Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

George Paginton. The man who quietly painted Peel, Mississauga, Toronto and Canada. New show. New book.   Rene Nand(l) PAMA, MPP Anand, curator author   Sharona  Adamowicz-Clements   By Stephen Weir and  P hotos  Herman Custodio  The 401 super highway winds through Peel County like a strip of concrete spaghetti.   There are glass and steel condos where cows once grazed.   Last century painting great George Paginton would not recognize his old stomping grounds where he loved to wander and paint. Back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s George Paginton was the patron saint of landscaping painting in a part of Ontario that would one day become the busy metropolises of the Toronto GTA, Brampton and Mississauga. Inspired by the Peel landscape like the Group of Seven’s love of the outdoors, Paginton's direct, truthful and rugged paintings of the land brought out a sense of beauty rarely seen now adays in art galleries and museums. Born in...

A World Stopping Nuit Blanc Installation by Director X By Stephen Weir: Spoiler Alert! Everyone dies, including the Sun, in Director X’s new art installation Life of the Earth and Death of the Sun.  On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, as part of the Nuit Blanche festival, the Ontario Science Centre stayed open to show-off Director X’s latest creation. Set in a large open space inside a lower level   gallery a huge white balloon hangs from the ceiling.   Using large-scale projectors, the orb becomes first a rotating and aging planet Earth and then it is our Sun evolving and eventually dying. Both the Earth and the Sun are shown as if seen from space moving from the past to real time and into a not so great future.   On a near by wall a huge LED display’s     charts the collapse of the sun and show pictures of life on earth from the beginning of time, to now. Throughout the night people trickled into the exhibition space, sitti...

Harlem Resto Is About To Be Laid To Rest   By Stephen Weir:  What a difference a week makes. Last week the Caribbean Camera was telling readers about how Carl Cassell provided a Jamaica fundraising group the run of his Harlem restaurant and now we are reporting on the demise of one of Toronto’s few downtown Black cuisine restaurant. In message forwarded to the paper, Cassell said that his Harlem Underground on Queen Street West was turning 10 years old on November 9 th .  “To celebrate this auspicious occasion, we have decided to close the restaurant.  “ “Over the last decade Harlem Underground has been an epicentre of black food and culture within the downtown core,” said Cassell. “The decision to close comes not from the restaurant itself, as I continue to be supported by the community at large, but from a personal need to see other creative endeavours grow. Part restaurant. Part music hall. 100% a world destination.  Inspired by New Yor...

FINAL TOUCHES MADE ON THE MANDELA WALL Signs - Mandela Exhibition In North Toronto By Stephen Weir : Dusting. Straightening.  Turning on the museum lights. The final touches on the exhibition MANDELA are being made in preparation for today's official opening!  The doors will open to the public after lunch for MANDELA, a blockbuster-touring exhibition created by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. It is all happening in North Toronto at the Meridian Arts Centre 5040 Yonge St, the show runs till January 5 th  2020. Mandela in Toronto - Toronto Star photo For show goers, a wall of battered “whites only” signs is the first thing you see as you enter the exhibition. Be prepared for what is described as a  “rich sensory experience of imagery, soundscape, digital media and objects!” This multi-media exhibition has been created in collaboration with the South Africa’s Apartheid Museum. MANDELA explores Nelson Mandela...