"–exhibition catalogues that he's  often invited to
contribute to. He publishes in the magazines that I'm about to list for you now: Border Crossings, Canadian Art, See
Magazine, Hunter and Cook–and for the last several years also, interestingly, in The Dance Current–
so his interests are very wide indeed.
This is the second time that Ben has
spoken to the Art and Art History program– the first time was several years ago when
he was at the MacLaren Art Centre–he stayed after the talk and critiqued along with me
and the students in the class–my Painting IV class of that year. We went out to
see a exhibition that Ben had curated and
prepared–I think about three months
later and we went out for a meal all
together afterwards and Ben remembered
everybody's name in the class and all
their artwork–so if you show Ben
something, you must be mindful of the fact that he will never forget it.
And then–just– [inaudible] Ben phoned me up and he'd seen one of the students
whose work was in that class–was
in an exhibition at Harbourfront–Taylor
Bosada–and Ben phoned me to let me know the work was there–so you can see he has a
prodigious visual memory. Please join in welcoming Ben Portis. [Applause]
>>Ben Portis: Hi, so I'm really glad to be here–
 
–I'm really glad to be here. The first time
I was here was actually when I was a
curator still at the Art Gallery of
Ontario because I remember talking about things
that were going on there–but I have come
back to visit John's painting class
subsequently and so–that was correct and– [laughter]
I also–before I did my masters in
curatorial studies–which was, you know,
somewhat kind of far along in my journey
through life–I was–I was almost 40 when
I went into that program that I had done
Bachelor of Fine Arts at Queen's University
and a Master of Fine Arts degree at the
University of Chicago–so my roots are
really grounded in studio programs and I
always enjoy speaking
to students who are finding their way,
because for me–you know, going to a
university art program was really my
grounding and it opened up everything
intellectually for me and I've had a
quite sort of varied path out of that–and I
still–every now and then [laughs]–paint something
and I–this is a very little painting
that I did very quickly but it seemed–
when I was trying to find an image to
send to John for your poster–that it was
something that seemed–I could identify
with the topic that I'd chosen and–
So before I really kind of say much
about what this concept of writing and
overwriting entails, I think this sort of–
this part that is mainly important is
the–this element of a curator acting as
a critic and writing was a very
important entryway for me into becoming
a curator. I started doing that while I–
or out of doing my MFA program in
Chicago which had a lot of writing
demands and I–and one of them that I
failed to honour [laughs] before they granted me
my degree in trust that I would complete
all my assignments–was an exhibition
review for an "art criticism class" that
I was taking and–
In Chicago, the commencement was always held like–sort of like–within, you know,
a few days of the conclusion of their
academic quarters–so I sloughed off my
final assignment because I had already been, you know, given credit for that course
but I felt badly that the professor
might never grant such a trust to one of
his students again who might actually
have more pressing needs than mine which
was sheer, sort of, neglect and so I made
a point of completing that review and
I submitted it to a magazine–it was
active in Montreal at the time, where I
moved subsequently from Chicago– magazine was called 'Parachute' and they did run it
and I did send a photocopy of the
article to the university–so that the professor
knew that I–I was worth more than I seemed to demonstrate at the time.
So–this is to just say that–and since that time
writing has really been a kind of a core
activity for me so this–careful
attention and accounting for exhibitions
that was visiting–before I really
imagined that I might one day become a
curator–really established a kind of
attention, which in this–I call writing [laughs] and I thought I would–say something
about writing by giving an example of
some
writing that I've done recently in a
curatorial capacity. So I left my
position as curator at the MacLaren Art Centre in October of last year and I haven't–I
didn't leave it to take a new position
and I haven't found any position, so
really kind of returning to my
activity as a critic has been a very sort
of important anchor for me and, you know,
how I might find my way on to what my
next role will be. So this is–I'm going
to read from something and it's like a quasi
curatorial essay and it's for an
exhibition that just closed in Toronto–
and why I call it curatorial essay is
because I wrote it for the artist, for
the gallery, and I wrote it before the
exhibition had taken place–and the show
was of the painter Kim Dorland and it was
at Angell Gallery and it was a very
successful show for the artist so–the
exhibition's title is 'I Hate Poetry, But I
Love TV.' [scattered laughter]
[Reads] 'The call–the callow seeming title of this, Kim Dorland's eighth solo exhibition with
Angell Gallery, is a bluff. In his studio–
in his Toronto studio in August, Kim told me
that he likes both poetry AND TV. Its
false braggadocio rings with second-wave
nostalgia for the receding prior
nostalgia of an early incarnation of the
artist who habitually slipped into the
indications of a former adolescent
cockiness. Today he nestles the intimate,
ephemeral now-ness of time as he watches
his children and family (and self) live
through–'
Just a second–
I've got an image up here–
[Laughter]
[Reads] 'Today he nestles the intimate,
ephemeral now-ness of time as he watches
his children and family (and self) live
through instances that occur and vanish
in a flicker. Yet, while the title is not
literally true, it is otherwise apropos.
Dorland chooses not to paint with poetic
embroidery or temerity. His imagery is
prosaically undisguised;
his vocabulary reflexively automatic,
journalistic, matter-of-fact; his palette
ALLCAPS attention-grabbing, vivid, even
lurid; and his mark making emphatic with
punctuation as much as description. That
punctuation infects...no, directs the
amassments of colour on his canvases and
it crucially articulates the stories
that emerge from his pictures.
Dorland claimed affinity to tell–
Dorland's claimed affinity to television
speaks to the day-by-day
mesmerization of far and near exotica
(and the commonplace) denatured and
re-naturalized by the keyed-up glow of the
household screen. Home plays a bit role
in these latest paintings, all from 2014,
in so far it is only one–in so far, it is
only one of many settings for family
life, its events, activities and
passages. Because, it seems, the artist's
observations of his family might occur
anywhere–' [indistinct mumbling]
[Reads] '–anywhere or anytime. His profoundly
immersive, psychic recognition
of the simultaneous presence, difference
and absence of those closest to heart
powerfully relocates an envelopes the
benchmark portraits of his
self-possession (versus their self-
possession) in an array of locations. So,
even when he is away from home, it feels
local and proximate to a specific
moment. An image snatched during an
evening run, 'High Park,' connotes that
Dorland acknowledges "a melancholic year
[as an artist] that doesn't reflect [his]
point of view with respect to his family
or his responsibilities"–a not uncommon
refrain for–from a forty-year-old man.'
Let me see if I can find that image–
That's–that's the painting, 'High Park.'
[Reads] Digital photography is an essential tool and reference for Dorland's ongoing
image archive of daily life passing into
the subjects for his paintings. It
naturally fits such a prolific and
prodigiously gifted artist. Pictorial
prowess and facility such as Dorland's
allows for the gradual, uncontrived seeping
of meaning into one's work. For all its
outrageous stylizations and
exaggerations of colour and form,
Dorland's paintings remain essentially
objective. Therefore he does not prefigure or predestine his attitude to
their content. By con–by constant
return to themes and real
views, not only does he gauge the–the
changes of his subjects, but also notices
his variances in perceptive and emotional
state. Sometimes key incidents shimmer in
through placid and routine surroundings,
such as hazy and distant police car–such
as a hazing distant police car parked in
the center of the aforementioned 'High
Park.' Similarly, the efflorescent sparkle and
fuming of 'Fireworks' almost completely
occlude a pair of humble witnesses
meekly standing against the back fence
of the concrete yard, Dorland's sons,
Seymour, eight, and Thompson, five.
The compositional–compositional
reference to cellphone images gains
consonant–‘See if I can find that image
[Reads] 'The compositional reference to cellphone images gains consonant ordinariness in
such devices as–in that such devices are
ubiquitous, possessed by his subjects too.
His wife, Lori, is plausibly aglow as
she looks at her screen in the winter
evening of 'After the Party.'
Crystalline flares of a voltaic
underpainting refer to how Dorland
recorded the scene. In 'Bleeding Heart,'–
–in 'Bleeding Heart'–which is up now–
the small screen isolates and
rebalances the image, deepening and
thickening a garden around Seymour into
a jungle where he sits oblivious to its
ominous foliage, inspecting a blossom
gently with his fingertips, not absorbed
in a video game as it might initially
appear. 'March Break' and 'Don't Give Up' are
two of Dorland's most effectively pared-down paintings, each with an abstracted,
horizontal banding the yields classic,
stacked, rectangular order. The elegant
simplicity of such a feat of artistic
restraint, nerve and hard-won experience.
In 'March Break,' Seymour stretches upward in preparation for a dive–
In 'March Break,' Seymour stretches upward in preparation for a dive into a
pool, with concentration, determination,
perhaps some trepidation. His taut body
and arms are mimicked above by the
upright trunks and limbs of bare trees,
and contrasted by an unbelievably limber
and confident graffiti tag on the grey
wall behind. His face, as is standard for
Dorland's figurative treatments, is a
slathered impasto of relief-map planes
in oil paint which still conveys a
specific portraiture. The technique
conveys the vertical musculature of his
son's body and also the horizontal
surface plane and concealed depth of the
water–
of which the human body is largely
composed. 'Don't Give Up'–which I don't
have an image of–by contrast, is utterly unpopulated. It depicts the
fenced-in tennis courts found in
Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods Park. The
chain-link has been meticulously
stenciled and sprayed, an extruded
screen through which appear side-by-side
court lines, posts and nets, at once
substance and mirage. The foreground is a
clover-pocked lawn. Above the fence line,
an orange sky churns with latent energy. A bedraggled message, woven into
the fence links with ribbon, is the
tattered remnant of youthful spontaneity,
long since departed. Each painting
renders depth ambitiously–ambiguously–
sorry–treated in distinct zones of colour
and technique that are monolithic and
gradated at the same time, conjuring
the mists or mystery of the imminent
future. The crowning painting of a
glorious show is a portrait of his muse
and most frequent subject–
–portrait of his muse and most frequent
subject, Lori. She poses in 'Bay Blanket #3'
as so often, in the nude, however wrapped in a recognizable wool
blanket of the Hudson's Bay Company that
she clasps to her breasts and resplendently
spreads from–down her kneeling figure
and across the top of the couple's bed.
The painterly treatment of the blanket
makes a transition from the thickly-
painted flesh and defacement into
impasto folds of heavy cloth, especially
so around Lori's torso and gently easing
out to reveal some of the textile weave
of the canvas on which the paint is
brushed, with the signature green/red/
yellow/black stripes running up and down
or forward and back according to the
blankets crumpled tumble. The bed is strewn with other rustic red/black patterns of
quilting and tossed red pillows beneath her.
On the wall behind Lori is a galaxy of
framed family photographs, hung with a
celebratory disregard for regulated
order. Dorland renders each of these
photos, so similar to, perhaps identical
with, the sources for so many of his
paintings, with tender attention to its
individual distinction, it's specific
reference and
instance for the artist's life. He can't
help himself. He strives to keep up with
the evanescent life by constantly
resetting and starting over.'
So–one of
the things that makes this–I wasn't
really a curator for this exhibition
but I made studio visits with the
artist beforehand and this was at the
invitation of the gallery. The gallery
contacted me because they wanted
somebody to write a–a press release for
them and–and Dorland has been one of the
artists that it–has represented for a long
time. This is its 8th show of his work
and also that they've had–the gallery's
had its most success with, in terms of
collections, and escalating prices and
demand.
So, I wasn't comfortable with writing a
press release–I didn't–just–
you know, for me it was an inappropriate role to play and I countered to–to propose
that I should write a real essay based
on the work that was coming into the
show and–and I–as I visited Kim in his
studio–you know, I could see things that
he was working out. He had a–another show that was going to be opening
simultaneously in Calgary–and he grew up
in Alberta–so this was a important
survey at a contemporary art museum there–Calgary Contemporary–and you know, I told
him what I thought, you know, in a very
sort of honest way like what–
I wouldn't have agreed to do this if I
wasn't having a positive response to
where he was taking his painting at this
juncture but I also really advise you
strongly, for instance, not to include
some paintings that seemed like, you know,
throw backs or throw aways to–and to
really focus on–on what was rising for
him out of portraying his family at the
time. So I really tried to drive that
home with this essay that I contributed
and it was also a kind of a step for the
gallery because this is, you know, in the
kind of spectrum of Canadian art dealers–
this is one that's kind of always been closer
to this sort of–
to the middle, you know, of–you know, being responsive to things coming up with
artists but not really knowing yet how
to–how to direct their careers, you know,
in any–
by any standards other than, you know,
commercial ones. So I really tried to
approach writing about this exhibition
as if it–to give it the–maybe the
dignity and the honesty that a curator
would pay to an exhibition, that I myself
would have organized, you know, to the
extent that, you know, curators don't, like,
delude themselves and lose objectivity
about their own ideas. So, I'm going to
read something else and it's quite a bit
longer so I'm not going to read that
much of it but just to give you an idea
of what I termed in the title over-
writing–and by overwriting, I meant
as a visiting observer and respondent to
an exhibition that has been organized by
another institution or, you know, entity
with a different different set of
motivations and with that–that
individual curator's collaboration with
the artist to produce the nature of the
show–how–how somebody new comes in
and can layer on an additional
interpretation that may not have been
provided to the visitors but which is
available to–to the readers who may
revisit the exhibition that they had
seen by reading a subsequent review or
to readers who, in fact, had not been able
to see this exhibition which was, for the
most part, everybody because it was held
in St. Catharines at Rodman Hall at–
Rodman Hall Art Gallery which is at Brock
University–and people don't go there
very much from Toronto. But anyhow–
okay–
–Everything set up, I'm sorry–I had
everything set up and then we did
something with this computer–okay, I see what's happening–
–this will just take a second–
So this–it's going to take care of itself.
The exhibition was by–
 
I don't have anything on my screen which
is worrisome–
>>Host: Well, you don't. Oh, it's
your computer that's the problem.
Okay, so it's plugged in– 
>>Ben Portis: But it has a
battery so it shouldn't–
[Technical issues]
[Technical issues]
>>Ben Portis: Yeah, but I don't have anything on my screen so I can't–
Okay, well maybe I'll just have to read. [Laughs]
Because good writing should be
imagistic anyways. [Laughs] You'll just have to
look it up on your own. Okay, so the
exhibition was by–was by an artist
named Jimmy Limit.
He's a–primarily a sculptor but also does
photography. It's kind of a conceptual
project that he has that–deals with
acquired objects–you know, sort of a
found object kind of assemblage but
they're all things that are found in,
like, supply catalogues for custodial
services and–warehousing and IKEA–things of that
nature. So I'm just going to read a
little bit and–and it will indicate a
little bit more how I'm coming as
somebody from outside and feeling sort
of more spontaneously, drawing in lots of
images–and this is a review that's in
the current issue of Border Crossings. So,
if you have copies of that around the
department or in the library, you can look–yes, John? 
>>Host: Do you mind just trying to restart it?
>>Ben Portis: Yeah, I just–
here's something–
[Indistinct chatter]
–does somebody
who might want to–might be able to kind
of keep things moving along want to look
at my computer while I do the reading–
so we don't–okay so it's–
[Technical issues]
[Reads] 'For a while, as I drove to Toronto–for a while, as I drove from Toronto to St. Catharines along the Queen Elizabeth
Way, I tail a customized vintage compact
pickup truck. The roof of its aluminum
bed cap is blue, matching the blue
letters on its tailgate that spell
CHEVROLET. From the right of its chrome
bumper dangle what might well have been
no more–than a plastic bag containing
two tennis balls, but appears like a
synthetic blue scrotum. The coincidence
of this sighting in advance of a visit
to an exhibition of Jimmy Limit will
soon be apparent. Its relevance, however,
is not so much how the art of Limit, and
so many other artists of the moment,
reflects vernacular form, impulse, and
irony, but a reminder of just how
personal that art actually is. The other
incidental fact of my gallery visit is
that it occurs on the final day of a 15-week run. A number of the works contain
organic matter–grapefruit, oranges, lemons–that has desiccated considerably since the
opening.'
Excuse me a moment. [Laughs]
This is going to be so much better.
[Reads] 'I will encounter the sculptures at the shrivelled end of their site-specific
shelf-life. Fortunately, Limit has
foreseen the gradual fading of the vivid
citrus skins. A framed photo of the
pristine installation hangs across from
the front desk at Rodman Hall, just
before you turn left through the
threshold into the gallery it portrayed.
It is easily bypassed without being noticed.
This portrait, devised by the artist, not the venue, not included on the
checklist, occupies–'
Sorry–just checking things on the screen–okay. 
[Reads] 'This
portrait, devised by the artist, not the
venue, not included on the checklist,
occupies an ambiguous status between
artwork and promotion. The generic,
codified, and refined portraiture image–
industry of utilitarian products for
brochures, catalogues, and websites, many browsed exclusively by the pickup-truck
demographic, deeply informs Limit's
aesthetic. Most of the items from which
Limit constructs or assembles his
sculptures or puts on almost raw display
were ordered from such catalogues, often
with no more modification than a powder-
coated application of bold, monochrome
pigment. They bear such titles as
'Chandelier Extender and Work Surface,'
'Multi-Purpose Display Rack–square
brackets–[citrus, etc.]'–and that's a single title [laughs]–or 'Red Water Pipe with Hanging Citrus'–
square brackets–'[lemons, grapefruits,
nutrition, refresh, recline]'
and 'Jimmy Limit x Strömby' (The last
refers to the IKEA product name with
which the 17-part mural-like series of
small, matted photographs are framed.)
The water pipe emerges from and disappears
back into a wall in the corner of the
gallery, as it might–as might be a
permanent appurtenance of the room–like
a fire-extinguisher, even more so (as if
built in) and less (to be hereafter
ignored). Casually placed around one of
its joints is an apple-green,
powder-coated length of mangled steel
rod, looking like one of Ai Weiwei's
retrieved earthquake re-bars before being
pounded back straight. On another, a
yellow metal clip pincers a blue mesh
produce sac full from now dull, dry
fruit. Looped round yet another spot, along the
same horizontal length of pipe, hangs a
red metal pendant of unknown purpose, but
purpose it does indeed emanate, which, being the same colour as the pipe, practically
disappears from the equation of additive
intention.
The exquisite interior details of the
early Victorian Rodman Hall–parquet
floors, baseboards, fireplaces, dentition
and ornamental foliate plaster on the
ceilings–rim the salon galleries and
yet have been visually trimmed back,
disappearing into a neutral white latex
paint treatment typical of contemporary
art spaces. Limit teases out these
elements and beautifully coaxes the
highly hospitable, near symmetrical
proportions of the rooms, so that his
sculptures, for all their anonymous
composition, acquire figurative, almost
sentient, certainly domestic,
attributes. This–thus, Limit's inclusion
of photographs of other sculptures that
are part of the genealogy of his
practice fits right in, like pictures of
relatives and the immediate family from–
–immediate family when everyone was
younger. One of these pictures hangs half-
hidden behind a door. A found cyanotype
'Venus (Seopas), from the Temple of the [pronounces]
Aesculapius, Athens, circa 1900'–that's one of his
titles again–
[Reads] '–becomes a talismanic classical prototype. A homely work, 'Forgotten Floor Paint Can,'
powder-coated apple on its outside and
dark blue–and dark within, containing a
circular blue foam pad and a tarnished orange, is like a family pet,
a well-behaved mongrel that unobtrusively
occupies a quiet corner.
"Recent Advancements" is replete with such alert
details. And this is not even the half of
it. The sculptures, indeed all the works,
are each sturdy, distinct and convincing in
their own rights. One of the most
ingenious is 'Lemon Final'–is 'Lemon
Funnel Still Life [3 views],' a Georges Braque-like, post-cubist still-life sculpture
comprised of a rectangular yellow board
floor base–yellow board floor base'–
Okay, sorry, I–sometimes my writing is probably not as
good as it should be. [Reads] '–From which stand two narrow yellow posts,
atop–is nailed a plane, square, white
tabletop. The table supports a bowl of
fruit, as such, that is a black final–a
black vinyl funnel jammed into an apple-
green pipe flange, within which are five
lemons. The sculpture is centered in a
generous semi-octagonal niche at the back
of the room, each of three walls behind
it applied within a rectangular matte
monochrome backdrop, yellow, blue or grey, so
that by choosing one's perspective, one
momentarily transforms the sculpture
into a–into a preferred vision
of a painting.' So, uh–
hope you don't mind my having–you know, just read from my own writings like that but–
so I think you sort of see some of the
differences and some of the similarities
in how I approach this writing and overwriting. So, here you see the rock-like
arrangement. So–both for me are very
observationally descriptive and I think
that's something that arises from my own
background as a studio art–
you know, a student of painting and sculpture
and–
and also somebody who always appreciated
vivid description, and that's something
that is very important with exhibitions
because they're–an exhibition is
something that's ephemeral, it–it will be
up for a few weeks and seen by some and
then, you know, referred to–you know, in the
past forever and, you know, a lot of times
while people will know what works were
in an exhibition, they might not know–you
know, how they–how it felt to be there.
Could somebody just tell me where we are on
time? Okay–
so, uh–
Anyhow, this matter of–
of attaching myself to the world of–and
the mission of galleries and art museums
and curators and collections and–and
even my relationships with artists has
always significantly threaded through
writing, and it wasn't something that
came always easily to me and–and I had
to work on it and sometimes I had to
swallow a lot of pride and, you know,
listen to somebody who was telling me
that they were having difficulty
understanding, you know, either what I was trying
to say or–
or telling me perhaps they didn't agree
with me but, you know–but sometimes that–
that maybe I didn't know what I was
trying to say, and that can happen and
I'm sure of that you've probably faced that
on some of the papers you've written
yourselves. So, at this point, I'd just
really like to, you know, take questions
from you and there's a lot that I could
say about–you know, my–
my own career as a curator, which, as I
reminded you, kind of came–kind of, you
know, a little bit later along in life
then sometimes happens. One thing I should–I would
like to say about both of these
exhibitions is that they–you know, they
turned out to be very successful
endeavors in their own, you know–
by the standards to which they're held.
So, Kim Dorland's exhibition sold all of his
paintings and that was a great thing for
the gallery and–and I thought that
these were the kind of paintings that
couldn't have gone into public
collections and, you know, when his
gallery gets more organized and knows
how to approach–you know, collecting
galleries in Canada, I think that that
will happen for him. The other thing that
I found out, I guess, about two weeks ago
was that Jimmy Limit's exhibition was
named by the Ontario Association of Art
Galleries as Exhibition of the Year for a–a
class that they hold for–
for exhibitions that are mounted below a
$20,000 budget, and I was really pleased
about that–and I don't–you know, the
credit goes to the artist and to the
curator, Marcie Bronson, and to Rodman Hall
Art Centre, but I felt like, by my doing a
timely review of the show, which, as I
mentioned, would have had, you know–you
know, far fewer visitors, if say, it had
occurred in Toronto or nearer to Toronto,
that I felt, you know, like–
you know, I had a role in its success, that,
you know, it–more people knew about it. So, as I–as I, sort of, feel about for where I'm going
professionally that I still, you know,
find these–
you know, ways that I can apply my own
sort of judgment, discernment, to–
to–you know, advancing awareness of good
art that's happening around us. So,
anybody? [Laughs]
>>Audience: Presumably, you write about your own work as well, and do you–is there a big difference
between writing about someone else's work and
writing about your own work, like when you were doing an artist statement, or–
>>Ben Portis: Oh, you mean like, my own work as a curator?
>>Audience: No, your own work as an artist.
>>Ben Portis: I haven't really done that. [Laughs] There isn't enough of it–I
But–I do enjoy sharing it with people–
>>Audience: Even when you were doing your MA or your undergrad, did you not–
weren't you doing artist statements?
>>Ben Portis: Yes I was, a few times, and I think that
they were probably, you know, as painful
to read as they were to compose. [Scattered laughter] Yeah, it
was a while ago. [Laughs]
>>Audience: Now, Ben, in your presentation of the art
criticism that you've done, you talked
about the importance of interpretation–
and when we think about criticism in
the kind of classical sense, we think of
criticism that either approves or
disapproves of art–offers
approbation or, you know, some kind of–
you know, criticism of the work, and I'm
wondering, what you think the role of
that kind of writing is today, especially
given the diminished importance of
newspapers.
>>Ben Portis: Uh, well I–I think that it's–it's really
important and I think it's–I think it's–
I like to see writers who take the–
take the–have the kind of conviction to–you know, sometimes courage, to say how
they really feel about things, and–I–and
I do try to bring that to my own writing,
I try to do it especially if I write for
Canadian art because I always find that
pieces in there are so short that they
feel like they might as well have been
press releases. And I–one of the things
that
gets in my way a little bit about that,
is I have a general enthusiasm
for what artists do–you know, and
admiration, so I–I often–
even as a curator, I would try to bring–
you know,
artists who were in different camps or
different–you know, different natures of
practice, you know, like, from–you know,
studio painting to media installations–
into a kind of dialogue with one another
and I–I think it's one of the things
that happens in, you know, such a varied
contemporary art environment where there
are so many kind of specialized
practices and audiences and outlets that–
that a lot of artists get–you know, can get
very deeply into their–
into their community as such, and I–I
think one of the things that I didn't
say about writing, but I try to do, is to
always, you know, whether it's as a critic
or as a curator, and especially as a
curator, where I feel like I have an
accountability to my primary public, such
as when I was at the MacLaren Art Centre in
Barrie–to always–
make–uh–
to make my claims–
comprehensible, [laughs] because I think that–you know,
one of the things that happens for
artists is they have a tendency sometimes
to get too distant from–from the rest of
the world.
Any students–I am–
I'm really happy to talk to you about
anything that comes up, you know,
questions about, you know,
what you might want to do yourself when
you finish up here.
[Inaudible]
>>Ben Portis: So, both of the times that I had a
position as a curator, I–I was working
for galleries that were collecting
institutions so–that's one thing that
art galleries very traditionally have
been–you know, particularly sort of in
the museum model, is the–
often their primary role is to build a
collection that's representative to the
society or the civilization which it–you
know, represents and–
so the curator, which has this very, sort
of, you know–
it has a kind of a nomination of
some sort of, you know, church-like sort
of ministry to art–is an individual
that cares for the work, will be–will
familiarize oneself with those works
that he's responsible for, and
will make them available in various
ways to
the public that–for whom they're held,
and that's through exhibitions, that's
through research, that's through loans, and
writing.
Contemporary art curators work a lot with,
you know, artists that are living or
art that's being made in our time, and a lot
of–a lot of their attention is also
directed to exhibitions and creating exhibitions, either for artists that
are believed to deserve more attention
or recognition for–for ideas that are current–
that a lot of–a lot of artwork seems to be
addressing or for–sometimes or-for new–new
forms of art, you know, whether it's, you
know,
video or performance art or–and
exhibitions can, you know–because there's
now so many ways of making work,
there's so many ways of making
exhibitions–and, you know, there's–and you
have to be a bit political too, you know–
like to know how to work not only with
artists and public, but with colleagues
and–you know, colleagues at other–with
other institutions and with people on
the board, with, you know, the critics who
come in and–and, you know–
hold, you know, your work to account–
If you–and writing is really important
and so is, you know, good verbal
communication and just–and a kind of a
deep commitment to–
to looking at lots of things, because a
lot of the work that a curator does is–
it's most important–is not just what
what he chooses to go ahead with but the
degree to which he's informed himself
about all the things that he decided he
couldn't proceed with–you know, to stay informed.
Yes?
>>Audience: One of the worst things for people when they're starting to write is looking at that blank sheet of paper, or blank computer screen.
Can you talk a bit about how you begin the writing process, how you organize thoughts and structure?
>>Ben Portis: Well, I'm–I can be a magnificent
procrastinator. [Laughs] I–
I mean, I–one thing is that, you know– 
is important for me and I–I think
I especially like about reviewing
exhibitions is, like, going in there and
just scribbling notes and just, you know–
you know, bringing in all the things that
were associated for me with being there,
you know, whether it's, you know–I've
never used the setup of, like, driving, you
know, 150 kilometers to–to go visit an
exhibition before but, you know, that
seemed part, to me, of getting out to–
Rodman Hall that afternoon and I really–
sometimes I get so stuck and–the good
thing about writing on a computer is
that if you don't start a file,
there's not a blank page, [laughs] it's just a–a void of,
you know–of initiative but I–I need to
have that first sentence, and once I get
the first sentence and once I have
enough down that I get the confidence to–
to give the file a name [laughs] then I feel like
things are going to work out.
So, you know, it's–and sometimes it just
comes out, sometimes I know what I want
to say and, uh, deadlines help. One of the things
about writing professionally is that–
you know, you'll usually have an editor that
you're responsible to who will be, you
know, nudging you, reminding you.
And reading you–you know, that's the
other important thing because you know you're–
like, you know there's somebody who's
going to be reading you before you feel
like you're exposed. Yes?
>>Audience: Can you [indistinct] with like, with Kim Dorland, he–you talked about Kim, working on a singular painting at one time
and I find that, like, Jimmy Limit works on, like, a series and I find that–
like, I find personally I work on something singularly but I work through–like
that process of working through that painting–or like–I was thinking like, when you were saying–
overwriting, I was thinking like, over painting–and I was wondering if you–like since
visited his studio, if you could talk about his process of like–
does he step away from his painting or, like, when does he go back and rework that grey and
push colours or something–I feel like there's something about–
>>Ben Portis: Yeah, well that's interesting because–
when I made my final visit with Kim
Dorland, it was about three weeks before
his exhibition opened and–in that three-
week period, there were two paintings
that were in very raw states when I saw
them, that I didn't feel like I could say
anything about in my essay, and there
was one painting that he completed
completely, you know, new–and–
Kim actually works on a number of
paintings at once–I mean, that–I broke
them down into complete things–sort of
reflected more of the fact that I was
entering into a dialogue with him at the
tail end of
a big–you know,
stretch of work–and I don't know–have
you seen his paintings before? Did you
see that exhibition by any chance? Okay, so–you know,
I mean that's an interesting thing about
Kim, and I think it's something that has–
you know–has received attention
elsewhere–is the sense that you get of
how he, you know–you can always see this
evidence of, like, the under-painting and
sometimes the, sort of the–the kind of
the marks that he makes are almost
sketching in–elements of the picture
that he can leave in a very–sketch-like
form. This is the painting that he did,
like, completely anew–in that
period between when I last visited him–and you know,  because this was something that was being published–
not only to, you know, open the exhibition
but to announce the exhibition for Angell
Gallery–you know, I had to get my text in
really, you know–somewhat in advance, like,
actually having that three-week margin
was like, you know, unbelievably kind of
cutting it close, but–one of the things
that I really responded to in seeing
this painting in the gallery was that,
you know, sometimes all of the–kind of
fussing and refinement that he brought
into some of the other paintings–you
know, which are still pretty raw and
rugged–he left alone here and would, you
know, just not worry about like, you know,
getting all the lines straight so, for
instance, that–that brick work
at the right side, you know, was just really
kind of done from the gut and from, you know–not
only, you know–this urgency of
making this painting which is–again, a
portrait of his son–but also of, you know,
somehow drawing upon all of his–you know–
all the times he's looked at bricks and
looked at, you know, concrete barriers and
looked at roof lines and apartment
buildings and rendered them before, I
mean, he–you know–so–so I–I think I
really was trying to–in what I wrote–to-
to give a sense of an artist who's often
struggled with process and completion as
kind of being, you know–issues that are
unresolved in his work, you know, to state
that, you know, he's now learning
where–what his purposes are and what–
what counts for completion.
>>Host: Okay–I'm going to–I'm going to do three things now, I'm going to thank you,
then I'm going to ask Nisa and Robert to say something. [Laughs]
So, first of all, thank you very much, Ben, that was really honest and you
read your writing really well and I
think one of the secrets to reading your
writing really well is you went slowly. [Laughs] Thank you very much, Ben.
[Applause]
