Archive of Sally McKay

Sally has written 5 article(s) for AFC.

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Sally McKay

The Affect of Animated GIFs (Tom Moody, Petra Cortright, Lorna Mills)

by Sally McKay on July 16, 2018
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Since the early 1990s, artists have chosen the internet as a medium, an environment and a
forum. While some internet artists also maintain a gallery practice, the conditions and
conventions that inform meaning in online art remain in many ways distinct from those of
the off-line artworld. Internet art — inherently ephemeral and infinitely reproducible —
eludes commodification and largely operates independently of the art market.1 In the
online environment where acts of creative self-expression are the norm, the boundaries
between artists and not-artists that confer status and hierarchy in the gallery and museum
system are largely immaterial. Even among niche groups of online practitioners who self-
identify as artists, the culture of internet art regards the agency of the viewer on a par
with that of the artist. In most cases, viewers are also producers. Many online artists, such
as myself, operate through the medium of the blog format, which allows for a hybrid
practice blending art production with art criticism, cross-promotion and dialogue.

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STUFF: Ten Things Sally McKay Owns and Loves

by Sally McKay on April 17, 2013
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Are you having trouble understanding artists through their art? Understand them through their STUFF instead.

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The Pictorial Intelligence of Monica Tap

by Sally McKay on June 13, 2012
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In her recent exhibition, Six Ways from Sunday, at Wynick Tuck Gallery in Toronto, Monica Tap stages an aesthetic translation between digital media and oil painting. The result is a body of work that brings vision itself into awareness, without resorting to cliches about the relationship between the digital and real life.

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Report from the Academy: Q&A with Harbourfront Centre Curator Patrick Macaulay

by Sally McKay on June 20, 2011
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How do you curate challenging contemporary art for massive audiences in a tourist destination? For the past ten years, Patrick Macaulay has been doing just that, and he has recently transformed a serious work injury into a renewed sense of curatorial ambition.

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Report from the Academy: Q&A about Curatorial Power with Lisa Myers

by Sally McKay on June 8, 2011
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Who determines the meanings of artworks — artists, audiences, curators? Curators contextualize artworks in exhibitions with audiences in mind, but artworks invoke their own contexts independently of curatorial agendas. For this reason, every curator, even the most community-minded, has to figure out how to manage their own power. Today, I take a closer look at the processes of curation with Lisa Myers, an independent curator of contemporary Aboriginal art.

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