This text by MARK CLINTBERG is published alonside KENNETH DOREN‘S Rule Britannia: A Low Opera in Grand Shite Style exhibition. The Vernacular Opera by Mark Clintberg KENNETH DOREN‘s Rule Britannia launches an assault, from the first moment. That is, after a pensive and slightly sentimental…

They have divided the gallery into four shops and handed the reigns over to a selected number of artists who are pumped to hustle, sell, consult and charm as entrepreneurs and salespeople, cheerful retail renegades of their own brand before they are artists.

They step down from being the untouchable ArtStars too snotty to give us their time or handshake. Here, they are not rare and precious rubies, or the quixotic, straggly starlets shining in the glossy pages of Artforum. They get real, for once.

The Willing and Able seems simple enough, with tall, lean vertical stripes of multi-coloured paint covering one wall, while a long list of Toronto galleries, in alphabetical order, sits on a perpendicular wall in undecorated black type. Although the visual result of Morrison’s installation appears minimalist in style, the precision with which it is implemented is highly (and obviously) labour-intensive.