Every day needs an urgent whistle blown into it
Sons et lumières by Geoffrey Farmer
Generative compositions by Geoffrey Farmer and Brady Marks
July 5–September 7, 2014
Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto
www.ago.net
Artist Geoffrey Farmer chose, for this project, to work in the AGO’s Henry Moore Sculpture Centre, which houses the working models and plaster originals that Moore and his assistants would have scaled up or cast directly to create his outdoor bronze works. Moore had wanted a new wing of the Tate gallery dedicated to these sculptural works, but because of a letter writing campaign against it, Moore choose the AGO and this specially designed room to be their permanent home.
Restoring the room back into its original 1974 configuration and using a line of poetry written by CAConrad as a set of instructions, Farmer has created various scores, compositions and algorithmically produced vignettes of light and sound to play out in intervals over the course of the day.
The Gershon Iskowitz Prize is presented annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada. It includes a 50,000 CAD cash prize and a solo exhibition at the AGO.
About the Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO
The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation was established in 1986 through the generosity of painter Gershon Iskowitz (1921–1988). Iskowitz recognized the importance of grants to the development of artists, acknowledging that a grant from the Canada Council in 1987 enabled him to formalize his distinctive style. Iskowitz’s works are in public and private collections across Canada and abroad. The AGO is home to the artist’s archives, which include early works on paper, sketchbooks and memorabilia, and it holds 29 paintings by Iskowitz spanning 1948 to 1987 in its collection. At the 20-year mark of the Prize, the Foundation formed a partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario to raise awareness of the importance.
Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario
Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
