Geoffrey Farmer
A Pale Fire Freedom Machine
Joëlle Tuerlinckx
NO’W’ (no Rest. no Room. no Things. no Title)
Ignacio Iturria
Everything Has a Face
Exhibition Openings: Friday 23 September, 7-10 pm
POWER PLANT GALLERY
231 Queens Quay West, Toronto.
416-973-4949
Geoffrey Farmer, Floating Chair, 2005, digital photograph. Courtesy of the artist.
This autumn, The Power Plant premieres two works created specifically for the gallery: A Pale Fire Freedom Machine by Vancouver artist Geoffrey Farmer and NO’W’ (no Rest. no Room. no Things. no Title) by Brussels artist Joëlle Tuerlinckx. Each artist focuses on the formal properties of gallery space, the role of public art galleries, and the relationship between visual art institutions and the viewing public. The gallery also presents Everything Has a Face, drawings, paintings and sculpture by Uruguayan artist Ignacio Iturria.
Vancouver-based artist Geoffrey Farmer’s interest in the latent potential of the gallery as a site for social engagement has led to the development of a number of works in the form of installation kits. These ongoing, process-based pieces stage disparate social and cultural histories within diverse sculptural environments. A Pale Fire Freedom Machine revolves around a fireplace created in 1968 by French designer Dominique Imbert. Manufactured in black steel and hanging from the ceiling by its exposed flue, the iconic lozenge-shaped Gyrofocus has come to embody the design ideals of the 1960s. Here, rather than burning logs in Imberts fireplace, furniture is used as fuel. The furniture is amassed in an installation that is slowly transformed through the progressive dismantling and combustion of its individual pieces. Curated by Reid Shier.
Belgian artist Joëlle Tuerlinckx’s institutional critiques are distinguished by their ephemeral, transient and contingent nature. Tuerlinckx subtly manipulates gallery space, building found and handmade objects into elaborate architectures that respond to their environment. In her Toronto exhibition, Tuerlinckx will show a selection of interrelated works, the centrepiece for which will be a number of books created in the weeks leading up to the opening. The books are constructed with paper that has first been stapled to all the surfaces of The Power Plant’s exhibition walls, then removed, bound and cut. The project effectively transcribes The Power Plant, making an atlas in 1:1 scale of the gallery. Curated by Reid Shier.
Everything Has a Face is an exhibition of drawings, paintings and sculpture by Montevideo-based artist Ignacio Iturria. Employing both kitsch impulse and the artists moral rudder, his paintings reveal rituals of everyday life. Innocuous apartments become human containers with expansive windows, symbolic of the psychic, surreal turmoil endemic to urban life in Latin America. A fully illustrated 136-page colour catalogue will be available for purchase at the gallery. Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt
The exhibitions continue until November 13, 2005.
The Power Plant is located at 231 Queens Quay West, Toronto. Open Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. and Wednesday until 8 p.m. (free admission Wednesdays after 5 p.m.). Children and members have free admission. For exhibition and tour information, the public can call 416-973-4949 or visit www.thepowerplant.org
The Power Plant recognizes the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Toronto through Toronto Arts Council.
