On The Waterfront at Hamilton Winterfest

On The Waterfront happened and wrapped only one short day ago. Main documentation to come soon, but here are some fun snaps taken by others found on Twitter.

Winterlore on AKIMBLOG

Nice mention of last year's Hamilton Winterfest exhibition, Winterlore, on Akimblog's 2014 Critic's Picks, Hamilton edition. Thanks, Stephanie Vegh!

http://www.akimbo.ca/akimblog/?id=962

This year's exhibition is fast approaching. More info in this recent post here.

Hamilton Winterfest

There are some very exciting exhibitions on the horizon in Hamilton that I'm involved with that may be of interest to those in the area engaged in the often intersecting worlds of art and heritage. I'm putting on another outdoor exhibition as part of Hamilton Winterfest this February. On The Waterfront, as well as Things Made Here are unique shows that celebrate material culture and local history. See below, as well as Tourism Hamilton's website for more details!

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On The Waterfront
A Hamilton Winterfest Exhibition

Lesley Loksi Chan

Fwee Twade (Becky Katz and Matt McInnes)

Hopkins Duffield

Carey Jernigan and Julia Campbell-Such

Aaron Oussoren

C. Wells

To be on the waterfront is to be on the threshold of something. The waterfront is where settlers landed, and early trade took place. In the 19th Century, the area surrounding Pier 8 was home to some of the city’s first industrial sites, among them an iron works, boat works, sail loft and glass company. In On the Waterfront, industrial sites will serve as points of departure for contemporary artists from around and outside of the region. Evocative outdoor installations will draw on skills, materials and forms associated with early industry, as well as the social history of the neighbourhood. This exhibition will consider the Hamilton’s waterfront as a site of historical significance, tension and possibility, as well as a place where past stories and dreams of the future collide.

At the Hamilton Winterfest Kick-Off Event: February 7, 2015
12:00pm – 8:00pm

Pier 8, Hamilton


Things Made Here: The Collection of Glen Faulman
January 31 to March 21 2015
AGH Design Annex
118 James Street North, Hamilton

Glen Faulman (AKA The Hamilton Kid) is a 10th generation Hamiltonian and a 3rd generation steelworker. He is also part owner of This Ain’t Hollywood on James Street North—needless to say he has great pride in this city, and in particular, the things made here. Glen’s goal is to collect “an artifact from every manufacturing plant that ever operated in Hamilton,” which would be a number approaching a thousand.

On view at the AGH Design Annex are selections from his extensive collection of objects made in Hamilton. From a late 19th century sewing machine produced at a factory formerly located at James Street North and Vine Street, to a stunning Hamilton cash register made on James Street North at Colbourne, to nail samples and graphic ads for soda pop and beer, these everyday artifacts will be familiar to long-time Hamiltonians. They are a stunning introduction for those less familiar. Three types of objects are on display: graphic designs used commercially, the things themselves that were produced, and the things to make things with, such as nails and other components.

At the AGH Design Annex, we provide a platform for contemporary local designers. This exhibition will situate newer pieces in the context of historic local production, with the goal of celebrating those aspects of graphic and industrial design that have stood the test of time.

Curated by Melissa Bennett (Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Hamilton) and Tara Bursey (Independent Curator).

Join us during Art Crawl on Friday February 13, from 7 pm to 11pm as we launch the exhibition Things Made Here: The Collection of Glen Faulman. Meet the Collector and revel in DJ Johnny Angel’s 78 Spin Out – playing all your favorite 78’s.

For more information:

http://www.tourismhamilton.com/festivals-events/winterfest-2015/art-winterfest-2

Supercrawl 2015 Call for Artist Submissions

This is a public service announcement on behalf of the Supercrawl Curatorial Committee!

Supercrawl 2015 Call for Artist Submissions


Deadline: Tuesday December 16, 2014


Supercrawl is a free annual outdoor art and music festival in downtown Hamilton, and the Supercrawl Curatorial Committee is excited to once again release our Call for Artists for 2015. Supercrawl celebrates the unique mix of arts organizations, cultures, businesses and creative people along James Street North in Hamilton. Last year Supercrawl attracted over 100,000 attendees and will continue to grow in scale in 2015.



The Supercrawl Curatorial Committee presents a wide variety of artistic projects at the annual James Street North Supercrawl. The goal of the committee is to curate contemporary public art which challenges site and context, as well as works that present new opportunities for access and engagement for Supercrawl attendees.



The committee selects projects by local, national and international artists based on artistic merit, originality, and ability to integrate within the festival's scale and energy. This committee reports to the Supercrawl Board of Directors. Since 2010, the committee has curated works in a variety of media, including projects by Dean Drever, Zeke Moores, Sean Martindale, BGL, Kelly Mark, Kim Adams, Max Streicher, and many others. Committee members are Melissa Bennett, Tara Bursey, Amy Kenny, Courtney Lakin, Ciara McKeown, Dane Pederson, Alana Traficante, Stephanie Vegh and Matthew Walker.



facebook.com/Supercrawl

instagram.com/supercrawl

youtube.com/user/JamesStSuperCrawl


supercrawl.tumblr.com


The Curatorial Committee invites artists working in a wide range of creative disciplines to propose works for installation as part next year's event, taking place on September 11-13, 2015.



The Committee is interested in seeking proposals in the following media:
Installation art
Sculpture
Video (projection-based is preferred)
Performance art
Public interventions
Storefront window installations
Murals
New media
Dance


Works will be installed in various locations along James Street North; in addition, the committee is looking to focus on works that can be installed within the following contexts:

Mural wall on west side of 20 Wilson Street
Various windows of buildings along James Street North
Street vinyl (adhesive vinyl art on pavement, walls or windows)
Silent video shorts
*Please email us for images and further details on the above sites.


Proposals must consider public safety, visibility, and that which can be safely performed, or executed outside with large crowds at anytime of day/night, and will remain impactful during both the daytime and night hours of the festival. Each project selected will be allocated an artist’s fee and production fee. Costs such as travel and accommodation, where necessary, may be covered and will be addressed on an individual basis; production assistance may also be available.



Submission Requirements

        1. Artist's statement—conceptual statement on the work (150 words maximum)
2. Practical explanation of the work—i.e. Scale, materials, methods, etc. Thought must be given to install plan and technical/logistical requirements, as well as cost considerations
3. Three images/stills/sketches of the proposed work, supported by 3-5 images of previous work relevant to the proposed project (jpeg, max. 72dpi, no larger than 768 x 1024 pixels). Include title, year, medium, dimensions for all images
4. A clip, link or digital copy of any video (10 minutes max), if applicable
5. A statement as to whether the proposed work has been exhibited before; if it has, please include details as to where and when
6. CV with mailing address, phone number and email contact information
7. Location suggestion for your work (optional)

The Supercrawl Curatorial Committee is open to creatively diverse work that has visual impact and responds to the streetscape of the event. Artists and their work will be identified and publicized as official Supercrawl curatorial selections during the event, on the Supercrawl website and in select media releases. Artists will be required to sign a contract with Supercrawl Productions Inc. The committee will contact selected artists in late January – early February 2015.



Send submissions to supercrawlart@gmail.com

Subject Line: YOUR NAME, SUPERCRAWL ART

Deadline for submissions is Tuesday December 16, 2014.

California

Carpet shop signage, West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles 

South African Embroidered Panel at the Fowler Museum, Los Angeles 

Mexican Human Skull Mosaicwork, LACMA, Los Angeles 

Jenny's, Chinatown Alleyway, San Francisco 

Ricky Henderson Planter Mosaic, Temescal, Oakland 

 San Francisco Botanical Gardens, Golden Gate Park

Night palms in Westwood, Los Angeles 

Chris Burden and Me, LACMA, Los Angeles

Scenes from my time in California, September 2014.

Alexandra Brownell's Sweet Fibre at Needlework

At the beginning of this year, I had the awesome opportunity to visit a 3rd year textiles seminar class at Sheridan College as a guest curator thanks to friend and colleague Thea Haines, an instructor in their department of Crafts and Design.  I gave a talk about my work as an independent curator with a deep love and appreciation for textiles.  I also helped design and present an assignment to students where they were to prepare a submissions package for a call that I wrote around the theme of cotton.  All the students in the class were asked to think critically about cotton-- as a raw material, the history and politics of its production, and its qualities as a textile-- towards proposing an installation that they would create in the window of fantastic Hamilton textile shop, Needlework.

After all submissions were received and graded by Thea, Liz and Kate from Needlework and myself got together to jury the submissions.  Though so many submissions were thoughtful and worthy, we eventually decided on a proposal by the talented Alexandra Brownell who, inspired by archival photos at the Hamilton Local History Archives, created a nostalgic and whimsical tapestry that paid tribute to the carefree quality of cotton, outdoor fairs and the pleasure of summertime. I supported Alex through the process of planning her installation and writing an artist's statement, which was a great experience!

Sweet Fibre went up a few weeks ago, and is up for another week or two.  Spin around to check it out before it's too late! And congrats to Alex on a wonderful first solo show!

Winterlore

 TH&B Collective, Bay Man

Floyd Elzinga, Silver Cones

Jacqui Oakley and Jamie Lawson, Awakening

 Thea Haines, Blanket Fort

 Tonya Hart, Phantasmagorical Nights

 Kosa Kolektiv

Hitoko Okada, Lotus Lantern

Winterlore was an overwhelming success at the Hamilton Winterfest kick off event yesterday. Thanks to the all the amazing participating artists (Floyd Elzinga, Hitoko Okada, Jacqui Oakley and Jamie Lawson, the TH&B Collective, Thea Haines and Tonya Hart) for making the exhibition what it was. I'd also like to thank Werner Plessl, NJT Productions for the lighting, Jamie and Ryan of the Waterfront Trust, Alex (security guard extraordinaire), Ken Coit, Ben Needham and my friend and collaborator Jen Anisef, Cultural Projects Specialist at the City of Hamilton for being a huge support through the entire process.

Hamilton Winterfest is a city-wide initiative that runs until February 9th.  For more information on what's happening, look here.  Also, the Winterlore-associated exhibition Meryl McMaster: In-Between Worlds runs until the end of March at the AGH Design Annex.  Don't forget to check it out!

Winterlore at Hamilton Winterfest 2014

 Tonya Hart

 Thea Haines

Since a mere three weeks after moving to Hamilton in August, I've been working on this exhibition of outdoor art for the 36th annual Hamilton Winterfest at Pier 8.  I am proud to be a part of the first year that Winterfest has had an increased arts and culture focus, with an amazing roster of events happening from February 1st - 9th.  See below for details on Winterlore, affiliated arts programming at Lister Block and the AGH Design Annex, and the Winterfest website for more details about the events at the kick-off and the programming happening across Hamilton for nine whole days.

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Winterlore, an exciting exhibition of outdoor art, is on view for one day only as part of the Hamilton Winterfest Kick-Off event at Pier 8 (47 Discovery Drive) on February 1, 2014, from 3:00-10:00 pm.

Curated by Tara Bursey, Winterlore features the work of six artists and collectives who have drawn on winter folklore, stories and symbols from Hamilton, Ontario and around the world to create dynamic installations. In line with the Winterfest program, this exhibition serves as a celebration of the diverse cultures of Hamilton and the beauty and magic of the wintertime.

Winterlore features the work of visual artists:

Floyd Elzinga (Beamsville)
Hitoko Okada (Hamilton)
Jacqui Oakley and Jamie Lawson (Hamilton)
TH&B Collective--Simon Frank, Ivan Jurakic, Tor Lukasik-Foss and Dave Hind (Hamilton)
Thea Haines (Hamilton)
Tonya Hart (Toronto)

The Winterlore Facebook event page can be found here.

Though the Kick-Off event will feature the majority of Winterlore artists in a temporary display at Pier 8 on February 1st, there are two longer term opportunities to see winter-inspired art offsite:

Presented in association with Winterlore by the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s AGH Design Annex, Meryl McMaster: In-Between Worlds runs from February 1st to March 22nd, 2014 at 118 James Street North. In-Between Worlds is an exhibition of work by emerging Canadian photographer Meryl McMaster, curated by Melissa Bennett and Tara Bursey. The artist’s Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian heritage are explored in her works through photographs of a lone figure in the winter landscape, where identity and myth are intertwined.
http://merylmcmaster.com/home.html
http://www.artgalleryofhamilton.com/da_index.php

A whimsical winter village is on display for a month in a heritage vitrine on the 1st floor of the Lister Block as of January 10, 2014 featuring work from thread artist Amanda McCavour (courtesy of Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto) and the Beehive Craft Collective.
http://www.amandamccavour.com/
http://www.beehivecraftcollective.ca/ 

For more information, visit www.hamiltonwinterfest.ca, email jen.anisef@hamilton.ca, or call (905) 546-2424 ext. 7612.
http://www.tourismhamilton.com/festivals-events/winterfest-2014

(becoming) The Logic of Memory at Hamilton Artist's Inc.

Image: Corinne Duchesne, Sybil, 2013. Mixed media drawing on mylar.

I'm unbelievably excited about the following exhibition which opens at The Inc. next week, featuring the work of Corinne Duchesne, Peter Horvath and one of my textile art heros of all time, Anna Torma.  It was an honour and a privilege to be asked to write the catalogue essay for this show.  Don't miss this one, folks!

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[becoming] The Logic of Memory
Corinne Duchesne, Peter Horvath, Anna Torma

January 23 – March 1, 2014

Opening reception: Thursday, January 23, 7:00 – 9:30pm

Art Crawl: Friday, February 14, 7:00 – 11:00pm

To paraphrase Deleuze, we can only function in the present, but we are always in motion, always becoming. Our past makes up who we are, but by contemplating these moments of the past, we are no longer remembering, we are constructing something new, in turn effecting our future understanding of the present.

Each of the artists in this exhibition explore the concept of memory. Their diverse perspectives weave together and encourage visitors to consider notions of memory, nostalgia, time and loss. Corinne Duchesne’s layered mixed media drawings on mylar philosophically consider loss as a locative site of memory, using grief as an anchor to merge anthropomorphic forms with objects. Peter Horvath’s 2-channel video installation, Memoir, compares and juxtaposes the biographical similarities between his mother Eva and friend Denise, who both emigrated to Canada from Hungary, albeit decades apart. The installation is structured to reflect upon the nature of memory, manipulating the space between truth and fiction, past and present. Anna Torma’s technically rich textile installations reflect on the nostalgia of home, her immigrant heritage, the natural environment and maps the human body recalling the synapses of the brain.

Combined, through the use of these personal assemblages, the works in this exhibition reflect on the location and constructed nature of memory and it’s ability to influence and shape our understanding of ourselves in the present.

A catalogue essay by Tara Bursey will accompany the exhibition.

Hamilton Artists Inc.
155 James Street North, Hamilton
http://theinc.ca/

Artscape Youngplace

 Heather Nicol

 Debbie Adams in Stairmasters

 Hanging tapestry in the SKETCH Admin Hub

 UnArchive exhibition title wall

 David Adam Brown at the Koffler Gallery

Vacant studio on the 2nd floor

Gorgeous visuals abound at the grand opening of Artscape Youngplace on Tuesday night.

UnArchive and Stairmasters at Artscape Youngplace

I have nearly reached the end of two consecutive contracts with Artscape and these amazing exhibitions are the culmination of them!  UnArchive and Stairmasters, curated by the amazing Heather Nicol (with research and curatorial assistance from yours truly), are important parts of the official opening of Artscape Youngplace at 180 Shaw that happens tomorrow. Come and see the first phase of Unarchive (more work will be added to the exhibition until the official exhibition opening on Jan 7th), amazing artwork and artifacts, and an astounding update to a beautiful example of Toronto's built heritage. Register to attend tomorrow's public opening here. Lots more info about the Artscape Youngplace project can be found on their website.

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Unarchive

Phase One: November 19, 2013

Exhibition opens January 7 - March 30, 2014
Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street

www.artscapeyoungplace.ca

Featuring new works by: Ian Carr-Harris and Yvonne Lammerich, Dave Dyment, Lee Henderson, Nina Levitt and Jessica Vallentin with selected items from the Givins/Shaw Junior Public School historic archives, and artwork by students at Givins/Shaw Junior Public School.

Curated by Heather Nicol

Curator’s Talk & Tour: January 7, 2014, 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Opening Vernissage: January 9, 2014, 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Unarchive features new works by artists Ian Carr-Harris and Yvonne Lammerich, Dave Dyment, Lee Henderson, Nina Levitt and Jessica Vallentin, who have been granted access to the rich Givins/Shaw Junior Public School archival collection comprised of records and data, photographs of classes and teams, trophies and plaques, scrap books, press clippings, snapshots and more, packed into locked closets and an over-stuffed vitrine. This remarkable treasure trove has inspired and provoked creative responses in sculpture, installation, assemblage, text and photo based works. The exhibition also features historic and pedagogic displays, along with artworks by current Grade Four, Five and Six students from the Givins/Shaw J.P.S.

As this elegant school building’s transformation into the innovative Artscape Youngplace draws to a close and the dust finally settles, Unarchive will unfold in synch with the architectural completion. November 19 marks the first phase of the project; the fully realized exhibition will be on view from January 9 - March 30, 2014, with an opening vernissage taking place on January 9 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm and a curator’s talk and tour on January 7 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.
Unarchive and Stairmasters inaugurate the Artscape Youngplace Hallway Galleries, an impressive new public exhibition space at Artscape Youngplace, soon to be the largest cultural institution in the West Queen West area. The galleries span more than 9,000 square feet of spectacular corridor and stairwell space across three floors and are open seven days a week with free admission.

Image: Lee Henderson



Stairmasters


Debbie Adams, Melissa Fisher and Seth Scriver

Curated by Heather Nicol
November 19, 2013 – March 30, 2014

Artscape Youngplace,
180 Shaw Street

Announcing a new era of creative intervention at 180 Shaw Street, the North, South and West stairwells at Artscape Youngplace have been transformed into site-specific installations. Often-overlooked architectural zones, the liminal, in-between and connective qualities of these spaces are expanded upon by artists with wide-ranging practices spanning animation, design, sculpture, book and film making. Using vinyl as their medium, these “stairmasters” playfully explore the material’s associations with signage, temporality and mutability, inviting viewers on an experiential ascent or descent as they explore Artscape Youngplace in its inaugural season.

This project kicks off the new Artscape Youngplace Hallway Galleries, which span more than 9,000 square feet of spectacular corridor and stairwell space across three floors, and are open seven days a week with free admission.
Heather Nicol, a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist with a studio at Artscape Youngplace, is the curator of the two inaugural exhibitions, UnArchive and Stairmasters. Nicol previously curated and produced Art School (Dismissed) on this site in 2010, an intervention which responded to the decommissioned Toronto District School Board property prior to its renewal by Artscape.

Curator’s Talk & Tour: January 7, 2014, 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Reception: January 9, 2014, 7:00 to 9:00 pm
www.artscapeyoungplace.ca

Image: Debbie Adams

Telling: An Audio Survey of Parkdale

November is almost upon us, as are three exhibitions I've been working away on for the past few months!  First up: An exhibition of audio art in public spaces around one of my very favourite Toronto neighbourhoods, Parkdale.  See below for details.

TELLING: AN AUDIO SURVEY OF PARKDALE

Various venues around Parkdale

November 6th-30th

Reception: November 7th, 7-10pm


Panel Talk: November 13th, 7pm

Curated by Phil Anderson and Tara Bursey


With participating artists: Luis Jacob, Myfanwy Ashmore, Zeesy Powers, Shannon Gerard, Paul Aloisi and Jaclyn Meloche

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” 

― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Telling: An Audio Survey of Parkdale is an exhibition of site-specific audio works that will animate familiar and hidden spaces across Parkdale. Each participating artist has chosen a different site along Queen Street West as a starting point to engage and explore the history and character of one of Toronto’s most storied and diverse neighbourhoods. This exhibition pays tribute to the real and mythic spaces, stories and people important to the exhibition’s participating artist/residents.

This exhibition will tell the story of the Pigeon Lady of Parkdale, a local landlady who was known to feed hundreds of pigeons that would flock to her street corner each day. The sound of pigeons outside of Capitol Espresso will serve as an aural memorial for one of the neighbourhood’s former residents. In Gallery 1313’s courtyard, a representation of horses using sound and visuals recalls where police horses were led to the back stable house, a space which is part of the current home of Gallery 1313.  At Bacchus Roti, the sounds of the Gardiner Expressway-- which when created caused several hundred Parkdale homes to be demolished for its construction-- is juxtaposed with an image of the lakeshore, serving as a reminder of the often complicated relationship between nature and the built environment. These and other stories conjured by participating artists will reside with the public as works of art, encouraging current residents to tell and trade their own stories, thus taking an active role in the creation of a collective community history.

A panel discussion featuring Judith Doyle (Professor, OCADU), Shawn Micallef (Author/Editor/Co-Owner, Spacing Magazine; Columnist, the Toronto Star) and Darren Copeland (Artistic Director, New Adventures in Sound Art [NAISA]) will invite the public to engage in discussion about the works featured in the exhibition, as well as the use of audio technology in contemporary art practices. Moderator will be Russell Smith, cultural writer for the Globe and Mail and author of several books.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with the following local businesses: Capitol Espresso, Bacchus Roti.

Media contact: 

Phil Anderson, Director, Gallery 1313 

416-536-6778 or 647-918-6606

http://www.g1313.org

sophia bartholomew at Gallery 1313

Next week, an artist named sophia bartholomew is turning Gallery 1313's window box into a food dehydrator...!

sophia bartholomew
EPLE SLANG
Gallery 1313 Window Box
October 2013

Gallery 1313’s window box is west-facing and receives direct sunlight. Taking the gallery’s particular physical conditions as a starting point, EPLE SLANG will transform the gallery into a solar dehydrator for the duration of the exhibition.  While video and new media are popularly thought of as durational mediums, this work explores how ‘static’ physical materials might also be experienced as something durational – moving and changing over time.  The window box transgresses the distinction between interior and exterior space, complicating understandings of self and of city – it offers us that possibility, it asks us that question.

sophia bartholomew is an artist currently based out of Fredericton, New Brunswick.  Creating contexts through the use of installation, performance, and language, her projects aim to enact situations of moderate discomfort and generative moments of not knowing.  Recent projects include installations for The New Gallery (Calgary), ROOM 321 (Banff), Topdown Bottomup (Vancouver) and The Crying Room (Vancouver), with upcoming projects for Roadside Attractions (Toronto) and Third Space (Saint John).  

There are so many reasons for my general absence-- relocating, family matters and more.  However, even without these factors, I've been pretty occupied with longer-term curatorial and research projects as of late to the point where more frequent posting has become kinda difficult.  There's some really exciting stuff coming down the pipeline in November and February '14 that I will post about sooner or later....!

Colleen McCarten and Shannon Lea Doyle at Gallery 1313

I organized the following window installation of work by OCAD's Material Art and Design 2013 medal winner, Colleen McCarten which opens tomorrow.  Pop by the gallery between 7-10 pm to check it out, as well as the other exhibitions opening in Gallery 1313's main space, cell and process galleries.  As always, I will write an exhibition text to accompany the installation, which can be scooped up at the gallery.

Colleen McCarten
FABRICATE
Gallery 1313 Window Box
September 2013

Colleen McCarten’s installation Knit Wire is part of a larger body of work titled Fabricate, a multi-media textile exploration that investigates the intersection of textiles and assumed value. Across a variety of media, this project employs a recurring technique of line and repetition to signify the basic components of textile construction. Through decontextualized representations of textiles, this exploration asks:  Does changing the material, scale, or technique alter the value of the piece?  If so, is it a sexist devaluation of a medium, or merely about the ability to understand the time and effort put into another process?

Colleen McCarten is a textile artist and designer based out of Toronto. She recently obtained a BDes from OCAD University, where she was awarded a medal recognizing her thesis work in Material Art and Design. Prior to attending OCAD, Colleen studied Horticulture at Niagara College and received a Diploma in Fashion Design from George Brown College.

Sadly, with all the whirlwind activity pertaining to both the Fear of Punk//Fear of Art show and our recent move, I didn't have a chance to post here about the last exhibition in Gallery 1313's vitrine.  Shannon Lea Doyle has a few things with Colleen McC-- she is also an OCAD medal winner and her work shares an interest in textile-related techniques.  Here is a photo of her ethereal installation, Somehow Connected, which came down a couple of days ago and looked incredible in the late afternoon sun.

The End (Seven Samurai)

My window installation at Gallery 1313 opened last night.  Thanks to director Phil Anderson for giving me access to the space (for my own work as well as for the windows I'll be programming for the next few months), and special thanks to Noa Bronstein for writing the following short essay to accompany the installation.

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Tara Bursey
The End (Seven Samurai)
Rice, black and white sesame seeds, adhesive
2013

A menacing term, the end is the semantic comrade of termination and expiration. The end, however, is also but a provocation to look to other beginnings. In her work The End (Seven Samurai), Tara Bursey uses the matter of beginning – seed, bean and grain – and stages it as an interloper into the rubric of finality. The End (Seven Samurai) is part of a larger series exhibited at the Gladstone Hotel in 2012 for the exhibition //THE ANNUAL//, in which Bursey has recreated the end credit from four black and white Hollywood films using various edible materials. The End performs Bursey’s concern with the insecurity of food production in the wake of mass environmental shifts and devastations. For this iteration, the end title of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), in which bandits pillage a rural, farming village, is faithfully realized.

The End points to a liminality of time and space. Re-purposing easily accessible food stocks, at least in the context in which the works are created, through meticulous processes, challenges our relationship to production and consumption. The labour of harvesting these staples, whether by hand or machine, is recast through the labour of the artist and consumed only metaphysically, rendering field and fork as partial actors. The End further points to a cultural lament for the passage of time and the need to compartmentalize the contemporary and the historic, the past and the present. Inspired by what Bursey has called the illusionary space of film, the titles evoke a lost age of and nostalgia for the belle epoque of cinema and great moments of chimera, echoing that this nostalgia might soon be turned towards our ecologies. Returning for a moment to Kurosawa’s bandits, these antagonists are not merely a metaphor for food insecurity. The bandits are perhaps a reminder of Roland Barthes’ pronouncement that “myth is always a language-robbery.”1  The appropriation of The End is a kind of language-robbery, through which we can mythologize cinema, nature and time.

The end credit can be seen as a signifier for the moment of fertilization, whereby the filmic narrative is transferred from auteur to the subconscious of the viewer. Seeds are a codex for living matter, as films are a codex for narrative, giving form to ideation. The matter of seed is both beginning and end, in the same way that the end credit of a film is only the beginning of our relationship to it.

Noa Bronstein
Director of Exhibitions & Cultural Promotions
Gladstone Hotel

1  Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 131. 

The End (Seven Samurai) at Gallery 1313

Lots going on these days.  This is one thing-- a window installation at Gallery 1313 that opens Thursday, June 27th, from 7-10 pm.  Come check it out!

Tara Bursey
THE END (SEVEN SAMURAI)
Gallery 1313 Window Box
July 2013

The End uses film title imagery to address global warming and the effect that it will inevitably (continue to) have on food production.  It also explores our collective inclination to mark epochs and define the time we live in.  If the mid 20th century and its golden age of cinema could be considered an age of illusion and suspended belief, perhaps our current era can be characterized by a general loss of illusions.  

Simultaneously a celebration of mid-century design and a meditation on loss, The End points to our tendency to repeatedly mark historical periods as a series of ends while pondering the precariousness of our environment in the present.  The End (Seven Samurai), the latest incarnation of this series, references a classic film about bandits threatening a farm’s harvest.

Tara Bursey is an artist and emerging curator whose interests include sculpture, installation, performance, social practice, textile art and culture, food, contemporary craft practices, collaboration and publishing. 

This exhibition will be accompanied by an essay by Noa Bronstein, Director of Exhibitions, Gladstone Hotel.

Gallery 1313
1313 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON. M6K 1L8
Hours: Wed – Sun, 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Phone: 416-536-6778

This Week

Two shows I'm involved with in some capacity are opening this week.  On Wednesday, Ancestry and Artistry: Maya Textiles from Guatemala opens at the Textile Museum.  I've worked as Curatorial Assistant on this (amazing) project on and off since 2011, so this is huge deal.  Still more work to do before Wednesday, but the show is shaping up beautifully.

James Gardner's FRANK is a window installation at Gallery 1313 and will mark the first installation I programmed for the gallery's window box.  This one opens the next day, Thursday the 30th, from 7-10pm.  From the release:

FRANK is an ever-evolving entity of insulation foam. He has been built up, cut apart and stuffed into rooms and awkward spaces again and again, and will continue to be again and again. The sculpture in its many incarnations is an experiment in the language of abstract sculpture and undermines conceptions of a finished and static work of art.  FRANK aims to achieve a complexity of form and colour through a constant reworking of material and by visually exploiting and developing the affects of duration and exposure on an unstable medium.

James Gardner is an artist and member of VSVSVS, a collective and artist-run centre based out of a warehouse in the portlands of Toronto.


Action!