The Flâneur Toronto

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  • On Shawn Micallef’s Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto

    On Shawn Micallef’s Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto

    Reviewed by Jodie James Elliott, 2016

    Toronto Proper is best entered via one of its two most cinematic orifices: the first, and my personal favorite, is from the west, along the Gardiner Expressway eastbound toward the Spadina exit; the second, and only slightly-less sublime, is from the east, southbound along the curving Don Valley Parkway, all the way to the bottom where it narrows into a funnel, pressurizing the flow of traffic and ejaculating onto the Gardiner westbound – also making its final approach on the Spadina exit. At the bottom of the Spadina exit, abandon your car here and start walking – in any direction – without looking back. Don’t worry, in less than ten minutes the City will take it away and you will henceforth be emancipated. I cannot recommend the best route for leaving the city, because I’ve never tried it.

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  • Vanitas

    Vanitas

    by Jodie James Elliott, 2013

    The bumpy transition from street to parking lot is completely devoid of any attempt by hired contractor to merge the two planes seamlessly. Instead, there is a gap chopped out of the preexisting curb only to be confronted by a newer, lower curb about two and a half inches high. In the centre of this entrance/gap, the municipal side of the awkward border dips just enough to compel water, and anything else that moves, into the direction of a storm drain, covered by a grate designed to keep anything wider than a bicycle tire from entering the city’s bowels. 

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  • The 2013 Toronto Boat Show

    The 2013 Toronto Boat Show

    By Jodie James Elliott

    Ontario Sailor Magazine. Spring 2013

    No one has ever called this the Toronto Sailing Show. It is the Toronto Boat Show. And if you are a sailor, you will have to navigate a city of towering bridge boats, shiny accoutrements and a fleet of disembodied outboard motors before happening upon the object of your affection. Unlike the rules of the water, the tradeshow rule for right-of-way favors powerboats. Sailing-related exhibits are pushed aside, hidden away as if their devotees are the acolytes of some esoteric cult. Well, it is true that sailing requires unique skills and knowledge of secret rituals. It has its own language. We prefer a challenge. Very well, I shall take the long way.

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  • Secret Heart — A Valentine’s for Adventurous (Food) Lovers

    Secret Heart — A Valentine’s for Adventurous (Food) Lovers

    by Jodie James Elliott

    The Depanneur, 2013.

    On the corner of College and Rusholme, stands a classic example of Toronto’s Victorian Commercial architecture – red bricks blackened by decades of sun exposure, columns in the Ionic order. Though most of its charming features were only discovered after Len Senater had taken over the former convenience store. Peeling back the layers of corrugated plastic signage, and cardboard, has revealed a space that a pub franchiser would envy – although such a person would likely gut the place and fill it with imitation walnut MDF wainscoting and framed portraits of late-19th-century nobodies. This is The Depanneur, home to the Rusholme Park Supper Club, and inside, a small culinary troupe frantically puts together the final touches of a Valentine’s dinner called Secret Heart – A Valentine’s for Adventurous (Food) Lovers.

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  • Laura Moore — Kernel Memory

    Laura Moore — Kernel Memory

    by Jodie James Elliott

    Stride Gallery, Exhibition Catalogue. 2011

    On my bookshelves, among the volumes of texts and novels, there continues to this day to be about a dozen or so VHS tapes. It seems they have always been there so I seldom notice their presence anymore but they still exist. Some, in their original cardboard boxes, are identifiable as popular films from the 1990s. Others can only be identified by the hand-written labels applied to their sides: July 1996, or Art Project: Chair. I have a vague memory of what these titles mean but since I no longer own a functioning VCR, there is no way for me to view them. And since I imagine it is now becoming increasingly difficult to even buy a new VCR I have already accepted the possibility that I may never view them again. Conversely, some of their companions, my books, have been printed as far back as the 1920s and 30s. Their contents remain easily accessible and will continue to be so for as long as paper is able to maintain its material integrity. In both cases, the data is only as good as the device required to access and interpret it. 

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  • Are You Alright? New Art from Britain

    Are You Alright? New Art from Britain

    By Jodie James Elliott

    Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Exhibition Catalogue. 2012

    This group exhibition featuring a new generation of British artists diversely posits a schism between the Modern and Contemporary through the spectacle of redevelopment, urban shrines, sexuality, and celebrity culture. With allusions to the grotesquely beautiful and exploring the darker side of kitsch, Are You Alright? reveals a trend of disillusionment with contemporary British society. Curated by Canadian artist, Derek Mainella and British artist Elizabeth Eamer, the works in this exhibition emerge from the darkness as a unique articulation in art itself, granting passage to coherence by virtue of a kind of introspection that is anything but Postmodern. Yet somehow, among the splenetic observations of the mores and fascinations in contemporary life, the work may also be seen as a kind of paean to art as cultural critic. These artists, in whatever way they may be affected by the cultural environment, no longer seek to simply expose the external elements, they seem to express an interest in how these external elements are revealed in the work – either through process or concept. Following the YBAs, this next generation of artists work with their own hand – there are no armies of art-slaves under their charge. Instead, we see a collection of artists working obsessively in quiet studios, diligently researching and examining strategies of expression in art history and redeploying them in a complex response to the assault of contemporary culture.

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