Exotic Car Wallpaper

The long hall of the Direct Energy Centre has a hanging art installation that is a nice compliment to the shape and light in the convention centre. The words hang vertically and I can't even remember trying to read them - so I had to check out my picture and see that they appear to be just names, like Amy and Beatrice.

Here are some other people hanging out in the great hall after the jump.

With the latest crank up in oil prices the gasoline costs are going through the roof and many airlines, like Air Canada, are starting to add fuel surcharge fees to your ticket prices - just like Canada Post charges for parcel delivery. You can find these surcharges on many other purchases and some places that will probably bring back surcharges, such as cruise ship vacations, if the price of oil continues to rise. In honour of this I have added a hidden fee, fuel surcharge into this blog.

I don't know if we will see any more fire art installations like the one found at a past WOW, Wild on Winter: Wintercity Festival.

Banksy's Toronto graffiti still survives, barely, in a few places. Luckily he picked the right alley on Church Street because the building next door looks like it is coming down, while the second one away is down - done like dinner, nothing left but the splinters.
I was surprised to see that the Church Street Keg Restaurant has moved out of it's old building and into a new home on The Esplanade. I worked in that Keg for one night covering their staff party night - that's right I used to work for the Keg (Mississauga (the old Dixie-Dundas Keg) and the Brampton (the old downtown Brampton Keg)). Sadly, I just noticed that all my old Keg Restaurants are gone! I met and married my wife when we worked at the Keg and I have a ton of great memories from those days. Rock on Keg Staff.

You would think Tim Burton had a store on Queen Street West, his wacky view of the world has produced some great movies with designs that only he could imagine. He has brought an exhibition to the home of the Toronto International Film Festival TIFF where some of his creations beckon the outside world into the show. I want to run into Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland - that huge forehead was so hot.
New York's Museum of Modern Art arranged the exhibition and you can drop by and see some of his work including paintings and sculptures - like the giant one in the window titled "Holiday Creature", until April 17, 2011.

GIF animations generator gifup.com

The art installation the Watertable under the Gardiner Expressway.

Artists and gangs tag the walls wherever they have even the slightest access. Cans of spray paint litter the alley, leftover from a day of painting. The artists get mad when taggers wreck their work.

Posters fill many of the building surfaces along the downtown core of Toronto, some in places where they should be - such as the special light poles, and some on anything that doesn't move. The posters go up in such numbers that they soon are inches thick. Weathered posters become torn in patchwork quilts and take on a life of their own.

A cartoon character gets ready to spray poison to kill some nuisance, seen on a construction barrier on Yonge Street. He could be a giant because he is eating someone and their head is sticking out of his teeth.

Driving along Dundas Street West in the Village of Islington your eye catches the large murals on the side of several buildings on both sides of the busy road. The large paintings take over the building facade and show different scenes of life a from a time long time ago.
Some of the paintings show colours found in old black and white photographs and some of the paintings show bright, vibrant colours that really grab your attention. The outdoor gallery has been gathering quite the publicity and you can enjoy them as you travel on Dundas Street West from Kipling to Islington. Take a chance and stop to look at the detail in the paintings and the story that they tell.

The paintings also have plaques that tell a bit about the story behind the painting. You can also find more information on line if you want even more details - like story about the WWII bomber that buzzed a rugby game and ended up dropping leaflets onto a farm field.

You can see more of the amazing murals after the jump.

There has been a new style of graffiti appearing around the downtown core of Toronto. Seven pieces were reported to be the work of Banksy, who is an famous yet anonymous artist from England, in town to promote his film Exit Through the Gift Shop. His artwork commands prices up to $500,000 plus and he likes to use images of rats such as this one at Spadina and Sullivan.



Banksy's work which is really different from the traditional colourful graffiti and tags that fill many surfaces in Toronto. Some of the art shows men in suits holding signs that say things like "0% interest in people". I hoped to be able to find the works and take some pictures but people said that they were asked to not reveal the locations of the pieces.

The great blog Torontoist was eagerly following the story and reported when a piece was destroyed or painted over and I was watching my chances of seeing the work in person rapidly diminish. Then Torontoist finally decided to release the locations and grabbing our GPS we headed out on a satellite guided expedition to see the remaining paintings. Thanks Torontoist!

This one in an alley on Dundas Street West at Manning Avenue was my favourite and has been tagged over by several jealous people. The sign which read "will work for idiots" was changed to "we will not be erased" still visible through the red and white tag. A monk has now been placed at the feet of the original art.





This piece is on a building on the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard West between York and Bay. A vulture has been added on top of the figure since the original painting was done.




The last remaining one we saw was this smaller painting on Church Street just north of The Esplanade. Torontoist tells a great story where the owner was about to paint over the graffiti when he was told how much they could be worth. He soon covered it over in plexiglass for protection - and it is still there to be viewed and appreciated.




See the state of the Banksy art in the alley in early 2011 on my blog post here.