Rating: NNN
digital-gallery-slash-library Archive keeps a virtual inventory of works by thousands of local and international artists on file, with an eye to renting and even selling the actual products to clients who first see them on a computer screen. It’s a business plan that’s kept Archive going on prime Queen West real estate for more than five years, and — because of the unique way it does business — let’s it represent an enviable roster of artists who might also have affiliations with other, more conventional galleries.
So when Archive does one of its sampler shows of actual objects by the artists on its A-list, the lineup, inevitably, is enviable.
The fifth annual Glo, “priced for giving” (as if you’d give away a John Scott you’d just forked over $2,200 for), has some terrific little pieces by 43 very hot properties, including Catherine Heard, Michael Merrill, Jaga Jarosiewicz, Kathryn Ruppert, Barbara Astman and Evan Penny with Petra deMooy. Some of the individual works are stunning — notably those by Cathy Daley and John Dickson — but the overall grouping feels a little helter-skelter, a problem that reflects the fact that hanging individual art objects is not Archive’s primary line of business.
GLO at Archive (883 Queen West) to February 9. 416-703-6564. Rating: NNN
