York graduate student’s show offers sex along with politics

It’s just over 40 years since the last great erotic-art shock in town, when the “Eros ’65” group show at the Dorothy Cameron Gallery was busted by the police for its sexually charged content, wrote the Toronto Star Aug. 24. The gallery closed. Cameron’s heart was broken. The artists were made famous. Cops rarely do that sort of thing any more. But their absence shouldn’t lessen the sexual sizzle or challenge of tonight’s exhibition of new video work by Jesika Joy at the Trinity Square Video gallery.

Forget the show’s wordy title, “(Mis)recognizing Desire – Desiring (Mis)recognition.” This is a watershed exhibition, raw, ranting, lubricious and too clever by half, said the Star. It may or may not make Joy’s career – now 28, she’s also a PhD candidate in York’s Social & Political Thought Program, Faculty of Graduate Studies – but it should go some way to shake off the complacent stupor now found in a lot of Toronto galleries. Quite simply, Joy is upping the ante on how artists must deal with sex. “Most of my work,” she says, “is an aggravated sexual encounter with the viewer.”

It begins with her revealing her body as the sexual object of desire. She’s all mouth and luscious red lips in the 2006 video Untitled (Camera Blow). In Water (2006) she’s a cool seductive face found floating just beneath the surface of water in a bathtub. In Subject to Subject (2006) she’s a body in a black jacket writhing as a bare foot pushes down on her face and her chest. In Dear God (2006), she’s a disembodied voice.

He had the ear of Progressive Conservative prime ministers and Ontario premiers since the 1950s, was twice wounded fighting Nazis in the Second World World War, raised cash to launch the Toronto Sun and countless political campaigns, wrote the Toronto Star Aug. 24. Toronto lawyer and Osgoode Hall Law School graduate Edwin Goodman (LLB ‘47) – better known as Eddie – died Aug. 23 at age 87 following a heart attack. A founding partner of law firm Goodmans LLP, his social conscience led to charity work with Scouts Canada, the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, the Royal Ontario Museum, Princess Margaret Hospital and the National Ballet, colleagues said.

Those commitments, years of backroom political counsel to the powerful, a high-profile law career and corporate directorships kept the father of two on the go, said the Star. At Osgoode Hall Law School after serving in the army, Goodman became friends with future Ontario premier John Robarts. Called to the bar in 1947, Goodman later served as national Chair of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and vice-president of the party’s federal and Ontario wings.

When Stephen Harper announced that the softwood lumber agreement had enough industry support to go before Parliament on a confidence vote, it didn’t quiet all the critics, wrote Chuck Gastle, adjunct professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, in a letter to The Globe and Mail Online Aug. 24. The flaw in the logic of those opposing the deal is that, somehow, litigation is a better option, Gastle wrote. While aspects of the agreement, along with the heavy-handed treatment in pressuring industry to support the pact, have been criticized, the government’s position is understandable – given the circumstances of trying to settle such a complicated proceeding. On balance, the settlement is better than continued litigation, and it may provide a framework to actually begin to govern trade in this sector in the future.

Thirty-five years after being convicted for a murder he swears he did not commit, Romeo Phillion said yesterday he believes his nightmare is finally nearing an end, reported The Daily News (Truro) Aug. 24. Justice Minister Vic Toews ordered Phillion’s case back to the Ontario Court of Appeal to answer two questions about the eligibility of new evidence, which could ultimately lead to his exoneration. Phillion’s case is being taken on by the Innocence Project of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the Association of the Wrongly Convicted.

• Treasury Board president John Baird said, on CBC Radio’s “Here and Now” program Aug. 23 that the proposed extension of the Spadina subway to York University may not agree with the plans of federal finance minister Jim Flaherty because it goes through Ontario finance minister Greg Sorbara’s riding. A meeting of Toronto City Council also discussed diverting funds for the subway expansion to transit improvements in Scarborough, reported CBC Radio’s “Here and Now” program.
  
• Graham Huber and Gigi Lui, two of three graduates of the York/Sheridan Joint Program in Design who created the insignias for astronaut and York alumnus Steve MacLean (BSc ’77, PhD ’83, DSc  (Hon.) ’93) and the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis, spoke on CBC “News Morning” Aug. 23.