Samuel Roy-Bois
Jon Sasaki
September 26–December 19, 2020
4th floor, 1011 9th Avenue, SE
Calgary Alberta T2G 0H7
Canada
Hours: Wednesday–Saturday 11am–5:30pm
T +1 403 930 2490
info@eskerfoundation.com
Esker Foundation presents three solo exhibitions this fall by Liz Magor, Samuel Roy-Bois and Jon Sasaki.
Liz Magor
One Bedroom Apartment
Best known for sculptures made from both found and cast objects, Liz Magor is interested in the cyclical culture of production and consumption, how we assign value to things, the utilitarian and non-utilitarian functions of objects, and our emotional and psychological attachments to them. Her work addresses the latent qualities of ordinary things that influence our acquisition, use, and disposal of them and how, sometimes, the power that these objects hold can even supersede our human relationships.
The singular work One Bedroom Apartment was first presented in 1996 at Susan Hobbs Gallery in Toronto and has since been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. For each installation, the entire contents of a typical one-bedroom apartment are brought together (furniture, small items, linens, knick-knacks, and packing materials) sourced primarily through a combination of renting and borrowing. Each installation is fundamentally influenced by where it is installed, as different forms and styles of items are obtained and included. The only constant object in each iteration is a simplified resin sculpture of a dog, curled under a table. Every version of the work has addressed different ideas of lifestyle, taste, material and social history. Presenting the work in Calgary in 2020 reflects a moment in which the act of packing up and moving evokes a present and foreseeable future of insecurity and transience.
Samuel Roy Bois
Presences
Samuel Roy-Bois’ practice is concerned with the conceptual and material definition of space and the ways the built environment and manufactured things contribute to our understanding of the world. Through sculpture, site-specific installation, and photography, Roy-Bois examines relational networks of objects and their complex philosophical considerations: How do we define ourselves through the creation of structures? Is it possible to conceive of one’s existence outside any material linkage? We make things, but are things also making us?
For this new body of work, Presences, Roy-Bois has created an ensemble of constructed and found objects that consider our contemporary material knowledge. This series of site-specific improvisational installations present everyday objects in new ways, blur the boundaries between art and life, and shift ordinary things and spaces into a poetic dimension. By connecting sculpture, everyday objects, floor, and ceiling, Roy-Bois manipulates the gallery space as a strategy to create a genuine and direct relationship with the viewer, and his use of everyday items offers a way of understanding our relationship to our environment.
Samuel Roy-Bois: Presences is organized and circulated by the Kamloops Art Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Charo Neville, curator, Kamloops Art Gallery. Support for the development and production of new works for the exhibition provided by Esker Foundation.
Jon Sasaki
Killing One Bird With Half A Stone
Jon Sasaki’s multidisciplinary practice delves into the potentially generative outcomes of failure and futility. Killing One Bird With Half A Stone centres around a selection of the artist’s videos from the past decade that depict the artist as a solitary protagonist who persistently, sometimes recklessly, refuses to accept the obsolescence, failure, or inadequacy of everyday objects.
The exhibition’s newest work, Improvised Travel Adapters (2018-ongoing), documents an ongoing series of temporary sculptures composed of repurposed objects, jury rigged to serve as adapters for international electric sockets. Sasaki engineers travel adapters by jamming conductive materials—safety pins, paper clips, or metal nail files—scorning pressing warnings in hotel rooms that urge travellers to avoid using multiple devices at once.
In the Project Space
Kasia Sosnowski
SNEEK-E-PEEP’N
Until January 31, 2021
By turns playful, melancholic, and surreal, Kasia Sosnowski’s ceramic sculptures visually articulate the bodily experience of emotion—unease, anticipation, euphoria. In SNEEK-E-PEEP’N, Sosnowski evokes the simultaneous anxiety and frisson of an accidental or uninvited glimpse into a neighbouring window.
Explore and register for our free online talks, workshops, and exhibition tours here
