Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  The delay in the game is over -  Esmaa Mohamoud 's sculpture   exhibition to stay open till October 24.    Play in the Face of Certain Defeat  re-examines understandings of contemporary Blackness. A sculpture exhibition by Black Artist Esmaa Mohamoud originally scheduled to open in Hamilton in March of this year was postponed just days after its initial launch date because of Covid restrictions. The show did reopen earlier this month just as it was originally scheduled to to close. Good news though for art lovers desperate to see this  wildly popular 30-year-old artist’s unique sports influenced sculpture show, the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) just announced that the Esmaa Mohamoud: To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat show has been extended until October 24, 2021. There is no charge to see the exhibition for the next 10-days - AGH has waved its entrance fee to the gallery for the month of August. "This exhibition will be temporarily closed on A...

Industry panel asks are museums in crisis? By Stephen Weir : The winds of change are about to begin blowing through the boardrooms of public art galleries and museums in Ontario. On Thursday a panel of art experts will be meeting online at the  Ontario Museum Association’s  (OMA) annual meeting to talk the talk about the lack of diversity at the top! The  industry wide discussion is self-titled “ Are Museums in Crisis ” inspired by a number of recent articles in both the  Canadian Art Magazine  and the Toronto  Globe and Mail.   These well-respected publications have published articles that report that the vast majority of people running public art galleries and museums are white while employees and cultural consumers alike want change! A panel discussion about having more exhibition and shows by  non-white artists? No, right now the issue is diversity in terms of who is running our public cultural organizations - curators, executives and bo...

.   . AS MAY FADES, SO DOES THE CONTACT FESTIVAL. STILL TIME TO SEE MAGGS, MACLEANS AND SCHOOL EYED KENYA! (Draft article for Huffington Post Blog) Somewhere in the great city of Toronto, there is an art lover who has seen every single Contact Festival picture hung by over 1,500 Canadian and international photographers in 175 venues throughout the city.  But for the rest of us,  it is a challenge to  see at best a few of the exhibitions that make up the  world's largest month long photography festival.  With only a few days left in the At the Design Exchange Big Show, what will you see? May I suggest three -  the late Arnaud Maggs (AGO/Ryerson), Maclean's Face to Face (Gladstone Hotel)  and the intriguing group show - I Am Standing In The Place Where I Live - by four students from Emori Joi High School in Kenya (Design Exchange)! I Am Standing In The Place Where I Live : Christopher Nokes is a well-known figure in Toronto's art...

. PAINTINGS AND PHOTOS FROM AN URBAN PRISON . Stephen Weir here. I want to briefly tell you about a special "Christmas" art show that should be of interest to you. There is a special exhibition that opened today in Guelph featuring the work of Toronto's Bryce Christmas Bryce Christmas is a young artist who has been confined by court order to a 2-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto. For the past 9-months his world has been confined to what he can see and paint from his balcony and to the junk he can find and photograph in the apartment building's musty old basement. Bryce is waiting for his trial on a variety of drug related charges. The courts have put him under the care of Bernard Gauthier, the driving force behind Bravo TV. He has turned his life around because of art and the influence of Bernard. To keep sane Bryce has been creating art every day in his comfortable but claustrophobic prison. Well known Toronto curator Shelley Falconer has just seen Bryce's a...