Passing time, wasting time, marking time
In addition to her other accomplishments, Toronto artist Kelly Mark shows us how to kick back, Sarah Milroy writes
SARAH MILROY
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
September 26, 2007 at 1:56 AM EDT
The red neon sign on the wall reads, “I called shotgun infinity when I was 12.” It's a work from 2006 by Toronto artist Kelly Mark and, like so much of the art she makes – art that is currently gathered in two linked exhibitions at the University of Toronto's Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and Blackwood Gallery – it is about time.
Admittedly, it's the rare child who plans for eternity before the onset of menses, but Mark has always had a heightened awareness of these things. Passing the time, time wasting, marking time, keeping time – these are all themes that play themselves out in her pieces. Behind it all is a defence of the sometimes-not-so-obvious utility of making art. Is this a worthy expenditure of time? What is it for? Is it a job? If so, what are the requirements?
Mark, who turns 40 this year, is a self-described working-class hero who insists on the value of labour many might call worthless: seeing the beauty in a crumpled Kleenex, or the complexity of her pet cat's videotaped investigations of the world; scavenging through hundreds of hours of near-obsolete film and television footage; or observing and cataloguing the ramblings of her own wandering mind.
For skeptics out to bust artists for self-indulgent narcissism, the show might seem to offer a field day. For more sympathetic souls – those of us who appreciate that slowing down and indulging in a little everyday reverie might be a worthwhile act of rebellion against the commercialization and standardization of our minds and souls – it's like a dream come true. In addition to her other accomplishments – revivifying the legacy of conceptual art, say, or waging a wry critique of consumerism – Mark shows us how to kick back.
Take Placed (1999), one of the show's most piquant works, on view at the Blackwood Gallery. It's a series of photographic vignettes from urban life, documenting litter that has been not just tossed away but carefully insinuated by passersby into the urban fabric. A tissue is pushed into the cracks of a red picnic table. A pink phone-message slip is folded upon itself and inserted neatly into a white metal door hinge. A bright orange bottle cap sits primly in the undercarriage of a door handle. Torn between their desire to discard and their socially conditioned abhorrence of littering, or perhaps just seized by an aesthetic impulse requiring release, these free-range anonymous sculptors have engineered mini-interventions in the city. Mark notes these gestures and matches them with her own, crafting little still-life studies that brim with pathos and humour.
Another piece, titled Broken Meters, at the Barnicke Gallery, observes the way in which we city dwellers bargain with authority, documenting an array of handmade notes left on broken parking meters around town. “Out of Order,” scrawls one harried writer, while another works harder to absolve herself: “Jammed w/ $1 inside. 2:10 p.m.” (Perhaps there is a God, and he/she will deliver golden rays of mercy onto this street corner. And maybe pigs will fly.) Then there's the plaintive new Canadian: “She broke no more work.” Mark observes our intimate negotiations with the big-city machine, delivering a sense of tender humanity under siege.
The television has always been a muse for Mark, and a companion in her fructifying indolence. A number of her video works record reflected TV light spilling onto the wall. One such work, at the Blackwood, is a pile of TV sets throbbing with pale pastel light. It turns out they are screening the reflected light thrown by TV porn onto white walls. (Hence the throbbing, pace variable.) A smaller companion piece, at the Barnicke, improvises on this theme. Titled The Kiss (after Brancusi's canonical modernist sculpture of a couple embracing), the piece consists of two small televisions sitting screen to screen on a plinth, their two gently curved glass convexities touching as they exchange rhythmic pulses of light.
The most sustained homage to television, though, is Mark's new installation, titled REM, a two-hour mash-up of film and television clips that operates as a digest of narrative motifs, excerpted from more than 170 sources. (The artist provides sofas for extended viewing.) The work opens with a sequence of studio logos (the winged white horse, the Arctic mountain range jutting with crystals, the roaring lion, the toga-clad goddess with her flaming lantern aloft), followed by a sampling of opening credits, both vintage and contemporary, and proceeds onward from there.
As the piece unfolds, we are immersed in a deftly edited compilation of scenes that are grouped by type – the car chase, the explosion, the interrogation scene, the stair-running getaway, the melancholy moment of self-encounter, the terrified flight through the dark forest – the seams between them joined to produce a fluid quasi-narrative that bristles with irony, humour and insight.
The result is weirdly absorbing; you find yourself immersed in the medium itself, and marvelling, too, at the encyclopedic memory of the artist equipped to command this plethora of detail.
This is “time wasting” elevated to a near-heroic scale, and that's precisely the point. Sometimes in Mark's art, that pose can lead to a kind of conceptual flabbiness; some of the works that curator Barbara Fischer has left out of this show collapse under the weight of their own slacker attitude. The best, though, as we see here, are dry and tart refutations of conventional diligence. In this regard, like the conceptual artists that are her precursors, Mark's is an art of resistance.
In Demonstration, a performance event staged in response to the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery's annual glam fundraiser, the Power Ball, in 2003, her laughing accomplices intercept incoming limos holding empty placards aloft, chanting slogans like “Hell no, we don't know!” or “What do we want? Nothing!” Clearly, it's the protesters who are having all the fun. (The performance was captured on video and is being exhibited at both shows' locations.) By wanting nothing, Mark seems to refuse the whole thrust of capitalist striving and materialistic reward.
She resists, too, the inner voices that drive us from mindful immersion in our present moment into anxious worrying and future planning. “I really should …” is a phrase that Mark has turned into neon, printed onto shopping bags and incorporated into an ongoing audio piece, an exhaustive (and exhausting) compilation of imagined self-improvements. “I really should pay them back. I really should put something on that before it gets infected. I really should buy some asparagus. I really should try and improve my vocabulary. I really should get the bills paid. I really should punish all those who defy me. I really should branch out …”
The list spills on and on in an endless litany. But as these obsessive incantations pile up, we come increasingly to recognize the absurdity of all that striving. The piece backfires with a bang. Listening, you realize: I really should stop thinking about all these things I should be doing. I really should accept myself the way I am.
I really should.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
NOW Review: Kelly Mark Stupid Heaven
Kelly Mark's ongoing In & Out Punch Cards project comments on boredom and work.
Art Reviews
Mark pushes paradoxes - Works destroy in order to transform the dull into the interesting
By FRAN SCHECHTER
KELLY MARK at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (7 Hart House Circle), to October 28. 416-978-8398. Rating: NNN
Kelly Mark: Stupid Heaven is the first of the U of T gallery's planned mid-career surveys of local artists. The conceptual artist's early practice involved collecting, arranging or documenting prosaic found objects and completing seemingly pointless, depersonalized tasks like carrying an object for a year.
Pieces from the 90s include Defiled, a pair of metal files rubbed together until toothless, and drawings from the Until series of identical black circles that each totally used up a single pencil. She cleverly employs the object's function to destroy it and transform it into art.
Mark comments on the act of art-making itself in In And Out, a wall of weekly factory time cards that she punches to mark her studio work time, a project now in its 11th year and slated to continue until the now 40-year-old art worker turns 65.
Recently, she's turned to television in conceptual videos like 30 Minute Stare (just what it sounds like) and pieces like Kiss (two pulsating TVs arranged screen to screen) that focus on the set itself rather than what's on.
TV watchers may be too worn out by the new season to take in all of REM, Mark's new two-and-a-half-hour mashup of narratively related movie and TV scenes that plays in an installation of four living rooms equipped with comfy couches and stalled clocks. The boredom of channel surfing and the sameness of TV content aren't exactly new insights.
Mark makes provocative and sometimes humorous statements on how we structure culture, work and leisure.
But in a world where anything can be art, is it too much, or too late, to ask for art that speaks from and to the soul?
Mark pushes paradoxes - Works destroy in order to transform the dull into the interesting
By FRAN SCHECHTER
KELLY MARK at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (7 Hart House Circle), to October 28. 416-978-8398. Rating: NNN
Kelly Mark: Stupid Heaven is the first of the U of T gallery's planned mid-career surveys of local artists. The conceptual artist's early practice involved collecting, arranging or documenting prosaic found objects and completing seemingly pointless, depersonalized tasks like carrying an object for a year.
Pieces from the 90s include Defiled, a pair of metal files rubbed together until toothless, and drawings from the Until series of identical black circles that each totally used up a single pencil. She cleverly employs the object's function to destroy it and transform it into art.
Mark comments on the act of art-making itself in In And Out, a wall of weekly factory time cards that she punches to mark her studio work time, a project now in its 11th year and slated to continue until the now 40-year-old art worker turns 65.
Recently, she's turned to television in conceptual videos like 30 Minute Stare (just what it sounds like) and pieces like Kiss (two pulsating TVs arranged screen to screen) that focus on the set itself rather than what's on.
TV watchers may be too worn out by the new season to take in all of REM, Mark's new two-and-a-half-hour mashup of narratively related movie and TV scenes that plays in an installation of four living rooms equipped with comfy couches and stalled clocks. The boredom of channel surfing and the sameness of TV content aren't exactly new insights.
Mark makes provocative and sometimes humorous statements on how we structure culture, work and leisure.
But in a world where anything can be art, is it too much, or too late, to ask for art that speaks from and to the soul?
NOW OCTOBER 4 - 10, 2007 VOL. 27 NO. 5
Monday, September 24, 2007
Blackwood at Nuit Blanche!
Emergency Room Recruiting Centre, Nuit Blanche, September 29, 2007
For this “all-night contemporary art thing” in Toronto, Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel has been invited to install "Emergency Room Recruiting Centre" at the University of Toronto’s Art Centre at St. George Campus, downtown. Between 7 pm and 7 am, Geoffroy will work with recruited artists who are either making art ‘on the spot’ that responds to current political events (local or world-wide) or bringing in artwork that responds to immediate political crises. Employing a manifesto and acting as the artistic director of this intense political art workshop and transitory exhibition, Geoffroy will work with each artist – hour by hour – to create an environment of cultural and political production, which in itself challenges notions of contemporary art. Curated by Séamus Kealy.
For more information contact the Blackwood Gallery: 905 828-3789.
To be a recruited artist, contact Blackwood Gallery Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at Suzanne.Carte-Blanchenot@mississauga.ca
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel was born in Nancy, France in 1961. His father was first a captain, then a colonel, in the French Army, and due to his service requirements, the family was stationed in Algeria.
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel began experimenting with photography and visual arts in his early teens, using representation as an early form of self-inquiry. Between 1978 and 1981, Geoffroy studied Medicine at the University of Nancy. Since 1988, Geoffroy has exhibited and produced interventionist-like projects world-wide, including exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, the Roskilde Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Galerie Olaf Stüber in Berlin, and site-specific projects at the 2003 and 2007 Venice Biennale, and his ongoing project Emergency Room, most recently accomplished at PS1 in New York.
Geoffroy has also created many films and several publications, all of which continue his challenge of notions of identity and political representations. Geoffroy, a French émigré, lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, with his wife and three children.
Geoffroy is a recipient of France’s “Chevalier des arts et des lettres”.
Images and further information are available online at:
http://conclusionism.com/heie_ps1/emergencyroom.html
For this “all-night contemporary art thing” in Toronto, Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel has been invited to install "Emergency Room Recruiting Centre" at the University of Toronto’s Art Centre at St. George Campus, downtown. Between 7 pm and 7 am, Geoffroy will work with recruited artists who are either making art ‘on the spot’ that responds to current political events (local or world-wide) or bringing in artwork that responds to immediate political crises. Employing a manifesto and acting as the artistic director of this intense political art workshop and transitory exhibition, Geoffroy will work with each artist – hour by hour – to create an environment of cultural and political production, which in itself challenges notions of contemporary art. Curated by Séamus Kealy.
For more information contact the Blackwood Gallery: 905 828-3789.
To be a recruited artist, contact Blackwood Gallery Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at Suzanne.Carte-Blanchenot@mississauga.ca
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel was born in Nancy, France in 1961. His father was first a captain, then a colonel, in the French Army, and due to his service requirements, the family was stationed in Algeria.
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel began experimenting with photography and visual arts in his early teens, using representation as an early form of self-inquiry. Between 1978 and 1981, Geoffroy studied Medicine at the University of Nancy. Since 1988, Geoffroy has exhibited and produced interventionist-like projects world-wide, including exhibitions at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, the Roskilde Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark, the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art, Galerie Olaf Stüber in Berlin, and site-specific projects at the 2003 and 2007 Venice Biennale, and his ongoing project Emergency Room, most recently accomplished at PS1 in New York.
Geoffroy has also created many films and several publications, all of which continue his challenge of notions of identity and political representations. Geoffroy, a French émigré, lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, with his wife and three children.
Geoffroy is a recipient of France’s “Chevalier des arts et des lettres”.
Images and further information are available online at:
http://conclusionism.com/heie_ps1/emergencyroom.html
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Kids Art Camp: Week 3 - Photography
"Running With Scissors" Kids Art Camp
Week 3: Photography
Week 3: Photography
July 16 - 20
This week our young artists explored the world of photography through the lens of a 35mm camera. They experimented with the effects of light and created unique images with a visit to the computer lab where they learned studio techniques.
There are spaces still available for upcoming classes like Experimental Drawing, Multimedia, Sculpture, Map Making and Environmental Art. Please visit our Thursday May 3rd post for details or contact our Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at 905-896-5507 or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca for more information or to register.
Kids Art Camp: Week 2 - Animation
"Running with Scissors" Kids Art Camp
Week 2: Animation
July 9 - 13
In the second week of our kids art camp, our young artists created worlds where images walked, talked and even flew! They told stories and designed characters using flip-books, drawings on film, puppets, clay and cut-outs and animation.
There are spaces still available for upcoming classes like
Experimental Drawing, Multimedia, Sculpture,
Map Making and Environmental Art.
Please visit our Thursday May 3rd post for details
or contact our Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot
at 905-896-5507
or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca
for more information or to register.
Experimental Drawing, Multimedia, Sculpture,
Map Making and Environmental Art.
Please visit our Thursday May 3rd post for details
or contact our Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot
at 905-896-5507
or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca
for more information or to register.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Running with Scissors
Summer Kids Art Camp
Look at how much fun we're having!
Look at how much fun we're having!
There are spaces still available for upcoming classes like
Photography, Experimental Drawing, Multimedia, Sculpture,
Map Making and Environmental Art.
Please visit our Thursday May 3rd post for details
or contact our Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot
at 905-896-5507
for more information or to register.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Mark Lewis wins 2007 Gershon Iskowitz Prize
Canadian Mark Lewis, often described as a film artist rather than a filmmaker because of his studied use of motion-picture techniques in his landscape and portrait work, has been awarded the 2007 Gershon Iskowitz Prize by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.
In addition to receiving the $25,000 prize, the London-based artists's work will be exhibited at the AGO next year.
Mark Lewis's video installation Children’s Games, Heygate Estate, 2002 is currently being shown at the Blackwood Gallery as part of the Projections exhibition which runs till June 17th.
Canadian Mark Lewis, often described as a film artist rather than a filmmaker because of his studied use of motion-picture techniques in his landscape and portrait work, has been awarded the 2007 Gershon Iskowitz Prize by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.
In addition to receiving the $25,000 prize, the London-based artists's work will be exhibited at the AGO next year.
Mark Lewis's video installation Children’s Games, Heygate Estate, 2002 is currently being shown at the Blackwood Gallery as part of the Projections exhibition which runs till June 17th.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Mississauga Photography Festival
Call to Photography Artists: “A Month of Photography” invites you to participate in the 3rd annual juried photo festival for September 2007. Various exhibition locations are available for selected artists.
Call is open to artists at the emerging or advanced stages of practice. Guest curator Kohila Kurunathan. Contact Fausta Facciponte at orangegirl@sympatico.ca for a submission form.
Call to Photography Artists: “A Month of Photography” invites you to participate in the 3rd annual juried photo festival for September 2007. Various exhibition locations are available for selected artists.
Call is open to artists at the emerging or advanced stages of practice. Guest curator Kohila Kurunathan. Contact Fausta Facciponte at orangegirl@sympatico.ca for a submission form.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS*
SUMMER VISUAL ART CAMP
SUMMER VISUAL ART CAMP
WEEKLY HALF-DAY SESSIONS FOR CHILDREN AGED 5 – 12
Working with photography, new media, sculpture and much more this program encourages and fosters new fun ways of thinking about and making art. Children will be given the opportunity to direct their own art production and end up with their very own exhibition in Blackwood Gallery.
SCHEDULES
MORNING SESSIONS 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
JULY 03 – 06
Found Object Art
Using found materials you will transform everyday objects and junk into works of art. Addressing environmental concerns by reusing salvaged materials, you will unearth the creative potential of ordinary objects.
JULY 09-13
Animation
Create a world of your own where images walk, talk and even fly! Tell stories and design characters using flip-books, drawings on film, puppets, clay and cut-outs and animation.
JULY 16-20
Photography
Explore Mississauga through the lens of a 35mm camera. Experimenting with the effects of light you will create and compose unique images and learn interesting studio techniques.
JULY 23-27
Sculpture
Get your hands dirty by uncovering some wonderful materials and create unique artwork! By using clay, wood, cardboard, plastic and a fantastic array of materials you will explore innovative ways of creating sculptural works.
JULY 30 – AUGUST 03
Map Making
Exploring the landscape surrounding the campus you will look upside-down and all around creating new ways of seeing space. Through story-telling and art making you will experiment with form, line and shapes creating a space of your own.
AUGUST 07 – 10
Multimedia
Become media savvy. This program will expose some of the most contemporary artistic practices including video production, audio art, and digital collage.
AUGUST 13 – 17
Experimental Drawing
Spark your imagination and transform the imaginary into works of art. Develop skills in designing explorations of colour, texture and patterns with pencils, charcoal, pastels and ink.
AUGUST 20 – 24
Environmental Art
Use nature as your playground! By consuming recycling materials the course will build understanding, curiosity, and cool new projects.
AUGUST 27 – 31
Tour de Force
This course will have you creating your own masterpieces. Experimenting with mixed-media you will have challenging opportunities to use a variety of tools and techniques in making unforgettable art.
CLASS FEES AND PAYMENTS
The weekly half-session fee is $80 per child. Class size will be limited to 15 children in each age group. Registration is on a first come first serve basis. Extended care will be offered for an additional fee of $25 each week per child beginning 8:30 am for the morning session and ending at 5:30 pm for the afternoon session. Please indicate on the registration form if required.
MATERIALS are provided for each session. Please ensure that your child wears appropriate clothing.
SNACKS will not be provided. Please supply your child with the proper snacks and water for the summer camp. Note that we cannot allow any peanut product to enter the camp. If your child does have a food allergy please notify the coordinator and provide the information in writing.
INSTRUCTORS all have previous teaching experience in the visual arts and are certified in First Aid and CPR.
DROP OFF AND PICK UP will be located at the Kaneff Centre at the North Entrance by please refer to the map at http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/fileadmin/root/images/UTMcampusmap.pdf The Kaneff Centre is Building #3 and is located at the centre of the campus. Please indicate on the names of the parents or guardians who will be responsible for picking up the child.
WITHDRAWLS/REFUNDS will be made no later than the start of the second class with $25 automatically withheld for administrative/material costs. Absence from classes does not constitute notice of withdrawl. The University of Toronto Mississauga reserves the right to withdraw any of its offerings.
CONTACT Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at 905-896-5507 or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca for more information or to register.
University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road North
Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
Blackwood Gallery’s Running With Scissors is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Lessard Family Fund.
*Please note that children will in no way be encouraged or permitted to run with actual scissors in the camp, instead they will be encouraged to be free-spirited and permitted the freedom to radically think about art production.
Working with photography, new media, sculpture and much more this program encourages and fosters new fun ways of thinking about and making art. Children will be given the opportunity to direct their own art production and end up with their very own exhibition in Blackwood Gallery.
SCHEDULES
MORNING SESSIONS 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
JULY 03 – 06
Found Object Art
Using found materials you will transform everyday objects and junk into works of art. Addressing environmental concerns by reusing salvaged materials, you will unearth the creative potential of ordinary objects.
JULY 09-13
Animation
Create a world of your own where images walk, talk and even fly! Tell stories and design characters using flip-books, drawings on film, puppets, clay and cut-outs and animation.
JULY 16-20
Photography
Explore Mississauga through the lens of a 35mm camera. Experimenting with the effects of light you will create and compose unique images and learn interesting studio techniques.
JULY 23-27
Sculpture
Get your hands dirty by uncovering some wonderful materials and create unique artwork! By using clay, wood, cardboard, plastic and a fantastic array of materials you will explore innovative ways of creating sculptural works.
JULY 30 – AUGUST 03
Map Making
Exploring the landscape surrounding the campus you will look upside-down and all around creating new ways of seeing space. Through story-telling and art making you will experiment with form, line and shapes creating a space of your own.
AUGUST 07 – 10
Multimedia
Become media savvy. This program will expose some of the most contemporary artistic practices including video production, audio art, and digital collage.
AUGUST 13 – 17
Experimental Drawing
Spark your imagination and transform the imaginary into works of art. Develop skills in designing explorations of colour, texture and patterns with pencils, charcoal, pastels and ink.
AUGUST 20 – 24
Environmental Art
Use nature as your playground! By consuming recycling materials the course will build understanding, curiosity, and cool new projects.
AUGUST 27 – 31
Tour de Force
This course will have you creating your own masterpieces. Experimenting with mixed-media you will have challenging opportunities to use a variety of tools and techniques in making unforgettable art.
CLASS FEES AND PAYMENTS
The weekly half-session fee is $80 per child. Class size will be limited to 15 children in each age group. Registration is on a first come first serve basis. Extended care will be offered for an additional fee of $25 each week per child beginning 8:30 am for the morning session and ending at 5:30 pm for the afternoon session. Please indicate on the registration form if required.
MATERIALS are provided for each session. Please ensure that your child wears appropriate clothing.
SNACKS will not be provided. Please supply your child with the proper snacks and water for the summer camp. Note that we cannot allow any peanut product to enter the camp. If your child does have a food allergy please notify the coordinator and provide the information in writing.
INSTRUCTORS all have previous teaching experience in the visual arts and are certified in First Aid and CPR.
DROP OFF AND PICK UP will be located at the Kaneff Centre at the North Entrance by please refer to the map at http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/fileadmin/root/images/UTMcampusmap.pdf The Kaneff Centre is Building #3 and is located at the centre of the campus. Please indicate on the names of the parents or guardians who will be responsible for picking up the child.
WITHDRAWLS/REFUNDS will be made no later than the start of the second class with $25 automatically withheld for administrative/material costs. Absence from classes does not constitute notice of withdrawl. The University of Toronto Mississauga reserves the right to withdraw any of its offerings.
CONTACT Outreach Programmer Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at 905-896-5507 or suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca for more information or to register.
University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road North
Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
Blackwood Gallery’s Running With Scissors is generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Lessard Family Fund.
*Please note that children will in no way be encouraged or permitted to run with actual scissors in the camp, instead they will be encouraged to be free-spirited and permitted the freedom to radically think about art production.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
David Hoffos wins award at the Images Festival!
Sponsored by NOW Magazine, the grand prize, awarded in recognition of the Best Canadian Media Artwork in the festival: David Hoffos (Lethbridge, Alberta) Scenes From the House Dream: Bachelor's Bluff at the J.M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, U of Toronto.
20th Annual Images Festival is North America's premiere media arts festival showcasing extraordinary film & video, gallery installations, live performance and new media.
April 5 - 14, 2007
www.imagesfestival.com
Sponsored by NOW Magazine, the grand prize, awarded in recognition of the Best Canadian Media Artwork in the festival: David Hoffos (Lethbridge, Alberta) Scenes From the House Dream: Bachelor's Bluff at the J.M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, U of Toronto.
20th Annual Images Festival is North America's premiere media arts festival showcasing extraordinary film & video, gallery installations, live performance and new media.
April 5 - 14, 2007
www.imagesfestival.com
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
FREE CONTEMPORARY ART BUS TOUR
Sunday, April 29, 2007
11:30 am – 5:00 pm
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
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
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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!
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!
Friday, April 06, 2007
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.
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.
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 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.
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
Friday, March 09, 2007
UTM ART Festival 2007 – March 19th – 23rd
The Blackwood Gallery is very happy to collaborate with the organizers of UTM ART Festival. Here's the scoop:
The Artistic Resource Team (ART) in Student Housing and Residence Life at University of Toronto, Mississauga is a newly formed team of students who are committed to enhancing the presence of and access to the creative arts in our community. ART holds primary responsibility for the development and presentation of the annual UTM ART Festival. This is the 6th year for the ART Festival and it shaping up to be its biggest year yet. The Festival has been expanded into a week-long event which includes daytime work-shops where students can explore a new form of art, and evening events to promote the art that already exists on our campus. The main event is the ART Festival Showcase which offers two major artistic categories: visual arts, and the performing arts. Professionals within their respective fields adjudicate these artistic demonstrations and financial awards are offered to the winning participants in each category. Over the past five years the ART Festival has offered more than $20 000.00 in awards to aspiring young artists.
The ART Festival 2007 – March 19th – 23rd
Monday, March 19th
11-1 PM Staging Shakespeare with Holger Syme (Student Centre Upstairs)
1-2 PM Highland Dance with Laura MacDonald (Student Centre Upstairs)
8-10 PM ART Opening Coffee House (Student Centre Presentation Room), $2
Tuesday, March 20th
1-2 PM Cape Breton Fiddling with Barry Green (Student Centre Upstairs)
8 PM UTM Drama Club Presents “Me and My Asian Mother” (MiST CCT 150)
9 PM UTM Drama Club Presents “Cousins of Corsica” (MiST CCT 150)
Wednesday, March 21st
11-1 PM Story Telling for Actors, Film-Makers and Artists with David How (Student Centre)
1-2 PM Beginner Hula with Estelle Oliva (Student Centre Upstairs)
7-9 PM Graduate Student Exhibit (Blackwood Gallery) [With reception]
Thursday, March 22nd
8:30 PM – 10:30 PM UTM Film Festival (Kaneff 137)
Friday, March 23rd
12-2PM Creativity Workshop with Jackie Osmond Patrick (Student Centre Upstairs)
THE ART FESTIVAL SHOWCASE (CC1080)
6 PM Visual Arts, 7 PM Performance, $10 Admission
Tickets on Sale March12th - 23rd in the Student Centre and Roy Ivor Hall
Check out our website:
www.utm.utoronto.ca/residence/art
Monday, March 19th
11-1 PM Staging Shakespeare with Holger Syme (Student Centre Upstairs)
1-2 PM Highland Dance with Laura MacDonald (Student Centre Upstairs)
8-10 PM ART Opening Coffee House (Student Centre Presentation Room), $2
Tuesday, March 20th
1-2 PM Cape Breton Fiddling with Barry Green (Student Centre Upstairs)
8 PM UTM Drama Club Presents “Me and My Asian Mother” (MiST CCT 150)
9 PM UTM Drama Club Presents “Cousins of Corsica” (MiST CCT 150)
Wednesday, March 21st
11-1 PM Story Telling for Actors, Film-Makers and Artists with David How (Student Centre)
1-2 PM Beginner Hula with Estelle Oliva (Student Centre Upstairs)
7-9 PM Graduate Student Exhibit (Blackwood Gallery) [With reception]
Thursday, March 22nd
8:30 PM – 10:30 PM UTM Film Festival (Kaneff 137)
Friday, March 23rd
12-2PM Creativity Workshop with Jackie Osmond Patrick (Student Centre Upstairs)
THE ART FESTIVAL SHOWCASE (CC1080)
6 PM Visual Arts, 7 PM Performance, $10 Admission
Tickets on Sale March12th - 23rd in the Student Centre and Roy Ivor Hall
Check out our website:
www.utm.utoronto.ca/residence/art
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Workshop for Emerging Arts Professionals
Ontario Association of Art Galleries
in collaboration with Blackwood Gallery
--Workshop for Emerging Arts Professionals--
Troublemaking and Troubleshooting:
Exhibition Organization for Emerging Curators
March 20th, 2007, 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Multimedia Studio Theatre (MiST), Ground Floor, CCIT Building
University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
Registration fee - University of Toronto students: $40, General: $45
Register at: www.oaag.org/programs/index.html by Friday, March 16, 2007
Email: programs@oaag.org for more information.
Through case studies and presentations by established professionals, the series creates professional development and network opportunities for recently graduated and underemployed emerging arts professionals. Troublemaking and Troubleshooting is a half-day workshop that will introduce the main components of exhibition organization, by identifying the resources, tools and methods of contemporary curatorial practice. Professional visual art curators Rhonda Corvese and Alissa Firth-Eagland will share expertise and provide insight into how to make curatorial projects happen from the ground up.
Rhonda Corvese will address:
- The Artist Curator relationship
- Negotiation and communication
- Production as a curatorial model
- Research strategies
- Networking: local, national, and international
Alissa Firth-Eagland will address:
- Pitching proposals and Calls For Submissions
- The Artist/Curator model
- Funding opportunities, partnerships and grants
- Making contact with galleries, artist-run centres and alternative venues
- Cultivating impact: promotion, publication, documentation
Getting There:
Participants are responsible for their own travel to and from Mississauga. Tickets for the intercampus shuttle bus can be purchased by non-students at Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle. Shuttle schedule available at www.utm.utoronto.ca/shuttle.
The program has been generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Canadian Heritage.
Rhonda Corvese is a Toronto-based independent curator and an Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU). Her curatorial projects often evolve in response to situations, where she strives to challenge the role of the curator, artist and audience in the presentation and engagement of contemporary art. She is fundamentally interested in exploring the dialogue between curator and artist in the creation of new work that exists beyond the gallery space and in the examination of contemporary Canadian art within an international framework. Recent projects include: The Idea of North, a sound art group exhibition in Norway, Iceland and Halifax (2005/2006); Iris Haeussler’s site-specific installation The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach (2006); a special project Berlin booth Berlin Constructions: Emergent Practices Today at the Toronto International Art Fair (2004); and the Berlin/Toronto Gallery Exchange (2004/2005). Three upcoming Toronto projects include: British artist Shona Illingworth’s The Watch Man, a video and sound installation at InterAccess (April 6-May 12, 2007) as part of Images Festival 2007; 25sec.-Toronto a video portrait of cultural mediators by Berlin-based German artists Angelika Middendorf and Andreas Schimanski at Prefix ICA (June/July 2007); and an AGYU project “in there”, a one-night performance event on April 4/2007 in the Accolade East Building (AGYU), a series of process-based collaborative projects between Diane Borsato, Daniel Cockburn, Kristan Horton and the dance, music and theatre students at York University.
Toronto-based curator Alissa Firth-Eagland publishes, produces events, curates exhibitions and programs time-based works. Her multi-faceted approach sparks projects across a range of communities, institutions, and disciplines: single-evening performances, video screenings, multiple location shows; interventions in public spaces; and gallery exhibitions. She has coordinated projects for organizations like the TRANZ ßà TECH 2003 Toronto International Media Biennial, Cultural Human Resources Canada, the Banff Centre, the Toronto Alternative Arts Fair International 2004, YYZ Artists Outlet and MUU Gallery (Helsinki, Finland). Through her practice, she champions creative experimentation with media. In 2005 she commissioned video artists who use their own presence in their works to perform live for the first time with her project, Feats, might. In 2006 she was awarded an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellowship for independent research into print as a distinct forum for contemporary art. The inaugural issue of her curatorial publication project ALMANAC exhibited in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Melbourne, Australia; Stockholm, Sweden; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and in Cambridge, UK. In summer 2006 she was curator-in-residence at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art where she researched Nordic artists creating works that defy traditional artistic categories. In 2008 she will be presenting the first solo exhibition of Canadian video artist Gareth Long’s work at Oakville Galleries. Currently she’s commissioning new works for Sleepwalker Projects, her experimental window gallery on Queen St West in Toronto.
in collaboration with Blackwood Gallery
--Workshop for Emerging Arts Professionals--
Troublemaking and Troubleshooting:
Exhibition Organization for Emerging Curators
March 20th, 2007, 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Multimedia Studio Theatre (MiST), Ground Floor, CCIT Building
University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
Registration fee - University of Toronto students: $40, General: $45
Register at: www.oaag.org/programs/index.html by Friday, March 16, 2007
Email: programs@oaag.org for more information.
Through case studies and presentations by established professionals, the series creates professional development and network opportunities for recently graduated and underemployed emerging arts professionals. Troublemaking and Troubleshooting is a half-day workshop that will introduce the main components of exhibition organization, by identifying the resources, tools and methods of contemporary curatorial practice. Professional visual art curators Rhonda Corvese and Alissa Firth-Eagland will share expertise and provide insight into how to make curatorial projects happen from the ground up.
Rhonda Corvese will address:
- The Artist Curator relationship
- Negotiation and communication
- Production as a curatorial model
- Research strategies
- Networking: local, national, and international
Alissa Firth-Eagland will address:
- Pitching proposals and Calls For Submissions
- The Artist/Curator model
- Funding opportunities, partnerships and grants
- Making contact with galleries, artist-run centres and alternative venues
- Cultivating impact: promotion, publication, documentation
Getting There:
Participants are responsible for their own travel to and from Mississauga. Tickets for the intercampus shuttle bus can be purchased by non-students at Hart House, University of Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle. Shuttle schedule available at www.utm.utoronto.ca/shuttle.
The program has been generously supported by the Ontario Trillium Foundation and Canadian Heritage.
Rhonda Corvese is a Toronto-based independent curator and an Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU). Her curatorial projects often evolve in response to situations, where she strives to challenge the role of the curator, artist and audience in the presentation and engagement of contemporary art. She is fundamentally interested in exploring the dialogue between curator and artist in the creation of new work that exists beyond the gallery space and in the examination of contemporary Canadian art within an international framework. Recent projects include: The Idea of North, a sound art group exhibition in Norway, Iceland and Halifax (2005/2006); Iris Haeussler’s site-specific installation The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach (2006); a special project Berlin booth Berlin Constructions: Emergent Practices Today at the Toronto International Art Fair (2004); and the Berlin/Toronto Gallery Exchange (2004/2005). Three upcoming Toronto projects include: British artist Shona Illingworth’s The Watch Man, a video and sound installation at InterAccess (April 6-May 12, 2007) as part of Images Festival 2007; 25sec.-Toronto a video portrait of cultural mediators by Berlin-based German artists Angelika Middendorf and Andreas Schimanski at Prefix ICA (June/July 2007); and an AGYU project “in there”, a one-night performance event on April 4/2007 in the Accolade East Building (AGYU), a series of process-based collaborative projects between Diane Borsato, Daniel Cockburn, Kristan Horton and the dance, music and theatre students at York University.
Toronto-based curator Alissa Firth-Eagland publishes, produces events, curates exhibitions and programs time-based works. Her multi-faceted approach sparks projects across a range of communities, institutions, and disciplines: single-evening performances, video screenings, multiple location shows; interventions in public spaces; and gallery exhibitions. She has coordinated projects for organizations like the TRANZ ßà TECH 2003 Toronto International Media Biennial, Cultural Human Resources Canada, the Banff Centre, the Toronto Alternative Arts Fair International 2004, YYZ Artists Outlet and MUU Gallery (Helsinki, Finland). Through her practice, she champions creative experimentation with media. In 2005 she commissioned video artists who use their own presence in their works to perform live for the first time with her project, Feats, might. In 2006 she was awarded an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Fellowship for independent research into print as a distinct forum for contemporary art. The inaugural issue of her curatorial publication project ALMANAC exhibited in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Melbourne, Australia; Stockholm, Sweden; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and in Cambridge, UK. In summer 2006 she was curator-in-residence at the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art where she researched Nordic artists creating works that defy traditional artistic categories. In 2008 she will be presenting the first solo exhibition of Canadian video artist Gareth Long’s work at Oakville Galleries. Currently she’s commissioning new works for Sleepwalker Projects, her experimental window gallery on Queen St West in Toronto.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Next up on the Image Bar... "Dan Carter" by Alison Kobayashi
Video still from Alison Kobayashi's Dan Carter, 2006
In her 15-minute video installation, Dan Carter, Alison Kobayashi presents as a series of characters inspired by a discarded answering machine tape. Her sarcastic and exaggerated performance reflects on the human condition by examining identity and exploring the imaginary.
Kobayashi is captivated by found objects that contain traces of private experiences. She has collected over 70 answering machine cassettes donated to second-hand stores over the past two years. Her fascination lead to the creation of Dan Carter, named after the original owner of the answering machine tape.
Alison Kobayashi is a student in the Art and Art History program at University of Toronto at Mississauga. Among numerous honours, in 2006 she was the recipient of The Bill Huffman Award for Excellence in Studio Practice. Her work has been screened at Justin M. Barnicke, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts, and Pleasure Dome.
The William Huffman Award for Excellence in Studio Practice is an annual award that recognizes an exceptionally gifted student from the University of Toronto Art and Art History Program – a joint BA offered by the University of Toronto at Mississauga and Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning (Oakville). Huffman honors the student with an exhibition where the recipient presents works alongside respected contemporary artists.
William Huffman is a 1991 Art and Art history Program alumnus. He has worked with a number of arts organizations and institutions such as the Blackwood Gallery, Arts Toronto, The Power Plant, A Space, Canadian Art Foundation and Art Gallery of Sudbury. Huffman is currently the Associate Director for the Toronto Arts Council.
The William Huffman Award has recognized Marko Bursac (2007), Alison Kobayashi (2006), Tejpal Ajji (2005), Carolyn Tripp (2004), Jared Carlson (2003), Tannis Nielsen (2002), Erin Finley (2001), Amie Tolton (2000) and Heather Robinson (1999).
***
Dan Carter will be available on the Image Bar:
- All day on February 26 & 27
- In the evenings from February 28 to March 11
- All day on March 12 & 13
- In the evenings from March 14 until March 25
Jesus Camp – the movie! – at UTM
Now on the Image Bar, and until February 25, 2007:
Jesus Camp, a Magnolia Pictures release directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing -- who previously made The Boys of Baraka together -- is a 2006 documentary about a "charismatic Christian" summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view", and it tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community”.
Jesus Camp is a documentary about the "Kids On Fire" summer camp, located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005--Levi, Rachael, and Victoria (Tory). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church, a large charismatic church in Lee's Summit, Missouri; a suburb of Kansas City.
All three children, despite their youth, are very devout charismatic Christians. Levi, who has ambitions of being a pastor, has already preached several sermons at his suburban Kansas City church. Early in the film, he is watching a cartoon that preaches that Earth is 6,000 years old. He is homeschooled, and learns physical science from a book that attempts to reconcile the creationist account with scientific principles. He preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to Jesus’ coming back. Rachael is seen approaching a woman and offering her a Christian tract and telling her that God has a special plan for her. She is disdainful of non-charismatic churches, feeling that they aren't "churches that God likes to go to." Tory frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and feels uncomfortable about "dancing for the flesh."
At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be used by God. She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values.
For more information visit: http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com
Jesus Camp, a Magnolia Pictures release directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing -- who previously made The Boys of Baraka together -- is a 2006 documentary about a "charismatic Christian" summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view", and it tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community”.
Jesus Camp is a documentary about the "Kids On Fire" summer camp, located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005--Levi, Rachael, and Victoria (Tory). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church, a large charismatic church in Lee's Summit, Missouri; a suburb of Kansas City.
All three children, despite their youth, are very devout charismatic Christians. Levi, who has ambitions of being a pastor, has already preached several sermons at his suburban Kansas City church. Early in the film, he is watching a cartoon that preaches that Earth is 6,000 years old. He is homeschooled, and learns physical science from a book that attempts to reconcile the creationist account with scientific principles. He preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to Jesus’ coming back. Rachael is seen approaching a woman and offering her a Christian tract and telling her that God has a special plan for her. She is disdainful of non-charismatic churches, feeling that they aren't "churches that God likes to go to." Tory frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and feels uncomfortable about "dancing for the flesh."
At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be used by God. She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values.
For more information visit: http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Experience the experience of viewing the monochrom performance online!
Or, at least a one-minute teaser clip of it ;-)
You have three lovely web-friendly formats to choose from…
Windows Media Player, Real Player, or QuickTime
.jpg)
Of course, there's also the ePresence directory.
You have three lovely web-friendly formats to choose from…
Windows Media Player, Real Player, or QuickTime
.jpg)
Of course, there's also the ePresence directory.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
2007 Graduate Exhibitions
For Immediate Release
2007 Graduate Exhibitions
Exhibition 1
March 1 – March 11, 2007
Reception: Wednesday, February 28, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Exhibition 2
March 15 – March 25, 2007
Reception: Wednesday, March 14, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
This year marks the thirty-sixth anniversary of the Art and Art History Program. In 1971, Sheridan joined with the University of Toronto's Erindale College to establish what became Canada's first collaborative fine art program between a college and a university.
On exhibit will be artwork realized in a broad range of media including photography, painting, print, digital technologies, drawing, sculpture and installation. The students explore the technical, expressive and metaphoric possibilities of each media to probe such diverse concerns as contemporary and historical art practices, popular culture, beauty, identity, sexuality, cultural background, and social and political issues with humour, seriousness, and often, great acuity.
Graduates of the Art and Art History Program earn both a Diploma in Art and Art History from Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning and a four-year Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto at Mississauga. Both full-time and part-time study is possible. The Art and Art History Program gives each graduate a flexible base from which to pursue a career in the broad spectrum of the arts community. Graduates may wish continued involvement with education such as teaching at the secondary or post-secondary level, or may pursue graduate studies in studio or art history leading to an M.F.A. or an M.A. degree.
Graduates work as practicing artists exhibiting their work in artist-run, public, and private galleries both nationally and internationally. Production careers also have included activities in commercial art that include graphic design, advertising, or art direction. With its strong historical format, this program also enables one to develop a career in museology, gallery curatorship, restoration, or art criticism.
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 11 to 5 pm and Sunday 1 to 5 pm
For additional information, please visit http://www.blackwoodgallery.ca
For more information please contact either the Blackwood Gallery at 905-828-3789 or Art and Art History Program Coordinator, Louise Noguchi, at 905-845-9430, x 8786.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Volunteer Positions available at the Blackwood Gallery
The Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto at Mississauga is currently seeking volunteers for the spring and summer.
The volunteer positions available involve working at the gallery during regular gallery hours to welcome visitors, answer the telephone, and assist with correspondence. There will also be opportunities to help with exhibition installation and opening receptions.
The positions require commitment for a flexible number of hours from April 8 – June 29, 2007. The following hours (with a minimum of two hours per session) are available:
Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, Friday, and Sundays between 1:00 – 4:00 pm.
If you are interested in the visual arts and/or art history, in cultural studies or anthropology, the volunteer positions provide excellent opportunities to develop professional experience and contacts in a lively and stimulating context.
The Blackwood Gallery is a nationally recognized centre for contemporary art, presenting exhibitions by artists from across Canada and beyond, as well as work by students from the Art and Art History program at UTM.
Applications are accepted immediately and on an ongoing basis until March 9, 2007. Please email or fax your application (cover letter and resume) to:
Milena Placentile
Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Rd N. Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
email: m.placentile [at] utoronto.ca / Fax: 905-569-4262
At this time, we would also like to welcome volunteers to help us at the end of August with our exhibition opening in September. If you have any past experience installing art, or with carpentry and painting, please let us know in your cover letter.
For more information please visit our website, http://www.blackwoodgallery.ca/ or call 905.828.3789
Thank you in advance; we look forward to hearing from you!
All the very best,
Milena
The volunteer positions available involve working at the gallery during regular gallery hours to welcome visitors, answer the telephone, and assist with correspondence. There will also be opportunities to help with exhibition installation and opening receptions.
The positions require commitment for a flexible number of hours from April 8 – June 29, 2007. The following hours (with a minimum of two hours per session) are available:
Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays, Friday, and Sundays between 1:00 – 4:00 pm.
If you are interested in the visual arts and/or art history, in cultural studies or anthropology, the volunteer positions provide excellent opportunities to develop professional experience and contacts in a lively and stimulating context.
The Blackwood Gallery is a nationally recognized centre for contemporary art, presenting exhibitions by artists from across Canada and beyond, as well as work by students from the Art and Art History program at UTM.
Applications are accepted immediately and on an ongoing basis until March 9, 2007. Please email or fax your application (cover letter and resume) to:
Milena Placentile
Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Rd N. Mississauga ON L5L 1C6
email: m.placentile [at] utoronto.ca / Fax: 905-569-4262
At this time, we would also like to welcome volunteers to help us at the end of August with our exhibition opening in September. If you have any past experience installing art, or with carpentry and painting, please let us know in your cover letter.
For more information please visit our website, http://www.blackwoodgallery.ca/ or call 905.828.3789
Thank you in advance; we look forward to hearing from you!
All the very best,
Milena
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