Something nobody tells you when you have children is that the second you have kids, everyone else on the face of the planet instantly becomes a parenting expert. You’re in luck though because there are only five hard and fast “rules” to successfully ensuring your replicant DNA becomes a fully
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Art Threat: Curating the North: Documentary Screening Ethics and Inuit Representation in (Festival) Cinema
Documentary festivals are certainly not immune to scandal and controversy, and this year’s RIDM, which took place in Montreal in November 2015, was no exception. Following on the heels of the festival’s public screenings of Dominic Gagnon’s film Of the North, Inuit artists like Tanya Tagaq and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril took to social media to express […]
Continue readingArt Threat: Venice Biennale: Artists Fiddled While Venice Drowned
It’s massive: 130 artists, over 50 national pavilions and more than 40 collateral events across the city. It’s also largely irrelevant to the fate of Venice in a world of irresistible climate change. Venice is in peril, its future grim; sea levels are rising, flood barriers are inadequate, giant cruise ships and billionaire super yachts […]
Continue readingArt Threat: Our RIDM suggestions: urban development, rural Jesus, protest music, and more
RIDM always has way more films that look fantastic than any one person with other commitments can reasonably see in the space of ten days, which is a great problem to have. These are a few suggestions of things we’ve seen and loved. The Chinese Mayor The Chinese Mayor (2015,
Continue readingArt Threat: Artist says Nope to Stephen Harper (again)
Four years ago, Bob Preston found himself in the same position as millions of Canadians: he desperately wanted to see prime minsiter Stephen Harper turfed from office. Influenced by Shepard Fairey’s iconic
Continue readingArt Threat: Peter Kennard: A very unofficial war artist
The Exhibiton — Peter Kennard: A Very Unofficial War Artist, Imperial War Museum, London The Film — Zygosis: John Heartfield and the Political Image by Gavin Hodge & Tim Morrison (1991) The images in this archival exhibition, Peter Kennard: A Very Unofficial War Artist, represent a radical perspective on the
Continue readingArt Threat: Condé and Beveridge depict two visions of our future
The following text was written to accompany the show “Scene Otherwise: recent work by Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge,” which ran from April 17 to May 12 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, curated by the Anna Leonowens Gallery as part of the Halifax Mayworks Festival. We live in
Continue readingArt Threat: From Exposé to Opacity: With The Migrant Image, T.J Demos Rethinks Documentary Aesthetics
Though often situated at the centre of grandiose political and activist projects, tasked time and again with capturing visible evidence of exploitation, violence, deprivation, and inequality, documentary, as both a genre and a practice, rests on a fundamental paradox: that of being perpetually too early and too late. If, as
Continue readingArt Threat: Filmmakers pull out of Istanbul festival in government censorship protest
Nearly two dozen filmmakers have yanked their films from the 34th Istanbul Film Festival in response to the last-minute cancellation of documentary screening about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The growing censorship protest, which now involves a majority of the filmmakers participating in the event, has led organizers to cancel
Continue readingArt Threat: Performing Aloha in Queer Times
In 2001, filmmakers Kathryn Xian and Brent Anbe broke new ground with their documentary Ke Kulana He Mahu: Remembering a Sense of Place. The film, which documents the lives, struggles, and aspirations of several queer and trans Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians), also made an important and, at the time, novel
Continue readingArt Threat: Art and photography tackle the conscience and chronology of war
A review of: Conflict – Time – Photography @ Tate Modern, London Conscience and Conflict: British Artists and the Spanish Civil War @ Pallant Gallery, Chichester Brute @ arthouse1, London We have just returned from Tate Modern and the exhibition Conflict-Time-Photography. On the cover of the exhibition catalogue is the photo
Continue readingArt Threat: Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism
“>Screening Truth to Power: A Reader on Documentary Activism is a collection of essays and interviews related to the films and filmmakers of Cinema Politica (CP), and as such provides an excellent source of Canadian documentary work that pursues effecting positive social change. This non-profit doc-screening organization, which started in
Continue readingArt Threat: Maidan: one of the most honest depictions of popular protest ever filmed
Sergei Loznitsa’s latest film, Maidan, falls firmly in the tradition of documentaries that use the real to question the possibilities of cinema. Those expecting a more activist documentary like Jehane Noujaim’s The Square might come away dissatisfied with Maidan, but this shouldn’t stop filmgoers from experiencing what is ultimately one of the most
Continue readingArt Threat: Activist pasts, austere presents, queered futures: An interview with Emily Davidson
“Imagine a new relationship to every aspect of everything.” “Capitalism has fallen; Art must be redefined.” “You get to pick your gender when you come of age, but feel free to change your mind.” “Living together is still hard; Art makes it better.” These missives from the Inner City Artists’
Continue readingArt Threat: What does the word Polytechnique mean to you? – a review of The Anorak
The Anorak, written and performed by Adam Kelly Morton, goes beyond the pat answers and media sensationalism around the Polytechnique massacre and examines what made Marc Lépine a killer. Exceptionally well-researched, Morton’s text looks critically at the myriad factors that anti-feminists have attempted to derail the public discourse with, from
Continue readingArt Threat: Just For Laughs: Gregg Proops & Paul F. Tompkins
The Just For Laughs Festival is taking place in Montreal, and Art Threat’s Kristi Kouchakji is there to review the politically-tinged humour for us. Greg Proops: “These are the bad old days.” The word on the street is that this Whose Line Is It Anyway? veteran has a remarkably intelligent
Continue readingArt Threat: Just For Laughs: Jerrod Carmichael, Nikki Glaser & Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It
The Just For Laughs Festival is taking place in Montreal, and Art Threat’s Kristi Kouchakji is there to review the politically-tinged humour for us. Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It: A One-lady Rape About Comedy Starring her Pussy and Little Else With a title like “Adrienne Truscott’s Asking For It” and
Continue readingArt Threat: Just For Laughs: David O’Doherty & What Would Beyoncé Do?
The Just For Laughs Festival is taking place in Montreal, and Art Threat’s Kristi Kouchakji is there to review the politically-tinged humour for us. Luisa Omielan’s What Would Beyoncé Do? Despite some terrible promotional copy, Luisa Omielan’s What Would Beyoncé Do? seemed promising. A single 30-something woman moving back in
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: Hue Man & The Dysmorphia Diet
Hue Man: He Volution An exploration of socially constructed male gender roles through puppetry and video art, Hue Man: He Volution is an interesting concept that doesn’t quite work. The pre-show here includes a PowerPoint presentation about sexist terms that need to be retired, all of which pertain to concepts
Continue readingArt Threat: Montreal Fringe: God as Drag Queen, Big Gay Weddings, and Peeing on Stage for Poverty
God Is A Scottish Drag Queen II Where this God is concerned, nothing is sacred. Essentially an hour of stand-up performed by Mike Delamont in character as a Scottish incarnation of God in a floral power suit with a list of religion-related talking points, God Is A Scottish Drag Queen
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