Art Date in Toronto

fantastical ceramics by Julie Moon from her exhibition Pretty Strange at Narwhal Art Projects 680 Queen St W Toronto Plaster and printed fabric room decor by Celeste Toogood and Christopher Martin in the Gladstone Hotel (our room 301) No 5 / No 22, 1950 painting by Mark Rothko at the Art Gallery of Ontario and No. 16, (red, brown, black) 1958, another painting by Mark Rothko. Abstract Expressionism from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the AGO until September 4. In the explanatory videos the curator, Ann Temkin, advises: "These works ask for a type of concentration that is becoming increasingly unusual in a society that bombards our brains with simultaneous visual and auditory stimuli from countless directions. In a world that likes its culture fast, Abstract Expressionist works are uncompromisingly slow."

While at the AGO I watched Marcia Connolly's video about Annie Pootoogook. She spoke slowly and directly to the camera. So slowly, that I was able to write down every word.

"I am Annie Pootoogook
I am an artist
My mother was an artist
My grandmother was an artist
I'm a 3rd generation artist.
I used to go see my grandma drawing. She told us the stories.
They were true stories.
I wish I was born into that time. I would know Inuit tradition.
I'm very happy that I can draw what I have in my head and what I'm feeling.
It lifts my life a lot.
It's a very big thing to me.
I'm very happy.
I am an artist."