between nothing and something

This text is an attempt to nuance the theoretical implications of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade by focusing on the temporal and performative qualities of the work. The readymade is also used to bring together a number of disparate concepts: it is discussed as an instance of Verwindung, as the concept is articulated by Gianni Vattimo, it is considered in light of Duchamp’s own notes and texts on inframince (infrathin), and finally, the readymade is characterized in terms of movement or displacement, using Michel de Certeau’s differentiation of “space” and “place” and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s description of the tandem practices of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. As a paradigm, the readymade illustratively brings together these convergent concepts, each describing an event, a coming-together, a movement, or a shift in the locus of meaning. These concepts are also applied to contemporary cultural production and practices that make use of the slippery and contingent space between art and life, spaces that the readymade has essentially opened up

John Marriott : Sympathy for the Institution

"John Marriott's collages, paintings, photographs and sculptural works create sharp and dryly funny observations that probe and provoke as they consider our relationship to how meaning is made in the wake of modernism. This interest in how meaning is crafted is evident in the selected works in this exhibition, including Light Show, a non-functional neon text piece that reads "SILENCE," Synthesis, a photo triptych presenting a sequence in which a pair of hands rip out a printed image of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome from a book and crumple it into a ball, and Place Holder, an Eames Eiffel Chair with an industrial backhoe bucket for a seat. The tensions in these and other works are derived from a blend of critical intervention and conceptual pleasure that results as the artist responds to a varied range of subjects embodied in various forms, including the exhibition's colour-coded, dialogically-derived design." -- Publisher's website

Summer 2017 : Transmundane

''The “transmundane” refers to that which extends beyond the physical or visible world – into the realm of the divine or transcendent. Recently, there has been an increased interest in accessing these otherworldly realms via mindfulness meditation, new age spiritual practices like magic and witchcraft, and the use of mind-altering drugs. These subjects are taken up by the artists in Transmundane, an exhibition which examines the root causes for this awakened interest in seeking the transcendent, and suggests that turning on, tuning in, and dropping out has a profoundly political dimension: when the world itself becomes unbelievable, we turn elsewhere for belief.'' -- Publisher's websit

Fall 2016 : Bruce Montcombroux : Site, Sight, Cite.

'' Bruce Montcombroux’s exhibition considers what it means to be somewhere – how we inhabit, observe, and describe a place. His drawings and sculptures depict cobbled-together structures that combine elements from physical, textual, and digital realms. Motivated in part by Northrup Frye’s statement that Canadian identity can be summed up in the question “where is here?” Montcombroux’s works explore identity, geography, landscape, and place-making in the 21st century.'' -- Publisher's Websit

Wednesday Lupypciw : Allies Honour You

"ALLIES HONOUR YOU is an experimental noise event and "living sculpture" conceived and conducted by Calgary artist, Wednesday Lupypciw. Six individuals, variously trans- and female-identified, each armed with their own drum kit, will occupy Victoria Park, forming a triangular locus as Lupypciw leads them through three intense sessions of drumming and chanting. ALLIES HONOUR YOU is a public declaration of feminist alliance with queer communities, claiming a space, sonically and psychically much larger than its physical dimensions. Both riotous and utopian, the work celebrates the radical potential of collectivized action, ritual, and rock 'n' roll." -- Publisher's website

From What Remains

"From What Remains posits links between aesthetic and scientific methodologies. Jason de Haan (Calgary, AB), Kerri Reid (Sointula, BC), and Kara Uzelman (Nokomis, SK) infuse data (in the form of found objects, often gathered from remote or specific sites) with poetic and speculative meaning via material transformations, replications, assemblages, and texts that mimic scientific processes, but also suggest that a kind of alchemy or magical transformation has taken place. These transformations conflate past, present and future, imbuing the artists’ materials with implied narrative and potentiality." -- Publisher's website

Lisa Birke : red carpet (red stripe painting; walking the line)

"red carpet follows its female subject (the artist herself), elegantly attired in a glittering black gown and three-inch heels, as she sashays down a seemingly-endless red carpet. The carpet cuts through an ever-changing Canadian landscape: through forests and fields, over a fallen log, across streams and riverbeds, uphill and downhill, through snowbanks, and upon sandy beaches. Our heroine falters and struggles to maintain her composure as she traverses this difficult terrain, an enchanting, tragicomic, and ultimately critical gesture that responds to tropes of representation of women in art history, cinema, and popular culture. Lisa Birke is a Canadian artist whose work is situated between traditions of painting, digital video, and performance art. She is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Waterloo (2013). Birke has had solo exhibitions, performances, and screenings across Canada and her short films and videos have been presented at festivals internationally." -- Publisher's website