Ha-ha! Brings back memories... what a great film this was!
The whole idea of promoting visual art in Canada truly does bring to mind the Jamaican bobsledders, though, as alluded to in the previous post.
Or, I think of a guy I knew a few years back at the curling club who used to go around with a super fancy curling jacket with "England" written across the back in big embroidered letters. He had been living there a number of years ago and was able to knock off all comers and win the right to curl for England! This guy was not a bad curler but give me a break - there were numerous curlers in our club who beat him or outcurled him regularly
Pretty cool, nonetheless. I forget what event he had curled for England in. I don't think it was Olympics.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), Canadian visual art is in somewhat the same circumstances.
With all due respect to Emily Carr, Jean-Paul Riopelle and the "Group", we simply do not have any visual artists who have attained world renown. Amongst contemporary artists, we have Jeff Wall and, to a lesser degree, maybe Rodney Graham and a few others who have a detectable pulse on the world stage - but we are talking top 100 or 300 - not top 10.
i.e. - there is an opportunity here, folks.
