We've got it all right here, folks! Everything that's ever been written up, photographed, and discussed on the Sad Mag website. Enjoy browsing our archives!
Every year a little festival comes to town. Though it’s not as big as some of the music festivals that draw crowds in the tens of thousands, it has a lot of heart. This year, the Queer Arts Festival (QAF) brings the same spirit to Vancouver as it has the years prior.
In it’s sixth year, QAF features a curated visual arts show, a community art show, and three weeks of performances and workshops from all artistic disciplines, including music, dance, theatre, literary, and media arts.
Scroll through the list below to see what you expect and what you need to attend. Click each image to find out more details about each event.
QAF 2014: Must-Sees
By Sad Magazine
What’s tickling your fancy? There so many events to see, we’ve narrowed it down to a few you have to catch over this three week festival.
Ongoing – X
By Sad Magazine
With the tagline of "Ever seen a drunk puppet?" we are both intrigued and already chuckling at this one man show.
July 25 – Colin Tilney Celebrates LXXX
By Sad Magazine
A keyboardist with chops beyond your wildest imagination, Colin Tilney, in partnership with the Vancouver Early Music Festival, will tickle the ivory and your ears with this performance.
July 23-August 9 – Queering the International
By Sad Magazine
An arts fest without a visual arts exhibit? Don’t be silly. This exhibit curated brings together works by queer artists who creatively expand possibilities of how to be Queer in the Large World.
July 31 – Alien Sex: A Gala(xy) Fundraiser
By Sad Magazine
An innovative multi-generational and multi-genre collab between artists, this fundraiser for the festival is a must. Prizes for best dressed queer aliens are only PART of the incentive.
We’re gonna push it, push it good, with the biggest, baddest Diva Showdown to date.
TLC takes on Salt-N-Pepa in a drag battle of ’90s street-wear and pop-hip-hop that will make you wanna talk about sex, baby.
Drag show starts at 10pm sharp with performances by Celestial Seasons, Jadis Vanity and Fly Girl, followed by sweet beats at the mercy of DJ Nancy Dru, DJ Ruggedly Handsome and your regular Electric Circus all-stars!
The Cobalt, 917 Main Street, Vancouver, BC Doors at 9pm, Drag Show at 10pm (come early, the line’s always long) Tickets $10 at the door / $9 in advance
Get yer moustache on and head down to the Fox Cabaret for the Official After Party for East-Side Pride, hosted by sexy-town residents Tran Apus Rex and Shanda Leer!
We have to admit we were warned. The chatter around Mo Wave’s main venue, Chop Suey, was awash with promises of filth and butt-holes from Headliner, Christeene. Hailing from Austin, Texas, Christeene is equal parts musician and performance artist with a penchant for mixing precise choreography with sloppy raunch. Even before Christeene was paraded onstage draped over the shoulders of her masked back-up dancers, the stage set-up (consisting of 6 tiny water bottles and toilet paper rolls) was a fairly accurate indication that shit was gonna get filthy.
Christeene at ‘Mo Wave 2014
And while photos of Christeene display a striking trans woman with long black locks matted together with sweat, smeared mascara, and a random application of lipstick across her lips and chin, it didn’t quite prepare us for our first sight of the artist: ass-first, with a cluster of helium balloons tied to a butt plug graciously wedged in her asshole.
Think Bambibot meets Bloody Betty plus more butt-holes than the House of Commons.
Sad Mag had a chance to sit down with Christeene before the show (and before—in what seemed to be a moment of sincere connection between performer and audience member—bitch spat in our face).
Where are you from, and how long have you been playing together?
WE FRUM AUSTIN TEXAS AN WE BEEN KICKIN DIZ NAY NAY ALL OVER DA WORLD FER 4 YEARZ NOW.
What draws you to ‘Mo-Wave?
MO WAVE IS UH MAJIIKAL FUGGIN LIVIN ROOM DAT CALLED TO US. JODI ECKLUND DUG US UP WHEN SHE WUZ IN AUSTIN FER SXSW AN WE BEEN TRYIN TOO GIT IT TOO IT EVER SINCE. DIZ WURLD NEEDS MO MO WAVE.
What do you think can be done to make more stages for queer artists?
IZ GUNNA TAKE DA QUEER ARTISTS AN COMMUNITIES CUMMIN TOGETHER TOO MAKE SOUNDING BOARDS OFF OF EACH OTHER SO DAT OUR SOUND GITS FUGGIN LOUDER AN LOUDER AN WE ALLLL KEEP EACH OTHER INFORMED UH DEEZ STAGES AN WHERE DEY ARE. WE NEED MESSENGER PIGEONS TOOO.
Christeene will be performing on April 26th in Austin,TX as part of the FUSEBOX FESTIVAL. You can read more about Christeene Vale here: http://christeenemusic.com/
If you were among the many doing pirouettes of grief that you missed the three-day run of last winter’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, there’s still time to catch the ballet one more time this season.
Ballet BC’s 2013/14 season closer, UN/A runs April 24–26, 2014, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. It marks the premiere of three brand new works by three international choreographers: vibrant new voices from Spain, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano and Cayetano Soto, and Montreal’s award-winning Gioconda Barbuto, who returns to Ballet BC with a full-company commission with music by Gabriel Prokofiev.
Sitting down with Alex Waber and Lynol Lui, friends of Sad Mag and skilled photographers, was quite an adventure. Discussing everything from selfies to country music, this unstoppable duo is on their way to success in the photography world. With various similarities and an abundance of differences in their art, they’re definitely going to make their Fashion No.1 Photography Show diverse and unforgettable.
Sad Mag: Tell us about yourselves.
Alex Waber: My dad was a photographer, so when I was really young, he gave me cameras to play with. I learned on film, which was good because I learned to focus on something; granted at the time there were lots of photos of my dog and toys. My fascination with photography turned into a fascination with video in high school. I went to Capilano College for cinematography and worked in the cinematography industry doing safety videos, like “why you don’t wear ear buds when you’re working.” Ultimately I learned I didn’t like film because there are too many people and egos involved, and the hours were crazy. I ended up taking a step back into photography since there is so much more freedom in photography.
Lynol Lui: I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Lethbridge, where I came from. I started out doing fine arts, mainly drawing, then I got into photography through my sister and her partner at the time. They were based in Hong Kong, so I was fortunate enough to take a trip out there during my second year of university. They got me my first professional camera and her partner let me do my first shoot. All he said was “have fun,” and I just started firing away. I was so nervous, but that was my very first publication. That’s when I fell in love with photography and started to mend it with my drawings.
SM: What kind of set up do you prefer (music, tea etc.) when you’re photographing or editing?
AW: Music is crucial. Aside from country and hip-hop, I listen to everything else. I’m really into ambient noise right now. Through the editorial shoot I did for Sad Mag, I got wrapped up in the scene of experimental noises. It’s probably made a shift in my fashion photography. Before, I was inclined towards certain shapes, now I’m becoming more abstract. I can do my work on the bus, at a café, or at home, as long as I have my music to keep me in the zone.
LL: It’s interesting how influential music is. I always put hip-hop on, grab a coffee, sit in my office and I’ll literally be working for eight hours straight. When I’m doing a shoot, I like more of an intimacy of just the model and me. If someone else is there, she might feel uncomfortable.
SM: Do you prefer film or digital photography?
LL: Mostly digital. This technology is here right now so I might as well use it.
AW: Digital for clients, and film for my own personal stuff.
SM: How do you feel about Instagram?
LL: It’s a new way of marketing. It’s been an amazing platform for me; it’s opened so many doors. I’m taking advantage of it as much as I can. I know a lot of photographers that use it as a platform to showcase their art. They have two accounts, daily life and work life. I actually did a shoot once, Instagram specific. It was just to see if we get recognition from the brands we were photographing and we did get recognition. Just recently, I was reading about NY
Fashion Week and how some designers take advantage of Instagram. Some don’t allow pictures, while others like Tommy Hilfiger were inspired by Instagram, and had hashtags everywhere.
AW: I have a mixed relation
ship with Instagram. I’ve argued this with a lot of artists about this. It disguises mediocrity (iPhone camera photos) with a trendy filter, but then a lot of the filters are based off of the deterioration of photos. So it makes it look like the photos were taken ages ago. It kind of plays with a sense of time, this photo taken now, happened in the past. I like the way it dabbles with the sense of time in that way. Seflies are another trend I find fascinating.
SM: What should we expect at your upcoming art showing on Friday, February 28th?
AW: We got a DJ, a bar, a wicked bartender that makes wicked cocktails, and wicked beer. Tons of people are coming like friends, family, and people we’ve never met that have become attached to our work.
LL: People that I’ve worked with, people in the industry. The public. It’s a good night to come out, listen to some music look at some beautiful pictures.
SM: What does the future look like for you?
LL: I told myself I would start printing more this year. I’m also going to keep submitting to editorials. I’d like to do more shows since this is my actually my first show in Vancouver. Last year, I was in local editorials and a few magazines in the US, so this year I hope to expand to bigger US magazines, and maybe even European editorials.
AW: Pretty much the same for me. I think Warhol said, “Make something, and while everyone is busy criticizing that, make something else.”
Make sure to stop by Remington Gallery and Studio at 108 East Hastings on February 28th from 7pm to 1am to see the fabulous photos by Alex Waber and Lynol Lui. Follow Alex Waber on Facebook and follow Lynol Lui on Facebook to keep up to date on their art, lives, and future shows!
A few snaps from dutil.’s denim contest on Saturday, February 20. Thanks to dutil. for the invite and thanks to Hush Magazine and Rawr Denim for sharing your judging expertise with us. Congrats to the winners and a special thanks to sadall the participants for showing us their butts.
It’s difficult to find a pair of jeans that work for all your wobbly bits without giving you saggy bum, mom waist or love handles. Dutil denim helps you avoid asking your partner with the struggle by finding the perfect pair for your body type. Specializing in both women and men’s jeans, they have become a leading supplier of quality denim in Canada with a Vancouver store that opened in 2006, and a Toronto store that opened in 2011. They carry various types of cuts such as skinny, straight and boyfriend, in addition to different types of styles like low-rise and high-rise. The best part is that they come in different raw and washed denim colours, so the options are legitimately endless! You can see over 25 brands such as Levis, Cheap Monday, Naked and Famous, Baldwin, and more at the Gastown location on West Cordova and Cambie.
I got to chat with Thalia Stopa from dutil denim to discuss everything behind everyone’s favourite material. (Make sure to read til the end—there’s a contest down there!)
All dat denim. Come get some.
Sad Mag: Why did you decide to focus solely on denim?
Thalia Stopa: To focus on one thing gives us the ability to know so much about it. When people shop here, it’s almost like a personal shopping experience. We know so much about denim and how everything fits, so we can easily steer people in the right direction.
SM: Tell me about the shopping experience at dutil.
TS: Everyone comes in for something different so we try to have something for everyone. Someone will come in, they’ll have an idea of what they like. We’ll grab a bunch of brands for them to try. They come out, and we give them our honest feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Everyone’s has his or her body issues, so we’re really good at trying everything on beforehand. The only way to know if something really fits is to have it on your body. We have all that knowledge, and we use it to help people.
SM: What are some of the more unique brands that you carry?
TS: We tend to give start up brands a chance. Like Wood and Iron, it’s a brand new brand from a little mining town out of Quebec. It’s their first production run ever. Same with Tortoise, a brand out of LA that has limited quantities. The jeans are made by hand.
SM: What are the best selling jeans at the moment?
TS: For women’s, it’s boyfriend cut jeans, they’re back with a vengeance. We have a boyfriend/skinny hybrid, which I love! For men, a longer rise and a tapered leg is in but with a lot of room in the thighs.
SM: What is the upcoming trend in men and women’s denim?
TS: I’m definitely seeing a lot more tears, distressed, and repair details. In the past few years, it’s been steered clear from due to liability issues when people are trying on the jeans. For men’s, it’s more washes. Our store used to be mostly raw denim, but now it’s 50/50.
SM: What should we look forward at the Saturday February 22nd event?
TS: There’s still a strong subculture of denimheads that are devoted to buying the smallest size possible, breaking them in and never washing them. The jeans are customized to their body. For example if someone has had a wallet in his or her back pocket for years, you’ll see an imprint of that. Basically we’re gonna see people who are passionate about the whole process, people who are proud of their subculture and what they’ve done. It’s wearable pieces of art.
With hopes of adding tailoring and additional artists on their record label, dutil denim is on the way to becoming a pioneer denim supplier for North America, and maybe even the world. Make sure to follow dutil denim on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more denimhead filled fun! Make sure to stop by their store on Saturday Februrary 22nd to either enter the Fade February contest, or watch our awesome Sadmag judges decide which top three denimheads win a free pair of jeans.
There’s also a contest! Share your favourite style of denim (skinny, highwaisted, bellbottom—the options are endless!) in the comment section on this post (with your email too), and you’ll have a chance to win a $100 gift card from dutil. Winner will be announced on Sunday, February 23.
Phantoms in the Front Yard is an arts collective dedicated to the pursuance of figurative, representational forms. This is a unique intention today as contemporary artists flourish into new mediums, embracing abstraction, fragmentation, and concepts that live behind veils—or sometimes duvets.
Lots of people who aren’t interested in art tend to posit themselves as victim, expressing the naïve and arrogant ideals expressed in “my kid could do that”. There is a cultural aversion to artwork which does not obviate itself to the viewer straightforwardly.
While Phantoms in the Front Yard chooses to work with forms considered more traditional (figurative, representational paintings), they by no means slander the non-traditional forms and approaches that have largely come to define contemporary art today. They’ve simply worked to create their own place in it, hearkening to the potential in the ideals and approaches of times past. They attempt to breathe freshness into the recognizable figure, one that modernism deemed passé and left in its wake.
The group includes Jonathan Sutton, Jay Senetchko, Marcus Macleod, Michael Abraham, Jeremiah Birnbaum, Paul Morstad, in collaboration with curator Pennylane Shen. They just opened up a show at Leigh Square Community Arts Village called Phantoms, a sort-of retrospective which takes advantage of this large venue to reflect on their work as a collective in seven different shows over the past four and half years. Check it out before it closes on February 17th.
Sad Mag: What did it feel like to realize that your artistic expression was changing mediums, from theatre and performance to painting?
Jonathan Sutton: I was drawing and painting all along, and meanwhile acting was becoming less of a means than I had thought it was to express the things important to me. It had seemed an obvious way to enter into an imagined space was to perform in it. I find though, that more space exists for me in the solitary arena of my small studio, and with far fewer stops between ideas and their developed expression.
SM: How did the group come together?
JS: Jay Senetchko and Marcus Macleod initiated the idea and fairly soon there was a core group. We are also committed to working with other artists in both the short and long term.
SM: The group’s artist statement mentions, “Figurative art has become the phantom of the fine art world, haunting Modernism and Postmodernism with its ties to a classical tradition, refusing to be dismissed, ignored, or forgotten.” Can you speak a little more about the current status of the figurative and representational in contemporary art from your perspective?
"Representation will continually reinvent its own aesthetics because people and our surroundings are changing quickly enough..."
JM: It would be easier—for any of us in the group—to speak a lot more about that! Here goes a little …
We all have wide-ranging tastes and references, but a common thread is our respect for artists who reckon with history and traditions as they pave new directions in their own work and era. Jay Senetchko has written eloquently on the over-rating of originality as an end in itself, and we believe the more profound contributions are to be made by artists who distinguish their own voices within the larger dialogue of art history, and in doing so move the whole dialogue forward. It is counter to this process to accord any particular status to the figurative or representational per se—whether over-prioritizing these forms or shunning them. Our particular collective has gathered around an existing interest in figurative work and within this we have a very broad mandate, but this is not to say that we place it above other approaches in our appreciation of art in general. Our decision to embed the figure in our mandate is that there is much territory still to explore here—and create—and we are excited to share our discoveries. Now this position happens to have much counterpoint in contemporary trends that would dismiss the figure, or painting and drawing altogether. We didn’t decide to commit to figurative work to create a reaction to this line of thinking though; we were doing this work in any case and couldn’t find substance in trends that would place it outside contemporary art.
Representation will continually reinvent its own aesthetics because people and our surroundings are changing quickly enough—not to mention artistic media and technologies—that even straight journalistic depiction will continue to reflect novelty. Brian Boulton’s graphite portraits, to name one example, and a local one, reflect accuracy and fidelity of rendering, while looking arrestingly current and familiar by virtue of the very contemporary figures they examine.
SM: This idea is quite noticeably linked to the name of the collective. Can you tell us about the inspiration for the name? Why “the Front Yard”?
JS: We recognize these tendencies that would hold figurative representation, and traditional media associated with it, as phantoms in the art world. Even within this reading, which isn’t everyone’s, and certainly not ours—we’re interested in ushering such phantoms into full view.
SM: Part of your philosophy as a group is based on the idea that representational, figurative art is easier for people to find connection with because the elements are familiar and easily identifiable. However, lots of this kind of work also comes equipped with strong concepts and compositional complexity. How do you deal with the challenge to make people see as far as possible into the work?
JS: One aspect of the work in this collective that really impresses me is how often I see a balancing of immediate visual impact against dense underpinnings of suggestion, narrative, reference, concept, and philosophy. I’d say we find in figurative art an irrepressible history, and in the best cases, universality, without necessarily finding or seeking ease of connection. Aquinas held wholeness, harmony, and radiance to be requirements of beauty; these would strike a viewer as strongly upon the first impression as through prolonged scrutiny. We work to weave complex and diverse thinking into one image whose first impression is complete and integrated. We admire the kind of conceptual and compositional complexity you mention, in all manner of art forms whether figurative or not; in fact another layer to our mandate is to incorporate non-representational influences in our own representations. The act of depicting one or more bodies is constantly invigorated by ever-new responses that non-figurative works invite, be they abstract expressionism, collage, photo-conceptualism, or anything else.
Phantoms collectively creates art.
SM: Since 2010, Phantoms in the Front Yard has been developing shows based on themes initiated by one of the members, which then prompts the creation of works by each of the others. There is also a lecture component, where you bring in an expert on the topic at hand. Why is dialogue important to you as a group?
JS: There is a beautiful solitude in creating and beholding a piece of art. We also want to include viewers, beyond this, in the spirit of dialogue and exchange that we invest in our processes as a collective. The development of each show starts and continues around our own conversations, research sharing, critiques of works as they progress, and general interaction, even while most of the time we spend on the pieces themselves is solitary. We want these parallel lines of private engagement and public interaction to run through the whole exhibition experience.
SM: What do you hope to achieve with this show?
JS: This particular grouping of pieces, in this space, with the artists, viewers, and interactions that create the exhibition will only come together in this way through this event. Our intention is to do the same thing a single work of art should do – create a lasting impression of a fleeting moment.
Phantoms is on now and runs until February 17th at Leigh Square Community Arts Village. Gallery hours are Mon, Wed 10:00am to 6:30pm; Tue, Thu 10:00am to 7:00pm; Friday 9:30am to 6:30pm; and Saturday 2:00pm to 4:00pm; Closed on Sundays. 1100-2253 Leigh Square (Behind City Hall) Port Coquitlam, BC, V3C 3B8. Call 604-927-8442 for more info. Please note the show is displayed in two adjacent buildings.
Octopus Studios on Powell St. seems unapproachable with its whitewash exterior and barred windows, but it was busy and humming inside with the Eastside Culture Crawl the weekend of November 15-17.
There was a DJ in the corner near the entrance and 16 artists installed in the two-storey, open plan studio—one of 85 buildings involved in the Eastside Culture Crawl this year. It had a diverse selection of artists—weekend and fulltime artists, graduates and students, and art teachers promoting public art classes. One artist adjusted flickering projections on the wall and others lingered near the booths, where ceramics, paintings, illustrations, leatherwork, and stringed instruments were exhibited beside each other.
Studios open their doors and let us in on the secrets behind the artwork.
The Eastside Culture Craw is focused in the area bound by Main Street, 1st Ave., Victoria Drive, and the Waterfront, and featured over 400 artists this year. As someone who doesn’t live in the area, or even as someone who does, the official map is a requisite in the hunt for the little studios many of us didn’t know where there.
Now an annual 3-day visual arts festival in November in which artists from the Eastside open their studios to the public, it began as a series of open studio fundraisers in the mid-90s. Paneficio Studios on Keefer St. held a fundraiser for Clayoquot Sound arrestees’ travel costs to Victoria – the series of logging protests that occurred over the summer of 1993 in Clayoquot Sound resulted in over 800 protestors arrested and many put on trial in front of the B.C. Provincial Court in Victoria.
Another fundraiser was held the following year to support Eastside artists with AIDS, and it was divided between Paneficio Studios and 1000 Parker St. Studio in order to host more work. It expanded the third year to include two more studios, Glass Onion and Apriori Studios, and the proceeds went to restoration following an Eastside neighbourhood fire. It expanded again the next year, with 45 artists and over 1000 attendees, and Eastside-based artists and founded board member Richard Tetrault named it the Eastside Culture Crawl.
The Crawl attracts people from all over the Lower Mainland.
While the Eastside Culture Crawl still seems imbedded in the Eastside where is began and continues to be focused, it is representative of the diverse communities of artists, both emerging and internationally recognized, currently working throughout Vancouver. I hope next year word about the event will spread further, as I think it is a show of Vancouver-based art more people should see.
For more information about the Eastside Culture Crawl or the Eastside Culture Crawl Society, visit them online. We hope to see you there next November.
