that he may leave St. Mary’s at the end of the academic year. I spent some time talking to Peter Dykhuis of the Anna Leonowens Gallery at NSCAD. Peter just got back from two weeks in Holland and is planning a big North Atlantic Rim exhibition. The AGNS eventually started to thin out and it was becoming clear that the bartender wanted to go home. After finishing of a final glass of free wine we headed off to the Economy Shoe Shop for some seafood.