Opening Party

Please join us tonight Thursday November 1st, in the Blackwood Gallery (Kaneff Building) between 5 - 9pm for the Opening Reception of "Awareness Muscle", an exhibition by French artist Thierry Geoffroy.

“Excuse me, is the world perfect? Do you have political opinions? What is your slogan? …. We need you!”

French artist Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel is the first guest in the Blackwood Gallery’s new artist-in-residence program. His project, Awareness Muscle, involves new projects realized on UTM campus and highlights a number of his recent art projects, including his ongoing Emergency Room project (most recently at Nuit Blanche in Toronto). Geoffroy’s projects cross into the public sphere to activate the ordinary into political potential and to create sparks of social consciousness. Acting the persona of ‘Colonel’, a partly true-to-life ‘professional tourist’, Geoffroy confronts the public with unusual requests that turn an everyday rendezvous into an exchange of ideas and identities.

On campus, Geoffroy has already directed public events both at the gallery as well as at the Athletic Centre, blurring art, leisure, exercise, classroom activity, and political activity within the every day space of the university.

Support generously provided by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, UTM Residence Life, and The Department of French, German and Italian Studies, UTM.

A FREE shuttle bus is scheduled to pick up guests downtown at the Hart House at 6:15pm and the Gladstone Hotel (Dufferin and Queen) at 6:30pm. The bus will depart the Blackwood at 8:30pm for a return to both the Gladstone and Hart House locations.

For more information, contact the Blackwood Gallery at 905 828 3789 or http://www.blackwoodgallery.ca/