June 23–September 3, 2018
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto Ontario M5J 2G8
Canada
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 11am–6pm
T +1 416 973 4949
F +1 416 973 4933
info@thepowerplant.org
This Summer 2018 Season, The Power Plant presents solo exhibitions by Ellen Gallagher, Grada Kilomba and Abbas Akhavan.
Curator: Carolin Köchling, Curator of Exhibitions
Assistant Curator: Justine Kohleal, RBC Curatorial Fellow
Born in the port city of Providence, Rhode Island Ellen Gallagher has long been an inspired and imaginative chronicler of the watery ecstatic realm. Her large-scale history paintings featuring seascapes, science experiments, portraiture, abstraction and minstrelsy are mutinous assertions of blackness in a medium in which the African body has habitually been concealed. Her exploration of visual culture covers a wide ranging temporal terrain that stretches from blackface minstrelsy to 20th century abstraction, and includes mining of vernacular forms as diverse as science fiction, advertising, mid-century race magazines, travelogues and scrimshaw in order to address and release the concealed threads which bind the visible.
Nu-Nile reveals Gallagher’s practice of synthesizing a wide range of pictorial traditions in order to counter static representations of black people in culture, and critically examines and reimagines the figure-ground protocols circulating within the canon of Western painting.
Encompassing paintings, drawings and films, Nu-Nile is Ellen Gallagher’s first solo exhibition in Canada.
Guest Curator: Inês Grosso, MAAT—Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon
Grada Kilomba’s work addresses issues of gender and race, trauma and memory, either in the context of current debates on colonialism and post-colonialism or as research into the ambiguous relationship between memory and forgetting, delving into the collective memory and identity of Africans and their Diasporas.
Evoking African oral traditions and their power to carry on the spoken word, Kilomba’s work gives voice to silenced narratives with the aim of rewriting and retelling a history that has been suppressed or disregarded. Using and combining different mediums, Kilomba explores unconventional, experimental and interdisciplinary artistic practices; her performances, video installations, readings and lectures create an interface that connects text and image as well as the languages of art and academia.
Secrets to Tell, Kilomba’s first exhibition in North America features her installation The Desire Project (2015–2016) alongside a selection of recent video works and new installations.
The exhibition is a production of the MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology/EDP Foundation, Lisbon, in partnership with The Power Plant, Toronto. Secrets to Tell was first shown at the MAAT from October 27, 2017–February 5, 2018. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated book with texts by Inês Grosso and Alfredo Jaar, and a conversation between Theresa Sigmund and Grada Kilomba.
Abbas Akhavan
variations on a landscape
Curator: Carolin Köchling, Curator of Exhibitions
Assistant Curator: Nabila Abdel Nabi, Assistant Curator
Abbas Akhavan’s practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video, sculpture and performance. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing area of research in his practice. More recent works have shifted focus, wandering onto spaces and species just outside the home—the garden, the backyard, and other domesticated landscapes.
In his work variations on a landscape the artist uses a round fountain to alter the decentralized space of the gallery’s high and narrow Clerestory. Working against the rigid symmetry of the space, recalling the grid so prevalent in North American cities, the installation aims to give way to a circular point for gathering, one that reflects on the role of an art institution, one that might offer a communal space for contemplation.
The exhibition takes into consideration elements outside the white cube, allowing the visitor’s experience in the space to be shaped by the seasons, the time of day and the weather conditions. Akhavan has invited six writers and artists to contribute a text to the installation. Each text will be introduced to the physical space on a monthly basis.
