{"id":5676,"date":"2011-11-22T00:45:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T00:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=5676"},"modified":"2012-11-30T14:20:41","modified_gmt":"2012-11-30T19:20:41","slug":"tony-scherman-%e2%80%9cblack-october%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=5676","title":{"rendered":"Tony Scherman: \u201cBlack October\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Georgia Scherman Projects Gallery
\nOctober 20 – November 26, 2011<\/p>\n

Toronto based artist Tony Scherman is best known for his perfection of the encaustic technique; a painstaking and challenging process involving the dripping of\u00a0 wax, one colour at a time, directly onto canvas.\u00a0 Black October\u00a0<\/em> features thirteen pieces, consisting\u00a0of large-scale encaustic paintings some combining the technique with oil pastel. It is not the\u00a0technical skills displayed in these paintings however, that captures the viewers interest but rather the exploration of a narrative based on the October Crisis.\u00a0 Despite the weakness in metaphorical allusion, Scherman\u2019s paintings still manage to capture his view on this important aspect of Canadian history, based substantially on Pierre Trudeau, his influences and to some extent personal life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Trudeau<\/em>, 2010-11, encaustic, oil pastel on canvas,\u00a084 x 84 in. Courtesy of Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto<\/p>\n

Black October <\/em>can be seen as a response, reflection and personal interpretation of the series of events that happened in the month of October 1970, an episode called the \u2018October Crisis\u2019.\u00a0 In the press release by Georgia Scherman Projects, the essential understanding behind \u00a0Black October <\/em>is stated: \u201cScherman imagines a broad historical and social context for Trudeau\u2019s authorization of the War Measures Act.\u201d What\u00a0 makes this\u00a0episode powerful and emotional in Scherman\u2019s view?<\/p>\n

Fear, love, brutality, death and ego\u00a0are the\u00a0dominant themes of this exposition and\u00a0transcend into the physicality of the artworks. It could be the large round eyes and sullen pout in Pierr<\/em>e Trudeau\u2019s <\/em>portrait that lead us to\u00a0associate his persona with a distinct egotism.\u00a0 Imaginably, it could be the quiet smugness brought out by the partial exposure of Barbara Streisand\u2019s face that leads us into the realms of Trudeau\u2019s love life, making it a source of influence in the eyes of Scherman.\u00a0\u00a0The face of Machiavelli<\/em> together with the presence of Karl Marx proceed to make this narrative dark or perhaps furtive giving us reasons to believe that the October Crisis was much more than just a public scandal: rather it was a result of several factors and historical influences.\u00a0 One could say that Trudeau is represented as Canada\u2019s Napoleon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Machiavelli<\/em>, 2010-11, encaustic, oil pastel on canvas,\u00a0\u00a084 x 72 in. Courtesy of Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto<\/p>\n

\u00a0Tony Scherman has constantly insisted that he isn\u2019t an ironist, yet some of his work, perhaps the entire Black October\u00a0<\/em>series may lead us to think differently. From the presence of the trilogy of flower paintings\u00a0 The Death of Pierre Laporte <\/em>and Conversations with the Devil <\/em>to the somewhat superficial subject matter, this exhibition \u00a0may intensify our reason to believe differently.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nun<\/em>, 2010-11, encaustic, oil pastel on canvas, 54 x 60 in. Courtesy of Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto<\/p>\n

\u00a0We must remember that Tony Scherman deploys the use of subtlety; instead of painting the Quebec workers on strike he chooses to display more glamourized aspects of this moment of history, such as the face of Barbara Streisand, \u00a0giving the presentation of the involved themes a quiet but powerful undercurrent. Furthermore, the physical appearance of the artwork, does play a particularly important role in the manifestations of themes imagined by the artist. For example: the scab-like texture of the encaustic paints makes for a very striking\u00a0collection of artwork, whilst outlining the wounds within Canadian history,\u00a0even if\u00a0unintentionally.<\/p>\n

Haafiz Karim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Haafiz Karim<\/strong><\/p>\n

Georgia Scherman Projects Gallery<\/strong>
\nOctober 20 – November 26, 2011<\/p>\n

It is not the technical skills of encaustic, that captures the viewers interest but rather the exploration of a narrative based on the October Crisis<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-haafiz-karim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5676"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16780,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676\/revisions\/16780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}