FREE CONTEMPORARY ART BUS TOUR
Sunday, April 29, 2007
11:30 am – 5:00 pm

Tour begins at the University of Toronto Art Centre (University College, 15 King's College Circle) at 11:30 am. Bus departs at 12:00 pm from front entrance at Hart House (7 Hart House Circle) to Doris McCarthy Gallery, The Koffler Gallery, Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) and Blackwood Gallery and returns for a final tour at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle) at 5:00 pm.

To reserve a seat please call Allyson Adley at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) at 416.736.2100 ext. 88608 by Thursday April 26th. This event is FREE.


Clockwise from mid left:
Anitra Hamilton, Bomb Ride, 2004, functioning coin operated kiddy ride retrofit with a defused bombshell casting. Courtesy of the artist. Produced with assistance from The Chalmers Arts Fellowship; Ed Pien, The Promise of Solitude, (installation detail, 2005). Photo: Ilsoo MacLaurin; Kristan Horton, dr006-s002-04, 2003-06, black and white archival print, 28 x 76 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto.

A survey of projection-based works in the history of contemporary art in Canada 1964-2007
Curator: Barbara Fischer
April 8 – June 17, 2007

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ART CENTRE

JUSTINA M. BARNICKE GALLERY

DORIS MCCARTHY GALLERY, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SCARBOROUGH

BLACKWOOD GALLERY, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
MISSISSAUGA

Projections is the first major exhibition in Canada to focus on the rich history of experimentation with slide, film, and video that characterizes contemporary art from the 1960s to the present. The works in this exhibition exemplify why projection – using light, slides, film, video, and television – has become such a compelling medium.

The exhibition, rather than proposing a chronological reading, features four interrelated parts presented across the four major galleries of the University of Toronto. Each focuses on a specific element of cinematic projection and its conceptual implications, and within each a history unfolds.

At the University of Toronto Art Centre, some works focus our attention exclusively on the experience of light, reflection, and illumination. Others point to the paradoxical nature of the screen, where a text or image is cast to show the colouring or shaping of a variously receptive and resistant surface that takes part in constructing perception. Works presented at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery more explicitly inhabit the forms of cinema. They newly engage and playfully dissociate the relationships between voice and image, the camera's eye and the viewer's body, and the construction of cinematic spectacle. Finally, works presented at the Blackwood Gallery and the Doris McCarthy Gallery share the projection of travels and journeys into recorded and therefore virtual space, while irreverently undermining the illusions and utopian dimensions of this projected place.

THE KOFFLER GALLERY
Ed Pien: The Promise of Solitude
Curator: Carolyn Bell Farrell
March 8 – April 29, 2007

This solo show offers the first local presentation of Ed Pien’s large-scale installation, The Promise of Solitude (2005), together with a selection of recent works on paper by this Toronto-based artist. Drawing on mythical, historical, psychological and spiritual interpretations, Pien explores the nature of the journey as a metaphor for human experience. Influenced by Asian and Western sources, his imagery conjures a fantastic and disturbing universe, recalling that of Hieronymus Bosch or Francisco Goya. The Promise of Solitude, Ed Pien’s floor-to-ceiling drawing-installation, comprises two oval structures made from transparent and cut-work paper, suspended by airline cables. As the artist comments, The Promise of Solitude “contemplates the possibility of what is offered when one embarks on a journey, both inner and outer. Such journeys require abandoning the familiar in order to achieve possible new encounters and transcendence… The viewer must negotiate a way through the paper-cut labyrinth, and enter into the glowing red structure located within, in order to see ‘out’. The strange beings encountered at the end of these brightly coloured tunnels metaphorically represent a new realm, somewhat frightening, as these creatures are not yet namable. However, this site is a joyous and celebratory place to be." The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with an essay by Toronto visual arts critic Gary Michael Dault.

ART GALLERY OF YORK UNIVERSITY (AGYU)
Anitra Hamilton: A Retrospective on Parade
Kristan Horton: Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove
Curators: Emelie Chhangur and Philip Monk
April 25 – June 24, 2007

Toronto artist Anitra Hamilton’s Retrospective on Parade passes through the AGYU from 25 April to 24 June 2007 with a review of ten years of her work. Seemingly a march of the history of violence portrayed through Hamilton’s ornamentation of mankind’s weapons, this work is not so much anti-war as it is a probing of primal psychological drives. The retrospective marshals a number of the artist’s parade-influenced works, including a twenty by fifty-five foot mural and a newly AGYU commissioned Audio Parade based on Toronto’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. On parade, as well, is the retrospective form of the exhibition, a ceremony we view through the veneer of cultural civility.

Years in the making, Toronto artist Kristan Horton’s doubly legendary Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove targets the AGYU from 25 April to 24 June 2007 with its explosive comic vision. With the obsessive meticulousness of the master himself, Horton has recreated each scene of Stanley Kubrick’s original Dr. Strangelove film with objects at hand in his studio, deflating what is exaggerated in Kubrick’s black comedy. The dialogue of obsessiveness is further emphasized by the fetishized presentation within the installation of the artist book that completes the project, which has been produced for Horton’s AGYU exhibition.

The publication of Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove is generously supported by the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts.


University of Toronto Art Centre
15 King’s College Circle
Toronto
416.978.1838
www.utoronto.ca/artcentre

Doris McCarthy Gallery
University of Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail, Toronto
416.287.7007
www.utsc.utoronto.ca/dmg

The Koffler Gallery
Koffler Centre for the Arts
4588 Bathurst Street, Toronto
416.636.1880 ext.268
www.kofflerarts.org/gallery.shtml

Art Gallery of York University
Accolade East Building
4700 Keele Street
Toronto
416.736.5169
www.yorku.ca/agyu

Blackwood Gallery
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road N., Mississauga
905.828.3789
http://www.blackwoodgallery.ca/

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
Hart House
University of Toronto
7 Hart House Circle, Toronto
416.978.2453
www.utoronto.ca/gallery/site/jmbgallery.html

On Sunday the Blackwood Gallery will have extended hours: 1-5pm

Year End Party,
Friday, April 13, 2007
hosted by the Justina M Barnicke Gallery and Hart House

FREE (18+)
Doors 8pm
Great Hall, Hart House
University of Toronto

Casual tours of the PROJECTIONS EXHIBITION at Justina M Barnicke Gallery,
Hart House and UTAC from 5-8pm

Featuring PROJECTION PERFORMANCES by:
Stephanie Comilang, Jeremy Bailey & Zeesy Powers
with Special Musical Guests from Toronto's Indie Music Scene

FREE SHUTTLE BUS LEAVING BLACKWOOD GALLERY
GOING DOWNTOWN TORONTO

Join us at 6:00pm at the Blackwood Gallery
as curator Seamus Kealy tours the Projections exhibition
for a "warm-up" before heading over to the big party at
St. George Campus.

Shuttle Bus returns from Hart House to UTM at 11:00pm

If you have any questions please contact:
Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at 905-869-5507
or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Projections

An exhibition of the development of projection-based installations in the history of contemporary art in Canada (Produced in partnership with the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Doris McCarthy Gallery, and the University of Toronto Arts Centre)
April 9 to June 17, 2007
Opening April 8th, 1-4pm
Opening Reception: 4 - 6pm at the University of Toronto Art Centre

TAKE THE BUS!
At 1 pm, free bus departs from Hart House for Blackwood Gallery. There will be an option to return to downtown Toronto at 2:30 pm or to continue to the Doris McCarthy Gallery, returning to Toronto at 4 pm.
At 2 pm, free bus departs from Hart House for Doris McCarthy Gallery. There will be an option to return to downtown Toronto at 3:30 pm or to continue to the Blackwood Gallery, returning to Toronto by 5 pm.

Projections is the first major exhibition in Canada to bring together the rich 4-decade history of projection-based contemporary art. Curated by Barbara Fischer, the exhibition will exemplify and provide insight into why projection-based work -- using light, slides, film, video, and television -- has become such an important and prevalent medium.

Audiences will see cinematic works created in unexpected, surprising and experimental ways: film loops, slide dissolves, double-sided projection, as well as single, triple, and five-channel video projections. There are re-creations of small movie-house environments and visually exciting material that expands perception. A popular work will be Jana Sterbak's Waiting for High Water which is a video projection made of footage from three cameras affixed to a dog that roamed the streets of Venice.

Several works by internationally recognized artists will be seen in Toronto for the first time, including work by Ian Carr-Harris, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Geneviève Cadieux, Jana Sterbak, Nathalie Melikian, Judy Radul, Wyn Geleynse, and others. Projection-based work by internationally recognized artists including Michael Snow, Murray Favro, Rodney Graham, John Massey, Rebecca Belmore, Stan Douglas, Krzysztof Wodiczko, David Hoffos, and others are featured. Their seminal work has never been presented together in one exhibition before.

Projections highlights include Murray Favro's early experimental works Still Life (The Table) and Light Bulbs both from 1970; Michael Snow's Two Sides to Every Story from 1974; Stan Douglas’ Overture from 1986; as well as Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's The Muriel Lake Incident from 1999. These works use film and sound projection to challenge perceptions, create new possibilities for cinema, and produce new sensory experiences.

Projections is one major exhibition in four venues. In order to experience the complete exhibition, people are encouraged to visit all four venues.

At the University of Toronto Art Centre, the screen and light are the themes. The double-sided screen in Michael Snow's work becomes a translucent veil bisecting the space; Rebecca Belmore's screen is a panel of illuminated lightbulbs; Christine Davis’ screen is made of a dense mass of large plastic roses; and Krzysztof Wodiczko's slide projections cast images onto existing architecture (represented by documentary photos). Works that highlight the light of projection are Gar Smith’s Notes on Light based on dozens of sunrises and sunsets; and Kelly Mark's stack of television monitors that do not show an image but instead make the viewer focus on projected coloured light. Works by David Askevold, Ian Carr-Harris, Geneviève Cadieux, Wyn Geleynse, Murray Favro, and John Massey will also be featured at the University of Toronto Art Centre.

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Hart House focuses on the theatre of projection. The mock use of the movie-house format to play with visual perception is seen in works by Rodney Graham, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, David Hoffos, Nathalie Melikian, and Robert Wiens.

The Doris McCarthy Gallery at Scarborough and the Blackwood Gallery in Mississauga share the theme of projected travel. The works project the audience into recorded, and therefore virtual, space, while also undermining that illusion, or taking up the utopian dimension of this in irreverent ways. Works by Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Mark Lewis, Jana Sterbak, Nestor Krüger and Judy Radul are featured.

Projections will be open to the public April 8 to June 17, 2007, at the four University of Toronto galleries:
Blackwood Gallery (3359 Mississauga Rd. N., Mississauga. 905-828-3789)
Doris McCarthy Gallery (U of T Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail. 416-287-7007)
University of Toronto Art Centre (15 King's College Circle. 416-978-1838)
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle. 416-978-8398)

The exhibition is made possible by Manulife Financial and through contributions from Charles Street Video, the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, as well as support from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

For more information please visit: http://www.utoronto.ca/gallery/site/jmbgallery.html