Winter 2008/2009 Exhibitions
13 Dec, 2008 – 22 Feb, 2009
Opening Reception:
Friday, 12 December, 2008
7:30PM – 11PM
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto ON Canada M5J 2G8
‘IF WE CAN’T GET IT TOGETHER’, a major international group exhibition curated by Nina Möntmann
‘HEADLESS’, the North American premiere of Swedish collaborative duo Goldin+Senneby
‘BEAUTY PLUS PITY’, a new installation by Canadian artists Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby
‘IF WE CAN’T GET IT TOGETHER’
Artists rethinking the (mal)function of communities
Artists: Shaina Anand, Egle Budvytyte, Kajsa Dahlberg, Hadley+Maxwell, Luis Jacob, Hassan Khan, Emily Roysdon, Haegue Yang
Guest curated by Nina Möntmann, ‘If We Can’t Get It Together’ proposes that the idea of “community” calls out for radical renewal. Sometimes organized around as-yet-unrealized ideals, the new communities explored in the exhibition implicitly ask: what effect does today’s upsurge in temporary social groupings—brought on by global migration and newly fluid notions of identity—have on communal and public life?
Nina Möntmann is Head of the Department of Art Theory at Stockholm’s Royal University College of Fine Arts. She curated the Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia at the 2007 Venice Biennale and was a curatorial advisor for Manifesta 7, 2008. Möntmann is editor of Art and Its Institutions (2006) and co-editor of Manifesta 7 Companion Reader (2008) and Mapping a City (2005).
Lead Donors:
Victoria Webster & Gabe Gonda
Kajsa Dahlberg’s work in the exhibition is supported by Iaspis (International Artists Studio Program in Sweden)
Cultural Agency Supporter:
Goethe-Institut, Toronto
Symposium: 23-24 January, 2009
We Ourselves and Us
Keynote address by philosopher Simon Critchley, and speakers including Ian Balfour, Carlos Basualdo, Luis Jacob, Nina Möntmann, and Emily Roysdon.
Organized in association with the journal Public and in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, Toronto. A special issue of Public follows in 2009.
Goldin+Senneby, ‘HEADLESS’
With John Barlow (writer), Angus Cameron (economic geographer), Kate Cooper (filmmaker), K.D. (fictional author), Kim Einarsson (curator), Anna Heymowska (scenographer), Johan Hjerpe (graphic designer), Anders Jandér (graphic designer), Richard John Jones (filmmaker), Gavin MacFadyen (investigative journalist).
Curated by Gregory Burke, Director of The Power Plant, with the support of Assistant Curator of Exhibitions, Jennifer Matotek.
In the most comprehensive overview to date of their evolving ‘Headless’ project, Goldin+Senneby investigate the immaterialization of contemporary society, the invisibility of labour, and the emergence of a global network economy. Goldin+Senneby’s concerns relate to crucial transitions in modern life – from the growth of abstract derivative investment products (like sub-prime mortgages) to the explosion of call centres servicing clients half a world away. This timely exhibition comes when attention has fallen on the confidential activities of many global corporations following collapsed world markets and economic instability.
Since 2004, Goldin+Senneby has been the framework for collaboration between Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby. Recent exhibitions include a project for the 28th Sao Paulo Biennial (2008), ‘Disclosures,’ Gasworks, London (2008), and ‘Reality Effects,’ Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2008).
Lead Donors:
Nancy McCain & William Morneau
Cultural Agency Supporter:
Iaspis (International Artists’ Studio Program in Sweden)
Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, ‘BEAUTY PLUS PITY’
Curated by Assistant Curator of Exhibitions, Jennifer Matotek
‘Beauty Plus Pity’ sets a colourful single-channel video within a lush viewing environment populated by costumed taxidermic animals. The contemporary fables of Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby propose that existence is abject, farcical, and messy. In their richly textured videos, Duke and Battersby employ live action footage, scavenged images, and simple animations to create episodic structures that evince a simultaneously utopian and dystopian world view.
Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby have collaborated since 1994 and exhibited work in galleries and at festivals including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, the Images Festival, Toronto, and the Walker Center, Minneapolis. They are represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto.
Lead Donors:
John & Peggy Clinton
James Lahey & Pym Buitenhuis
