by CHRISTINE REDFERN

The new year is already bringing lots of great art and artists your way, so let’s dive right in with tonight, Jan. 19. Street art hits the screen with Pablo Aravena’s Next: A Primer on Urban Painting, the first film of a new winter-long series at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Exploring the American-born phenomenon that has come to influence youth culture all over the world, Next conveys the dynamism and creative brilliance of graffiti as an urban art form. Aravena will be in attendance to introduce the film.

Another upcoming screening in this series that looks promising is Sergio Morkin’s Oscar on Feb. 9. The film follows the life of a Buenos Aires taxi driver who rebels against the bombardment of advertising in the urban landscape by transforming more than 800 billboards with his own ironic and provocative collages and drawings (in Spanish with English subtitles).

While on the subject of street, Made in Taiwan, works from local legend Omen, who has spent much of the past few years in Asia, hits the walls of NDG gallery Sub-V from Feb. 3–March 5.

Duvet with attitude

From now until Feb. 18, you can enjoy Nicholas Stedman’s Machines for Social Circumstances at Oboro. Stedman presents a collection of robots that exhibit human behaviours. There, you can interact with various machines, including a three-legged robot that will play with you (but only if you ask nicely) and the “Blanket Project,” an electronic duvet that could snuggle up with you, or, conversely, slink away across the floor. Downstairs at Dazibao, the year starts off with two strong exhibitions: Irish artist Mark Curran’s The Breathing Factory until Feb. 11 and Unlimited ID: The Portrait as Concept, which runs from Feb. 23–April 8. This group show includes work by Miriam Bäcktröm (Sweden), Max Dean (Toronto), Jonathan Gitelson (USA) and Jun Yang (Austria).

From January 28 to March 18, Reading Room for the Working Artist by Angela Grauerholz occupies VOX. The installation consists of reading room furniture, a film projection and a series of 12 books containing a wide range of documents culled from years spent collecting, selecting and assembling visual and textual material related to modern art and culture.

In a similar vein, the Saidye presents the exhibition Database Imaginary, 16 works made by 23 artists during the last decade that imagine the possibilities of databases and look at how they’re used to organize the world we live in. The opening is Feb. 9 with a tour of the exhibition by co-curator Sarah Cook at 6 p.m.

Kiefer surprises

The big, big superstar exhibition to hit town this winter is Anselm Kiefer—Heaven and Earth opening on Feb. 11 at the Musée d’art contemporain. Works spanning the past 30+ years of this German-born artist’s career will not fail to stimulate your imagination. Cranes will be needed to install the exhibition, as it includes monumental pieces such as the cast lead “book,” entitled The Secret Life of Plants, where each page stands 79-by-58 inches. Lead appears often in both Kiefer’s paintings and sculptures, yet at heart he is truly a master of mixing media and textures. Seeds, wire cages, photographs, plants and his own semen blend seamlessly with traditional art materials throughout his oeuvre. This exhibition marks the first-ever Canadian showing of Kiefer’s internationally applauded work, don’t miss it.

Other upcoming goodies to watch out for include new visual art by comic artist Julie Doucet at Galerie B-312 starting Feb. 16. Her dream memoir/graphic novel My Most Secret Desire also comes out this winter, published by Drawn & Quarterly. Nicolas Baier is at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from March 21–May 28. You’ll have to hunt for the pieces, as Baier will become a kind of artistic chameleon, hiding his pictures throughout the museum’s permanent collection. And finally, the Edgy Women Festival is back March 16–19 at la Sala Rossa—keep tabs as it develops at www.studio303.ca. Sure to be good, as it is already confirmed that my favourite artist from 2005, Nathalie Claude, will be back—this time sharing the bill with Marijs Boulogne and Sara De Bosschere from Brussels and their outrageous performance, Endless Medication.