“Here we have the usual Roy Arden stuff—garbage, rubbish, scraps—very boring, of course,” Brussels-based curator Dieter Roelstraete harrumphs in front of Canadian art star Roy Arden’s black-and-white photographs. Arden’s body of work is part of a group showing in Antwerp, Belgium, called Intertidal: Vancouver Art & Artists, that Roelstraete has co-curated. Wait—the curator just called… Continue reading Drawn but not Quartered
Series: Summer 2010
Why Didn’t I Know this Africa?
In the 1970s, there was Idi Amin. The vicious dictator made big news in the West with his brutal murders, rapes and torture of Ugandan citizens. Amin was ousted in 1979 and a few years of further instability ensued. In 1986, the current president, Yoweri Museveni, took over. The Globe and Mail praised him for being part… Continue reading Why Didn’t I Know this Africa?
The Calm after the Storm
It’s easy to lose your way in Saint John. Many summer mornings the skyline is shrouded in a heavy cloak of fog blown in from the Bay of Fundy. There are entire weeks when the cloud barely lifts, and the city becomes a ghostly whitewash. Some say flowers die in August from a lack of… Continue reading The Calm after the Storm
Editors in Distress
The building that once housed James Lawrence’s Harrowsmith and Equinox magazines was a classic three-storey Victorian farmhouse constructed out of traditional red brick; there were wood-panelled walls and floors that creak. In the late 1980s, when Doug Bennet, then editor of Masthead magazine, a trade title covering the magazine business, visited Camden House Publishing, located… Continue reading Editors in Distress
Battle Ready
Charles Oberdorf moves slowly to the stage. The veteran magazine editor and writer, tethered to an oxygen tank with a nasal cannula because of emphysema, looks older than his 67 years. Before him, the biggest names in the magazine industry cluster around tables with white linens, awaiting the presentation of the 31st annual National Magazine… Continue reading Battle Ready