ARTISTS PROJECTS BY JAYCE SALLOUM AND DARREN O’DONNELL
FRONT
CONTEMPORARY ART AND IDEAS
FINDINGS
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SHAWNA DEMPSEY & LORRI MILLAN, Millan PLEASANT & ShawnaMINI Dempsey ANTEISM, ANDLori A MOUNT UTOPIA
Photograph by Eden Veaudry
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CONTENTS
FRONT
CONTEMPORARY ART AND IDEAS
FRONT magazine is a journal of contemporary art and ideas, with a focus on interdisciplinary artists projects by emerging and established Canadian artists. Views expressed in FRONT are those of individual editors, writers or artists. Images and text remain the property of their respective copyright holders, and all data is protected according to the terms of Canadian privacy legislation. FRONT would like to work with you. We invite proposals from artists, writers, journalists, photographers, and designers, and we welcome interns. For more information, please contact us by email and include a resume and portfolio. For themes, guidelines, and deadlines, please go to www.front.bc.ca/frontmagazine. Submissions can be sent to frontsubmissions@gmail.com E D I TO R / A R T D I R E CT I O N & D E S I G N : A N D R E A S K A H R E A S S O C I AT E / M A N A G I N G E D I TO R : R E A N N A A L D E R C O P Y E D I TO R S : A N D Y H U D S O N , MARTIN HAZELBOWER, OLIVIA HUGHES S U B S C R I P T I O N S & M A I L I N G : L I N D S AY D E W DISTRIBUTION: LEAH HOKANSON, MAGAZINES CANADA F RO N T M A G A Z I N E 3 0 3 E A S T 8 T H AV E N U E , VA N C O U V E R , B C , C A N A D A , V 5 T 1 S 1 P H O N E : ( 6 0 4 ) 8 7 6 - 9 3 4 3 , FA X : ( 6 0 4 ) 8 7 6 - 4 0 9 9 VOICEMAIL: (604) 878-7498 E M A I L : F R O N T M A G A Z I N E @ F R O N T. B C . C A W E B : W W W. F R O N T. B C . C A P R I N T E D O N PA C E S E T T E R 7 0 L B F S C C E R T I F I E D S TO C K B Y R H I N O P R I N T S O LU T I O N S
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Findings PAGE 2, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Western Front Board of Directors
Board Members at Large
Editorial Advisory
President - Erin Bonifero Vice President - Geraldine Parent Secretary - Charo Neville Treasurer - Keith Wallace
Kate Armstrong Alma Corral William Enwright Juan Gaitan Paul de Guzman Carie Helm Rachael Kiyo Iwaasa Scot Keefer
Margot Leigh Butler Alexander Ferguson Juan Gaitan Christine Leclerc Donato Mancini Rob Stone Keith Wallace
r n
FINDINGS Is the found that which we acquire after having resolved what it is we’re looking for—or the stuff that comes flying over the transom while we’re busy holding out for something better? As Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous postcard said: “ I was expecting to be surprised. There was no surprise. I was surprised.”
COVER P H OTO G R A P H Y A N D C R O C H E T B Y E D E N VE A U D R Y
ARTISTS PROJECTS 12
P R E S E N C E O F A B S E N C E , B YJ AY C E S A L LO U M
18
THE SOCIAL IMPRESARIO, BY DARREN O’DONNELL
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Y O U A N D I , B Y A L I S O N M CTA G G A R T
FEATURES 4
INTERVIEW R YA N T H O M P S O N O F A N T E I S M
9
D R AW I N G T H E S TO R Y B O O K S H AV E B E E N U N FA I R , B Y C A R R I E W A L K E R
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POETRY AT M O S P H E R T I C I N V E R S I O N S , B Y K I M G O L D B E R G
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C E R TA I N S U C C E S S , B Y J A N I C E B U T L E R H O L M
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TEXT TWO GAMES, BY DYLAN GODWIN
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COLLAGE O CTAV I A , B Y VA L E R I E B O X E R
DEPARTMENTS 8
FO U N D A N D R E C E N T F I E L D R E P O R T , B Y S H A W N A D E M P S E Y A N D LO R R I M I L L A N
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S T U D I O TO U R G R O P P ’ S G A L L E R Y , P H OTO S B Y R O B E R T A L D E R
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UQ EVENTS CALENDAR
COVER: Eden Veaudry works with textile, photography, drawing and digital manipulation, and has shown her work at Million Fishes, the Ministry of Casual Living, the Department of Safety, Monastiraki and the Fifty Fifty Arts Collective. She lives in Victoria, BC.
Western Front Sustaining Members Jack & Maryon Adelaar, Robin Blaser, Cath Bray, Coat Cooke, Chris & Sophie Dikeakos, Karen Gelmon & Peter Busby, Martin Gotfrit & Patricia Gruben, Mark King, DD Kugler, Friedel & Martin Maché, Sheila MacPherson & Bill Smith, Gary McFarlane & Paul DeGuzman, Peggy & John McLernon, Bernice & Frank Miller, John & Helen O'Brian, Judy Radul, Abraham Rogatnick, Jayce Salloum, Anna Stauffer
The Western Front is grateful for the support of these funders and organizations:
FEATURE | INTERVIEW
Abracadabra, Art Scene! A FRONT interview with Anteism’s Ryan Thompson
How did Anteism get started? It started out as a book. I was living in Taiwan, and put out a book [See Spot Die] with a bunch of artist friends, to highlight the cruelty to animals in Taiwan, mostly notably to dogs. I asked all my friends if they'd want to put some art in a book, and had no idea what I was doing.
Your publishing mandate is to focus on emerging Canadian artists, but with your other collaborative projects you're very intentionally engaging international artists. How do those two approaches relate? It was really neat to be in Taiwan and doing work with local artists there. When I came back for the first show, we brought See Spot
Where did the name Anteism come from? With See Spot Die, I gathered all these artists together and we made this book and it created awareness and it created funding. We ended up rescuing two street dogs, getting them medication and finding a home for them. So it was the idea of the ante, which in cards is throwing your stake in. You're making your presence known.
Die to Victoria and we continued to work with some artists in Taiwan. It [international collaboration] was kind of a new thing for art in our age group. Luke had collaborated with people overseas, but we were starting to get artists from other places wanting to show their work here and collaborate with us. A lot of people were leaving Victoria because there wasn't a big enough arts scene for them, so they'd go to Montreal or New York. I just wanted to bring some fresh stuff to Victoria. It's a place people can stay to make art, and collaborate with people outside of town. And with the books, because we're receiving grants from the Canada Council, we're focusing on Canadians.
Findings PAGE 4, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Abracadabra is the latest in a series of group art books — The Glue Factory, The Natural Low, The Feast, and theMAKE — that present the work of emerging artists from Victoria, B.C. It’s also an art show and a community event, launched first at Victoria’s Sunset Room in July, and again two months later at Vancouver’s Little Mountain Studios. Abracadabra, the book, was edited and produced by married artists Brooke Semple-Haight & Cody Coyote Haight, under the umbrella of Anteism Publishing.”[Victoria] is a small city, and not a whole lot tends to go on in the arts community, so we like to create things for ourselves,”says Semple-Haight. FRONT spoke to Anteism Publishing’s founder Ryan Thompson about Abracadabra, international collaboration, print making, the challenges of publishing art in Canada, and biting off more than you can chew.
Your own art is mostly photography.
Does it surprise you that there's this market for the books and for the prints?
Photography and screen printing. I started up a little project called Seriscope, similar to the books, where we focus on up-and-coming artists, but it's done
The books are a weird thing. People are willing to pay a bit of money
with screen prints.
for a print because it's an artwork, but a book can be hard unless you get them in the right shops.
I do screen printing for a living with a company called Pacific Editions; we screen print aboriginal artwork. My idea [with Seriscope] is that we do a
I spent a summer in the Sunday market on Government Street in
showcase of an artist and create a limited edition screen print, and then
Victoria. I think I lasted about five or six weeks and then I quit,
have a gallery online and do a little interview with them.
because I'd be lucky if I sold a book a day. People just kind of browse through. If there's no text, unless you really like the artist, you can
Do the prints sell well?
just browse through it, consume it, put it down and forget about it. But with an art print people buy it and put it on their wall. It's not an
When I do things I tend to just jump right in. I was actually learning screen
ego thing, but it's “look what I got.”
printing while I was starting the project, so there was a lot of trial and error. The first print I did was Matt Cipov's, and it went really well, but my basement
It’s interesting how marketability comes down to format.
ended up flooding and we lost half the prints. The most recent print I did was Charlotte Cynthia Walton's. I have a little more experience with
I think another problem is we consume so much print every day. We
printmaking and it's gone really well. We've almost sold out. Cynthia had
get these nice glossy junk mail flyers printed in China, and for us to
a show at El Kartel and the prints sold well there. Robin Williams bought
compete in book format is impossible. We want to print in Canada
one. I guess he goes in there once in a while.
if we can, but it's so expensive. So a lot of our books are in black and white.
Above: Group exhibition for Abacadabra’s Victoria launch at the Sunset Room, 2008.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 5
FEATURE (continued)
What's the business model? Does Anteism support itself?
Our future outlook on the books is we want to do smaller numbers, maybe 350 to 500, and do a lot more hand-bound books with
This year is the first year that we've thought of it as a business. We received
interesting papers and adding screen prints into them. More of a
an emerging publisher grant [from the Canada Council for the Arts] and
handmade art book.
that's paid for two of the books that we're just releasing now. One is called Finding Joy, and it's comics by Luke Ramsey, and another called Brain Trust,
To make the books function more in the way that the prints
which is collaborative drawings by Peter Thompson and James Kirkpatrick.
are functioning.
Those two books are our first serious books as a publishing company. Before it was just a love for what we were doing and it always lost money.
Yeah, I'm trying to combine the two things I'm really interested
Now we're putting in a lot more work and we're getting better distribution
in: publishing and printmaking. The two new books actually come
of the books, so it's basically paying for itself.
with a two-colour screen print inserted into them. That's the first step. We have a book coming up which we're so excited about,
How many copies are you publishing?
with an artist called Other, and what we plan on doing is cutting up old book covers and screen printing the cover image onto it,
Abracadabra was 1,000 copies, and we had to print it in China because of
and hand-binding these books.
the cost of the colour. Because of our publishing grant we had money to print the other two [Finding Joy and Brain Trust], and we did those in Canada.
Who else is involved?
They're mostly black and white, and we did 1,000 copies of each of those.
Findings PAGE 6, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Above left: print from Ryan Thompson’s Seriscope series by Charlotte Cynthia Walton. Above right: Marc Johns’ image from Abacadabra
UPCOMING There are always people coming and going. I'm a kind of a hermit, where I'll just sit and chip away at things and only ask for help if I totally need it. But Harley is always involved, and Shawn O'Keefe has been a big player in all the shows and the books. Every project we work with different people. What kind of work do you put into Anteism on a day-to-day basis? I never thought of it as work until having to do all the accounting and distribution stuff with these books. But the majority of times it's just the production end of things. And keeping the website going is a major one. Is the feeling that some of it is work now because of getting grants? Yeah, big time. I'm pretty naive when it comes to accounting and taxes, so it's kind of a strain. I know of artists that have it right down pat where they'll say, “I work these two days in the studio, and then I spend these two days in the office, and these two days writing grants.”We've all just been half-
FRONT
CONTEMPORARY ART AND IDEAS
assed artists doing what we want to do for so long, and to see some people really take it to the next step, it can be a little scary. But you see what comes out of it and what they can accomplish when they focus their energy that way. Because our grant is for publishing, it's different. If it were taking time away from our art it would be a different story, but with the
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009 PROPERTIES SUBMISSIONS Deadline: December 1 ADVERTISING Deadline: December 15
publishing we're thinking of it as a business that's got to sustain itself, so it's gotta be done. What is Anteism doing really well and what do you want to improve? I think it's done well connecting people and getting interest. I want to work on making sure that these projects are going somewhere and getting completed. I've started some projects that I just don't have the time to physically complete by myself. I did this one called iMyGrate. I drove across Canada and basically had an open call for people to send character artworks to me. I figured I'd place them across the country, photograph them with a little note saying, if you find this character, take them to a new location and photograph them. I thought it would just be a fun little project. Next thing I know I've got over 300 characters I had to cut out, paste and laminate. I sometimes get myself into projects I just can't handle.
MARCH /APRIL 2009 DISCIPLINES SUBMISSIONS Deadline: January 1 ADVERTISING Deadline: February 12 MAY/JUNE 2009 REFLECTIONS SUBMISSIONS Deadline: April 1 ADVERTISING Deadline: April 15 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009 PLAY SUBMISSIONS Deadline: July 1 ADVERTISING Deadline: August 15 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 TOOLS SUBMISSIONS Deadline: October 1 ADVERTISING Deadline: October 15 For submissions details, visit www.front.bc.ca
Abracadabra, the book, is available at Little Mountain Studios, Lucky’s Comics, and online at anteism.com.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 7
FOUND & RECENT
Findings PAGE 8, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Above: Lesbian National Parks and Services Field Report, by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, 2008
FEATURE | DRAWING
The Storybooks Have Been Unfair by Carrie Walker
Carrie Walker is a Vancouver artist, who spends an inordinate amount of time flipping
Findings
through encyclopedias of animals, and drawing pictures of the creatures found therein. FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 9
Carrie Walker writes: “I have been collecting old landscape drawings, in pencil and watercolour, from various sources, such as thrift stores and ebay, and, disregarding plausibility, I have been drawing or painting animals into the scenes, usually erasing some marks or removing paint to make room for various birds and beasts, for instance, a falcon perched, wings outspread, on a bridge over a small town; a bighorn sheep the size of the cabin it stands beside; prairie dogs calling to one another across a brook in the forest. These collaborations with unwitting partners have resulted in odd narratives that the viewer is left to interpret in their own way.�
Findings PAGE 10, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Above: These Birds feed mainly on Insects, 2008. Below: A Distinctive Display known as Rushing, 2008.
TEXT | POETRY
Atmospheric Inversions by Kim Goldberg The best thoughts, the ones that could save us, that could mend all clouds and reformulate blood-dipped bayonets as blades of grass, these are the ones that are smuggled out as contraband flints strapped to the underside of houseflies hell-bent for liberty… Give me wingtime with no flight plan or give me carrion luggage…Yet even in their absence, I see stabs of hope, backlit motes of dreamy possibility paddling upstream on a wishbone raft, small tufts of unslung idea that somehow ducked false contentment on the rockpile of the herd mind. The butterflies have disappeared as sacrificial offerings in the crusade against gypsy moths. Gone are swallowtails, mourning cloaks, apollos, from scrubbing the landscape raw with gut-blind ethnic cleansing. My mind is a white room where a washerwoman stoops from scrubbing the landscape raw with gut-blind ethnic gypsy moths. Gone are swallowtails, mourning cloaks, apollos, disappeared as sacrificial offerings in the crusade against contentment on the rockpile of the herd mind. The butterflies have a wishbone raft, small tufts of unslung idea that somehow ducked false hope, backlit motes of dreamy possibility paddling upstream on carrion luggage… Yet even in their absence, I see stabs of liberty… Give me wingtime with no flight plan or give me contraband flints strapped to the underside of houseflies hell-bent for grass, these are the ones that are smuggled out as clouds and reformulate blood-dipped bayonets as blades of the best thoughts, the ones that could save us, that could mend all.
Kim Goldberg is the creator of The DUDE Chronicles and other zines and book art from Pig Squash Press (www.pigsquashpress.com).
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 11
wet and damp before the dust becomes us, upon arrival, the local foreigner and the foreign foreigner pushed to the end of the line, Khadim making it through, past the checkpoints and barriers.., for the moment, passage into and onto, the medieval-like futuristic military bunker state thoroughfare, the separation and conflation as great as ever could be, Kabul, Afghanistan, 4/10/08
This work focuses—geographically, literally, and metaphorically— on Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and the larger region of Hazarajat (the central highlands). It is concerned with the compression and extension of conditions in Kabul (to the relatively more “peaceful” area of Bamiyan) with the implications of the international presence in Afghanistan, both historical and present. It is also concerned with my experience getting into and out of Afghanistan, the geo-political contingencies of culture and imperialism, and, in relation to this, the construction of knowledge, images and meaning.
J.S.
as the rain falls, the grey skies reveal nothing but more of the same state of survival, the land slides further into extremes, pushed to the limits, scraping survival, hillside houses, container/containment zone guard post, Kabul, Afghanistan, 4/10/08
Findings PAGE 12, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
ARTISTS PROJECT | PHOTOGRAPHY
The Presence of Absence by Jayce Salloum Findings All photos: digital prints by Jayce Salloum, 2008 FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 13
assembly promises, hope springs eternal, the future beckons, all is at stake, Hazara girls shift 6:30am > lyrics: “…the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart…”, Laisa-e-Maarifat (Maarifat School), Dasht-e-Barchi, Mualim Aziz Royish principle, Western Kabul, Afghanistan, 4/12/08
Findings PAGE 14, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
piles/fragments/ruins left of the buddhist statues, constructed 100-490AD, bodily discarded (destroyed by Taliban, March 2001), pieces protected/sheltered, torn, {saved for possible reconstruction @ $40 million each} at the caves site, Bamiyan, Hazarajat, Afghanistan, 4/16/08
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 15
taking stock, dusted mud path, stores/goods, truck upheaved, moving around, silk route through Bamiyan to Band-e-Amir, Bamiyan province, Afghanistan 4/17/08
of what remains, vestiges/relics/revisioned/revised, leaving Bamiyan, Hazarajat, Afghanistan, 4/22/08
Findings PAGE 16, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Jayce Salloum's work exists within and between the personal, quotidian, local, and trans-national. He has worked in installation, photography, video, performance and text since 1975, as well as curating exhibitions, conducting workshops, organizing collectives and coordinating sustainable cultural projects. Salloum has exhibited at a wide range of local and international venues, from small, unnamed storefronts and community centres
detritus, tanks and other armament, contested space/place, landscape of pain, monuments to past and present wars, Afghanistan, 4/20/08
in the Downtown Eastside, to institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Gallery of Canada. Salloum is presently preparing two new monographs, one for the Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Zealand and the other for his solo survey touring exhibition with the Kamloops Art Gallery.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 17
ARTISTS PROJECT | UNDERTAKING
Case Study: The Floating Curator In my own practice this has yielded a series of events that I refer to as social acupuncture: small interventions that disrupt or redirect social flow. Small, intimate projects often serve as the basis for larger-scale events that bring the ideas more fully into fruition and, in turn, provide feedback for further experimentation. It’s important to understand that each component is part of a group of events, and always serves as research for
The Social Impresario:
by Darren O’Donnell
The Floating Curator was created for curator Christine Shaw’s project Public Acts, in which she assigned the themes of the 29 issues of the cultural theory quarterly Public Access to artists across Canada. I was assigned Public Act 21, Childhood. In an act of childish mischief, I designed a project that placed the onus squarely on Christine.
I. Like so many of us in the culture industries, I am pulled by two seemingly conflicted concerns: I want my work to be politically engaged, making this horrible world a better place, while on the other hand, I want to be rich and famous, an A-Lister with tons of power, glory and influence. Initially, my method was to oscillate neurotically between these two poles, trying to nurture one while
other events. You don’t design a car and a stereo at the same time, but when they’re combined you’ve got a nice set of wheels. I also want to point out that I create this work with the confidence that not only does artistic meaning occur during the actual event but that, because of the conceptual simplicity, the event easily continues in subsequent conversations, as well as in my documentation and analysis. In other words, I consider this article, too, part of the performance; without it, the work loses a crucial dimension. This would be the concern of the pressobsessed impresario.
The Floating Curator brings together the social worker and the impresario by creating a highly charged event where social fortification is combined with conceptual aggression and flamboyance in one of the most intimate and socially charged dynamics: communication and friendship between an adult and a strange child.
obliterating the other. Then there was the more successful attempt at synthesizing them to produce art in response to the problems
For Public Acts, the concept was simple: I drafted an airtight
in the world, in a have-cake-eat-too strategy. This worked for a
contract that required Christine to spend an hour-and-a-half per day, for
while and won me points in the local entertainment weeklies.
five days in August, floating in the shallow end of the Alexandra Park
There was a big temptation to stop at that point, resting on the
outdoor pool. She was to approach children and become their friend.
belief that working with political content is the same as political
Marks were assigned for – among other things – attendance, convincing
engagement. Perhaps some of the insights of contemporary
the kids to take her photo, time spent with the children outside the confines
physics having convinced me that witnessing is doing. And,
of the pool area, and connecting with kids of varying races. If Christine did
maybe in some cases it is, but for the most part, it’s not.
not achieve a mark of 50% or more, she had to remove all traces of the
So rather than trying to overlap these two concerns I’ve decided to conflate them by creating interactions. My understanding of my identity then undergoes a shift. As I accept
project from her website and accompanying material and, when referencing the 21st Public Act, she had to declare: “Children do not exist.” Needless to say, Christine was angry and nervous about being
my dueling desires, I don two masks at once, that of the social
perceived as a pervert. I sympathized, but felt that, at worst, they would
worker and of the opera impresario, creating a new figure: the
think she was a batty lady and, in the event they, or anyone else, did vilify
Social Impresario—an individual who shamelessly, flamboyantly
her…. well, what can I say? Art is risky and there’s nothing romantic about
and aggressively promotes socially ameliorative acts for the
taking a risk. Christine wrote to me: “If you could have peered into my
express purpose of making MY world a better place, the selfish-
apartment the weekend you emailed me the contract, you would have
ness of which, when dealt with ethically, actually leads to more
seen me pass through a whole range of affective tonalities: anger, fear,
effective results. Findings PAGE 18, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
continued on p. 20
The Floating Curator Contract The Floating Curator is an artistic contract between Christine Shaw
10. The Curator shall score at least 50% or more.
(hereafter referred to as The Curator) and Darren O’Donnell (Hereafter referred to as The Artist).
11. In the event The Curator scores less than 50% the contract shall be considered void and The Curator shall be forbidden to speak, document or
1. Over the course of August 3, 2006 to August 7, 2006, The Curator
refer to the contract/project/Artist with respect to the contract/project in
shall spend 1.5 hours per day, for 5 days, floating in the shallow end
any way and must erase all traces of the contract/project/Artist from any
of the Alexandra Park outdoor pool located at Bathurst and Dundas,
previously written material concerning the contract/project including any
Toronto, ON.
blog, proposals, suggestions or any other material pertaining to The Curator’s Public Acts project.
2. The Curator shall not be accompanied by any friends or associates and will only bring a towel and sunscreen onto the pool deck. All
12. In the event The Curator scores less than 50% The Curator shall write
reading material is forbidden.
“Public 29: Childhood. Children do not exist” in any and all instances where the details of The Curator’s Public Acts project is mentioned when those
3. The Curator shall spend as much time in the shallow end of the
details necessitate the inclusion of the 29th Public Act.
pool as is comfortable. 13. In the event The Curator is successful The Curator shall have the right 4. Wrinkling fingers shall not constitute discomfort but shivering
to document the contract/project in a manner that is acceptable to The
shall.
Artist. The Artist shall not unreasonably withhold consent.
5. The Curator shall initiate a) extended conversations with the
14. The Curator shall give copies of all documentation to The Artist.
children playing in the pool, b) convince them to take her photo, c) spend some time outside the pool with at least one child first met at
15. Whatever The Curator scores, The Artist reserves all rights to the
the pool and who is of a different race than The Curator and c)
contract/project and may document and/or reference it in any way, in any
attempt to be photographed with said child. Each of these activities
media throughout the universe and in perpetuity.
is assigned a percentage value. (See 14). 16. The activities and their value: 6. An extended conversation shall be defined as an exchange lasting more than one minute and in which the child asks The Curator at
Activity
Value: Daily %
Total%
least one question. 1.5 hours of floating per day (5 days)
5%
7. The Curator shall keep track of her daily and accumulative totals
Extended conversation with a child a day (5 days)
5 % 25%
25%
and submit a daily email or phone report to The Artist.
A daily email or phone call to The Artist (5 days)
1%
5%
A photo of The Curator at the pool taken by a child.
10%
8. In the daily report The Curator shall inform The Artist as to when
Out-of-pool social time with a child first met at the pool
15%
on the following day she shall be at the pool.
Photo of The Curator with the child outside the pool
10%
The child is of a different race than The Curator
10%
9. The Artist shall make occasional and unannounced checks to confirm that The Curator is at the pool during the stated times. In
Total
100%
the event the Curator is absent the contract is void. (See 11).
Darren O’Donnell wrote the book-length essay Social Accupuncture, the novel Your Secrets Sleep With Me, and the plays White Mice, A Suicide-Site Guide to the City and pppeeeaaaccceee (boxhead). He has also organized a number of events including Haircuts by Children (featured at the 2007 PuSH Festival in Vancouver), Ballroom Dancing for Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, Beachgballs 41+all and the Toronto Strategy Meetings.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 19
The Social Impresario: by Darren O’Donnell Continued
Second, artists are being asked to provide content and activities to keep the information-age rolling in large-scale, spectacular art events like Toronto’s Nuit Blanche and the Live with Culture campaign. We see the artist being deployed as cheap glue for the social fabric and
tenacity, resilience, joy, determination. I think I might even been heard
cheap grease for wheels of the economy. The need to conflate these
muttering "Bring it on, Darren." Needless to say, you and this contract
two is what the social impresario attempts, in looking to bring the
got under my skin. I was immediately aware of the potential risks and
community into the realm of the spectacular and vice versa.
receptions involved as soon as I received the contract that night back in June: perversion, repulsion, anxiety, alienation, social fatigue, insecurity,
Public Acts was a national event, involving over 30 artists that hailed
vulnerability…”1
from Victoria to Halifax, and included public works ranging from those
I was impressed with Christine’s strategy – she simply went up
intended for wide participation to more intimate events. With The
to the staff at the pool and explained the whole project. When she
Floating Curator, intimacy was pushed to the limits, with the social
approached the kids, she also simply explained the premise. I thought
aspect of the agenda taking precedence over the impresorial, except
this was the best and most respectful approach, in that it assumed a
with the conception itself, which was both obnoxious and flamboyant:
sophisticated understanding on the part of the kids. On the second day,
pinning someone down and demanding that little kids would have to
she met Elise, an 11-year-old who lived near the pool and spent nearly
be approached in the pool. But once we get over the irrational stranger-
every day there. They hit it off and I joined them, the three of us spending
danger, all we’ve got left is an earnest attempt to make the social
portions of the rest of the week as an “ad hoc family”, chilling together
sphere a more generous place.
outside the pool, going for dinner, playing in the park, and spending time with her parents.
The social impresario is concerned with diversity for the same reason as everyone else: fairness. However, that’s just the social side of the equation. The impresario also understands that it makes good business sense to involve and attract a diversity of participants.
II.
Cold hard capital is only one consideration; the impresario also appreciates the social, cultural and emotional capital that is generated
Almost the only consistent contact kids have with the world, outside the institutions of family and school, is with corporate consumer culture: films, the internet, television, pop music. The Floating Curator invokes the notion of art’s uselessness, of art as devoid of any instrumentalism and, in so doing, sneaks past one of the most rigid social prohibitions: of children talking to strangers. Like a magic cloak of invisibility, the diaphanous shroud of art is cunningly instrumentalized and turned against the culture’s dominant economic imperative. By contemporary social codes, the situation we created was atypical, yet when the shroud of “art” was draped over the activity, it became the easiest thing in the world. What is art, then, that it can so easily yet so radically change the terms of social engagement? The first thing the social impresario needs to examine is where the project is situated in the continuum that stretches between the two prevailing imperatives our culture is currently subject to. The first is the move by the state to put culture in “service” of the community, forcing artists to fix social problems by engaging youth and other under–serviced communities. (In Ontario, funding to arts programs in education has been cut at the same time as arts organizations are required to include a youth component in their work. A crafty move: artists are cheaper than teachers —we’re accustomed to working without benefits, for next to nothing. Findings PAGE 20, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
in creating diverse networks, and the possibilities that are created by encounters with difference. The impresario undertakes these strictly to make himself a better person, in a proudly self-serving gesture. The intention of including diversity in the contract with Christine was to make the world a better place, and Christine a better person, but also to enrich my social circles – the impermissibility (for obvious reasons) of me playing with the kids at my favourite outdoor pool having been a source of summertime frustration and sadness every year. The impresario relies on the atypical, on generating unusual and flamboyantly charged encounters that produce new and meaningful contexts, on questioning current social flows and throwing things into as much turmoil as possible. This sets the impresario apart from the social worker, who, by contrast, tries to introduce stability and normalcy and, rather than disrupt prevailing social currents, helps others to swim along more comfortably. At times, even when working with clients for whom to conform would mean death, they will still disavow antagonism. The impresario, on the other hand, knows that antagonism sells. But not just any antagonims: fruitful ones, where friction and tension are triggered and the ensuing dynamic is examined in a performative arena, and operates under the gossamer shroud of Art, where all is easily forgiven. The impresario, being the ever-alert opportunist, looks for ways to maximize antagonism, turning to accepted hierarchies as a way in. In this, the two figures find agreement, with the social worker, too, struggling against the effects of hierarchies. In the Floating Curator we have the fruitful antagonism of the nice
curator approaching children in the pool, combined with the nervousness
The social impresario is keen on generating beauty and amazement,
and weakness she feels, where, ultimately, the kids have the power to
wanting to dazzle, but seeking the civic sphere as the challenging arena
blow the whistle on this “aberrant” behavior.
for these encounters, anxious to make the world a better place while still providing the requisite thrills, spills and chills. I adopt this identity as an experiment, developing and testing criteria. Ultimately, I want
III.
my neighborhood to be a better place, even as I yearn for a statue to
The Social Impressario provokes a performance in which social assumptions are turned on their head, and shown as baseless. The pool staff Christine approached, the parents who fielded her requests
be erected in my honor. But it will be a wooden statue; only around long enough to inspire a generation or two before it’s absorbed back into the same ground that will devour me. A full account of The Floating Curator can be found on Christine’s blog (www.publicacts.ca).
Criteria for Successful Applications of Beautiful Civic Engagement
to play with their children, and the children themselves had to face common (and in my mind incorrect and damaging) assumptions about the safety of the social sphere: Five hundred thousand kids every year are classified as "throwaways" (children whose parents or guardians will not let them live at home, as distinguished from "runaways"). As many as 800,000 are beaten horribly. Even more are subject to emotional abuse and neglect. How much attention do they get? Instead, we focus our attention, almost all of it, on stranger-danger: things like abductions, of which there are between
1. Gluing the Grease and Greasing the Glue: conflating the imperative to grease the wheels of commerce with the imperative to glue the social fabric; in other words, hauling the community into the commercial and the commercial into the community to spread, or equalize, power. 2. Diversity: age, race, sexual orientation, religion, occupation, etc. 3. Atypical Encounter: people doing things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, or would ordinarily do but in an unordinary context with people they wouldn’t ordinarily do it with.
100 and 200 annually. Our carefully controlled outrage is generated for our own purposes, certainly not to protect the children.3
4. Inversion of Hierarchies: those who normally have the power give it up, or participate in service to other less powerful participants.
Christine and I became friends with Elise, and spent time with her
5. Offering Agency: creating a context that provides agency to those who would not ordinarily have it.
parents and family friends outside the pool, creating a new social dynamic that had much in common with the notion of the past as a place when things were simpler, kids were free to roam and perverts didn’t exist. Well, they did exist, but no more than they do now. The festish for safety is more a disguise for social control than a mechanism to protect the children. The social impresario uses the social sphere as the venue for activity, trying to bring the spectacular out of the realm of privatized entertainment, but always—as dictated by the social side of the duality —with ameliorative effects in mind. Situating the activity in public proves a challenge to the impresario, who knows that cache is developed by increasing demand by decreasing access – to a point – and that public transactions are harder to metre than those occurring in private. The social worker, however, wins this round, trumping the impresario with the fact that – in the long run – the public realm is the place where all the power is located. This is an act of faith; not the impresario’s strong suit. On the other hand, the public field does provide the
6. Questioning Social Assumptions, Imperatives: creating a context where taboos are challenged by actions that reveal the taboo to be based in social control. 7. Atypical use of public and public/private space: playing where we’re supposed to work and working where we’re supposed to play. 8. Fruitful Antagonisms: triggering friction, tension, and examining the ensuing dynamic in a performative arena, where all is easily forgiven. 9. Volunteer Ownership: providing opportunities for volunteers to participate to foster a wider sense of ownership. 10. Blurring of Roles: passersby become observers; observers become participants; participants become collaborators and volunteers become creators. 11. Generating Buzz: where the media is on par with other aspects of the project; the media as collaborators—slippery collaborators—but collaborators, nonetheless.
opportunity to engage and entice additional participants, and an opportunity for wider involvement in the project. In the case of The Floating Curator, the children who were approached got involved and contributed their insights.
1. Chistine Shaw, You think this is easy? 2. Christine Shaw, The Floating Curator, Daily Report #3 3. James R, Kincaid Little Miss Sunshine: America's obsession with JonBenet Ramsey. Slate.com, Aug. 2006 http://www.slate.com/id/2148089/ 4. Christine Shaw, The Floating Curator, Daily Report #1
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 21
IMAGE | DRAWING
Findings PAGE 22, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Findings
by Donato Mancini
Donato Mancini is a Vancouver-based writer. He has been amassing wealth in the form of free coffees.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 23
TEXT | POETRY
Certain Success
by Janis Butler Holm "Proof that the carrot turns into the stick and vice versa." —Erica Hunt, Proof
Your knowledge of sales principles and methods, and your skill in selling ideas, must be combined with right sales-manhood if your complete success in sales-man-ship is to be made certain.
It is now sixteen capillaries since the antenna, with its donnish cape, was first occulted into shards, and it is accurate to say that, without a higher wattage, the belfry has been teeming
Particular man qualities are necessary
with incendiary shock.
to make you a master salesman in your chosen field. "A good man obtaineth favor." So we will study now the elements of character required for the most effective sales-man-ship, and how to develop them.
Our antenna is a crotch, the metatarsal trope of likelihood, an automated prospect that, in its many layers, reveals all superlatives
Some radical changes in your
and swaggering crunk.
present character may be required. But you will need principally to grow in order to attain the full stature of sales—manhood that is necessary to gain complete success.
No smudge is too hot to anchor it, and none is too incisive to belittle its alarm.
Findings PAGE 24, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
If your manliness is dwarfed now, you cannot succeed largely in selling true ideas of your best and biggest capabilities, until you rid yourself of the character faults that are stunting your growth as a sales man. The fragile pile depreciates as readily as plucky ham; our lariats are drawn to it by sisal intersection. You will need to be big in ability, in imagination, in energy, in your ideals—but most of all you must be big in MANHOOD. If you are little and selfish in your life purpose, you cannot be certain of success in selling to a truly BIG man the idea that you are fully qualified for his service. Thus, hanky after panky, the thymus has malingered past this small team of mourning doves until we have antenna strictures so perpendicular that no adjacent pun would care to acclimate their jeep. Before making any attempt to sell yourself into a desirable position, take pains to develop as much man quality as characterizes your prospective employer. You cannot comprehend him if you fall short of his standard of manhood. It may seem that reverie, believable hoopla, has been hastily lifted, but our blend is not undone. If you are little and self-centered, how can you reach into the mind and heart and soul of another man who is genuinely BIG? How can you impel him to think as you wish?* As long as we have coccyxes or bumbling bridges, flamenco will continue to reduce their accord.
* The passages in this column are taken from Norval A. Hawkins, Certain Success (3rd ed.), 1920.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 25
TEXT | PATENT PENDING
You and I
Methods and Embodiments For One Tuning-Fork-Like Apparatus or More
Artist, Inventor: Alison MacTaggart Participants: Artist, art object(s) and viewer(s)
Fig. 1 Prototype A A three-quarter perspective of the invention in an equilibrium state, in an outdoor field of encounter: 1) Tuning-fork-like apparatus; 2) half-ring eye; 3a) spring-activated swivel-eye trigger-snap system; 4) 1/16" steel aircraft cable-sling; 5) stem; 6) 3/8" Manila rope Monkey’s Fist; 7) T-bar ground spike mounting assembly.
The Field of Invention This invention was developed to solve a particular conundrum: How
Including but not exclusive to the aforementioned homophobic
does one build an art object that enables a person to talk-back to
speech, theorist Judith Butler describes the potential effects of threatening
another, and an object that calls attention to both persons and the
utterances, in her writings on “linguistic vulnerability”.
effects of their words? The conundrum in question arises from the permeating residue of real world encounters in which I have been
Thus the injurious address may appear to fix or paralyze the one it hails,
subjected to homophobic utterances. Thus, in the real world an
but it may also produce an unexpected and enabling response. If to be
invention that provides a resolution to said conundrum has many
addressed is to be interpellated, then the offensive call runs the risk of
practical applications for individuals other than myself.
inaugurating a subject in speech who comes to use language to counter
In response to these encounters, the invention—the tuning-
the offensive call [1].
fork-like apparatus—promises features and benefits, which meet and exceed its origins. Prototype A and Prototype B are the fruit of
Prototype A and Prototype B are working examples of injurious and
two years of rigorous research and creation. They embody two
everyday utterances. Through the study of these examples I discovered
different versions of the aforesaid invention and effectually operate
that they too produced an unexpected and enabling effect—they
to resolve the originating conundrum and further, explicate a theory
produced a thing in their doing that I did not anticipate. Thus, I have
of “you”and “I”. Findings PAGE 26, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
You and I was written and illustrated to accompany a larger creative work that includes 14 large-scale illustrations and two sculptural embodiments of the tuning-fork-like apparatus. You and I was produced for an MFA at York University and was funded in part by SSHRC. This text is an excerpt from the written dissertation, which received the York University Thesis Dissertation Award.
WESTERN FRONT PROGRAMME EVENTS
May - June 2008
Fig. 2 Prototype B A one-sided perspective of the invention in a taut state, in an indoor or alternate field of encounter: 1) Tuning-fork-like apparatus; 2) half-ring eye; 3b) spring-activated swivel-eye simple-snap system; 4) 1/16" steel aircraft cable-sling; 5) stem; 6) 1/4" manila rope Monkey’s Fist; 8) toothed clam-cleat assembly with clevis-pin split-ring safety release mechanism; 9) superfluous passage; 10) resonator box table; 11) four legs of a 75º'bc pitch.
endeavoured to harness this thing in order to truly ascertain what it is,
More significantly, if the present invention is understood to
what it is that it does, and how it is that it does its doing [2]. At this
be my utterance, then the force or excess of this utterance has further
stage of study however, it remains unutterable.
reverberations for the relations between artist, art object and viewer. In theorist Mieke Bal’s book Looking In: The Art of Viewing, Norman
I have established that at the very least, this thing is akin to an excess
Bryson describes an art object’s utilization as a model for
of utterance, and as such, it has correlative implications for a theory of
communication and exchange:
“you” and “I.” In instances of everyday communication and exchange, it is not just a simple passing of utterance from an “I” to a “you,” there
Rather than being a “relay” conveying an intention from artist to
is inevitably an excess produced beyond the initial utterance, a degree
viewer, the work is thus an occasion for a performance in the “field”
of discordance that arises from the exchange [3]. I have observed this
of its meaning—where no single performance is capable of actualizing
to be more particularly evident in instances in which a speaker has a
or totalizing all of the work’s semantic potential. However coherent
higher-pitched voice than the corresponding hearer, or instances in
or persuasive a given interpretation may be, there will inevitably be
which the hearer, unlike the speaker, has extra-sensitive hearing.
a remainder not acted upon, a “reserve” of details that escape the interpretive net [4].
1. Butler 2., 2. Shoshana Felman, The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J.L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages, trans. Catherine Porter (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002) 53. 3. Felman 53. 4. Mieke Bal, Looking In: The Art of Viewing (Amsterdam: G + B Arts International, 2001) 3. 5. Felman 52.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 27
Fig. 3 Prototype A Wide shot of the first viewer (I/you) and the second viewer (you/I) actuating the invention’s energizing residue and referential vibrations.
Fig. 4 Prototype A Wide shot of the first viewer (I/you, you/I) and second viewer (you/I, I/you), the invention, and the ensuing entanglement.
As Shoshana Felman writes, this “reserve of details” is in fact an
viewer provides said viewer with the opportunity to occupy the
“energizing residue” [5]. Thus, it is anticipated that through dialogue—
positions of both speaker and hearer in relation to the invention. A
through the preferred methods of practicing, viewing and reading my
second viewer occupies a position opposite the first viewer, in effect
invention—that the variable “reserve” and excess of utterance and
activating further relational and performative operations. This enacts
meaning of which Bryson and Felman both speak, will emerge thereof.
an interchange of subject positions between speaker and hearer,
It is my objective that the unutterable will be made utterable.
invention and viewer, the first viewer and the second viewer, and the “I” and the “you”. This dialogic relationship proposes a resolution
In an utterance akin to a promise, the “occasion” for an encounter that the invention proposes between the artist, art object and
Findings PAGE 28, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
to the conundrum and further promises to discharge and harness details that inevitably escape the “interpretive net”.
Alison MacTaggart is a Vancouver-based visual artist whose conceptually inspired works bridge the traditions of sculpture, drawing and writing. She completed her MFA in 2006 and has received awards and grants from the BC Arts Council, SSHRC, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited across Canada.
TEXT | GAME THEORY
There are two variations of Hide and Go Seek that I am familiar with. The first is really just a modification of Peek-a-Boo, a game in which the pretense of blindness (a curious stand-in for disappearance) is overcome to great delight. This first variation is in no way contingent on successful hiding, but rather on the transparency or idiocy of the roles assumed: a child swaying in the coat rack, yellow boots on radiant display; an uncle mad on the hunt, befuddled, overgrown, and deaf to giggling. The joy here is in being costumed, rather than concealed, in the children alleging their absence rather than achieving it. Caught from the outset, the
Two Games by Dylan Godwin
child wields invisibility as if it were volitional, a function of averted eyes. And in the eventual chase, a night-marish slowness of the limbs made funny; an affirmation, without the least hubris, of easiest companionship. This version of the game does not dispel darkness, but conjures it for a backdrop, an ephemeral complement to the theatre underway.
We pretend that memory holes are immobile, that they do not The second version of Hide and Go Seek is more akin to
rove the biographical tape and open into our lives at will. We paint bright didactic lines about the grosser perforations, and
the sort of Fetch you play with young dogs, when, just to buy
bustle on, charged with resolutions to hold on to all the nuggets
yourself a moment of walking peace, you have to throw the stick
of our waking, to put all our recognition into the service of
as deeply into the woods as you can. This version is contingent
recall. And though what we invariably enter is a memory hole
on successful hiding, on the virtuosity of the vanishing act. Adepts
more turbulent than the rest—named The Future—we think to
do not exercise their cleverness so much as the power—the
ourselves that we might fill this one in, as if the present were
prospect—of their non-existence, which, over time, the seeker will
an invincible lawnmower beneath us, forever extending clean
almost have to concede. A child might, in this way, attempt also
green swaths through dark brush.
to legitimate the fantasy of a house, its access to other dimensions (via mirrors, tunnels), its tenuous and almost incidental appearance
There is a risk of melodrama in reporting on the ever-
in the here and now. Such games can indeed be trying for the
encroaching darkness. Often enough, we only want to threaten
seeker, as disappearance can only be deemed credible once the
the salon with a fainting spell. More importantly, there is a good
endurance factor has set in and everyone within earshot has lost
deal of pleasurable activity on offer at the edges of these animate
count of the number of times a name or cry for mercy has been
voids. My point is that our peals of laughter can be, when
called out to no response. Such practices lead unwittingly to the
sufficiently high pitched, equal to fear and trembling, our
amnesiac purification of place and of self. When the hidden comes
childhood games equal to angst-heavy soliloquy.
to seem lost, and only a call to dinner can restore the children to presence. Then the game has been played well.
Consider Hide and Go Seek. Some of us refused to That we all will go missing, none of us can doubt; the
play when we were children, citing fear of abandonment and/or suffocation. Others didn't want the idea of our absence mitigated
limits of our memories supply us with our mortal intuitions, and
by fun, and so engaged in more suicidal behaviours. But a good
these we cannot long suspend. If finding ourselves is all an act,
many of us wanted nothing more than to participate, to cross
all a theatre of lost and found in mnemonic borderlands, then
over into the memory hole to see if we could be found, to see
perhaps we should be glad of such games as Hide and Go Seek.
how and when we would re-emerge, and with whom.
Perhaps we should avail ourselves of their illusions while we can.
Dylan Godwin recently completed graduate studies in poetics at the University of California, Davis. He has had work published in the Seneca Review, Front Magazine and the Greenbelt Review.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 29
Western Front New Music November 2008 En Masse (All Together Now) is a concert series that examines the ways that musicians perform together, and the ways audiences contribute to the experience. The series offers traditional and nontraditional ensembles that perform their own music, or perhaps, do not perform music at all?
En Masse III Fake Jazz Fridays Friday, November 7, 8PM Western Front $5
Another evening of fearless, underground experimentation. Guest curated by Jeremy Van Wyck and Bill Batt, creators of Fake Jazz Wednesdays, this evening showcases a stacked line up from two extraordinary labels from our city: Thankless Records and Isolated Now Waves. There will be an exhibition from both labels of previous and out of print releases.
En Masse IV Stitching and Unstitching
Saturday, November 15, 8PM Western Front $10 door / $8 advance / $7 WF Members & Students Weaving and threading across the boundaries of improvisational music, Stitching and Unstitching is a Concert Series curated by Vancouver musicians Stephen Lyons, Russell Sholberg, and Jeff Younger. This special edition at the Western Front features Improv-ConcrĂŠte duo Collapsing Lung (Vancouver) and the avant large ensemble Nocturnal Puddle Reflections (Vancouver).
Stand Alone (Lost Solos
Stand Alone (Lost Solos and Musical Monologues) is a series of solo presentations exploring music as a twoway communication between performer and listener, and music as an activity experienced in solitude, with or without an audience.
Stand Alone I Bird on a Wire
Saturday, November 1, 8PM Western Front $12 door / $10 advance / $8 WF Members & Students
NOW Improvisation Workshops
October 6 through December 1, Mondays, 4-6pm Concert: Monday, December 8PM Western Front , FREE New Orchestra Workshop Society continues its annual workshop series for musicians interested in learning the techniques of improvised music. Each week, a different facilitator presents their own approaches to the spontaneous creation of music. Open to all levels of ability.
An evening of new electroacoustic works by eight composers, performed by recorder soloist Terri Hron. Additonal solo performances by bassist Dave Chokroun, and pianist Rachael Wadham.
Stand Alone II Pauline Oliveros
Saturday, November 28, 6-11PM FUSE @ Vancouver Art Gallery $15 + Tax Free for VAG Members Contemporary music legend Pauline Oliveros makes a rare Vancouver appearance with the Expanded Instrument System (EIS). Special guest appearance by sound artist/spoken-word performer Ione.
Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening Workshop
Saturday, November 29, 10AM-12PM Western Front $25 / $20 WF Members & Students. Space is Limited. Registration Required. Contact: newmusicadmin@front.bc.ca Deep Listening is a technique and philosophy developed by Pauline Oliveros that distinguishes between the involuntary nature of hearing, and the voluntary nature of listening. Workshop participants will learn to cultivate an appreciation of sounds on a heightened level, and expand their ability to connect and interact with their immediate environment. Photo by Gisella Gamper
Western Front Media Arts
Perspectives on an Archive For Perspectives on an Archive, Western Front Media Arts has invited three emerging curators from diverse backgrounds to curate programs of significant works selected from its Media Archive. The project includes a screening series, catalogue, a virtual exhibit, and in-house screenings on demand. November 26, 2008 7 to 9 PM
December 3, 2008 7 to 9 PM
December 10, 2008 7 to 9 PM
Between Here and There, Now and Then Curated by Liz Park
Ghost Dialogues Curated by cheyanne turions
Return to Sender Curated by Kemi Craig
Chip Lord, YVR: Arrival and Departure, 1979. Mona Hatoum, Bars, Barbs and Borders: The Negotiating Table, 1981. Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Roberto Sifuentes, Dangerous Border Game, 1996. Antonia Hirsch, Empire Line, 1998.
Cioni Carpi, Interview for the Birds, 1977. Tom Sherman, Individual Release, 1978. Dalibor Martinis, Dalibor Martinis Talks to Dalibor Martinis, 1978. Kate Craig, Delicate Issue, 1979.
Mona Hatoum, Measures of Distance, 1988. Hu Jie Ming, Who?, 1998. Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Initiation Ritual/Sacred Bath, 1991.
,7pm
FEATURE | STUDIO PROFILE
FRONT presents the first in a series of photo essays that profile artist collectives and collaborative studio spaces in Vancouver. If you know of a space we should feature, write to us at frontsubmissions@gmail.com.
Gropp’s Gallery
A Mount Pleasant Micro Utopia Photos by Robert Alder Text by Reanna Alder
Less than a hundred paces west of Main Street, on 6th Avenue, a dilapidated Victorian house perches on a grassy rise between a modern concrete block and an empty lot. The neglected remains of a kiddy pool installation on the front lawn, complete with plastic duck, astroturf and floodlights, testify to the passing of September’s SWARM festivities. A souvenir eviction notice on the front door is a reminder of previous tenants and the familiar trajectory of artist settlement.
Findings PAGE 40, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
“We think the landlords ran out of money.”
“It probably was a little bit of a crack house for a while,” says resident Jennifer Chernecki. She and Joanna Karczmarek, along with three other artists, have been renting the space since February. They have transformed the labyrinthine upper floor into a network of studios and bedrooms, where crumbling plaster and unfinished floors are nearly concealed by a lush ecosystem of art objects, costumes, textiles, paint and ephemera. Only the bathrooms, tidy and modern, betray a stalled renovation: “We think the landlords ran out of money. That’s probably why we had the opportunity to rent this place,” says Karczmarek. For Karczmarek and Chernecki, the seed of the artist collective dream was planted at the University of the Fraser Valley. “We had a really good community there,” says Karczmarek.
Left: Gropp’s Gallery. Above: An upstairs bedroom and studio. Right above: Joanna Karczmarek in the garage among found objects. Right below: Jennifer Chernecki at Sunday Night Art Club.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 41
“One term the college gave our department a house [for studio space],” adds Chernecki. “It was the old daycare, so it had all these teeny rooms, miniature toilets, and little handprints everywhere. Not everybody used it but some of did use it. The school totally forgot about it, so the place was open 24 hours.” “Everyone became friends,” says Karczmarek, ”when we didn't have classes we were alway hanging out, making art, talking about art. When we went off to other universities we lost that. We found that in bigger institutions, like Emily Carr and UVic, that community wasn't there. Ever since then we've been trying to recreate that original community from our first year at college.” Chernecki is also inspired by the European situationist movement of the 1960s. “The theorist Nicolas Bourriau said that utopia is not possible, but small pockets of utopia are. He calls it the ‘micro utopic impulse.’ It’s the impulse that small groups of people have to build perfection zones. That’s what this is.”
Findings PAGE 42, FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008
Above left: One room of the main floor gallery. Above: Karczmarek and Chernecki in the costume room. Joanna Karczmarek, 25, is curator of the Mission Museum. Jennifer Chernecki, 25, is assistant curator for the Pitt Meadows Museum. Gropp's Gallery is open for viewing by appointment (Gallery contact line: 604-568-0961), and openings. Their next opening is Nov 21st, 2008.
IMAGE | ASSEMBLY
Octavia
by Valérie Boxer Valérie Boxer is a Montreal artist with a BFA in Intermedia and Cyber Arts. She strives to translate the uncanny–ness of daily routine using fibre, performance art, video and interactive media. Octavia was created after joking with a friend about the idea of a multi-tasking ''perfect woman.'' Here is the all-mighty Octavia: eight arms to please, fight, care, create and seduce.
Findings FRONT, NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2008, PAGE 43
UQEVENTS.COM CALENDAR SHOWS IN PROGRESS Western Front Exhibitions The F Word -Curated by Alissa Firth-Eagland and Candice Hopkins runs to Nov 22
Access Gallery Elsewhere -†Mathieu Fraser-Dagenais, Anke Moormann, Ziad Naccache & Alexandra Ranner runs to Jan 17
Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery David Claerbout runs to Dec 7
Re:Entry Cafe The Plot†Angie Heinz runs to Dec†31
NOVEMBER 11
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Nov 18 Cineworks Post-Punk Feminist XXOX 7:30 Pacific Cinematheque
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Dec 3 Western Front Media Arts Perspectives on an Archive Screening Ghost Dialogues 7pm - 9pm
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Nov 21 Contemporary Art Gallery Summerland Shannon Oksanen runs to Jan 18, 2009
Nov 22 Open Space Sounding Secret Spaces 8pm Grace Lutheran Church
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SUNDAY
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THURSDAY
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FRIDAY
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WEDNESDAY
Nov 24 Open Space Pauline Oliveros Lecture 1pm University of Victoria, MacLaurin Bld.
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SUNDAY
27
MONDAY
28
TUESDAY
VIVO WORKSHOPS
Nov 8 PD Basics, 4-6pm
Dec 2 & 3 Circuit Building 6-9pm
Nov 15 Visual Media with PD, 4-7pm
Nov 4 & 5 Circuit Bending, 6-9pm
Nov 16 & 23 Sonic Media with PD, 4-7pm
Dec 9 & 10 Circuit Bending, 6-9pm
Nov 29 & 30 Media Integration & Interfacing with PD, 4-7pm
Dec 1 & 8 Kinetic Media & Electronics, 6-9:30pm
Nov 25 Gallery Flesh M Vancouv Markets Women runs un
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MONDAY
D W Pe Ar Re 7p
Dec 12 - 13 EDAM Dance The Conversation Peter Bingham with Company Blue Danza
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FRIDAY
THURSDAY
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WEDNESDAY
30
THURSDAY
implacement, n. [im:placement]
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1) Something found to be assumed, regardless of the way you may actually think or behave (cf. encumbrance, legacy) 2. Unalterable excrescence of a given dogma.
Jeff Otto O'Brien a Vancouver-based conceptual street photographer. In May, he will be in a group show at the Pierro Gallery, New Jersey. The FRONT indexisof useful terminology See also: http://otto-obrien.com/
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Dec 8 Western Front New Music NOW Improvisation Workshop Concert 8pm
VIVO WORKSHOPS
Envies Findings
5
WEDNESDAY
Nov 23 Open Space Deep Listening Workshop 1pm Open Space
Dec 8 - 12 EDAM Dance Improvisation workshop with Company Blu Danza
TUESDAY
MONDAY
Dec 5 Artspeak Bookwork Launch A Number of Things Micah Lexier, 8pm
WEDNESDAY
SATURDAY
Dec 6 Or Gallery shrink-wrapped Opening runs to Jan 24, 2009
5
FRIDAY
22
FRIDAY
THURSDAY
Dec 4 Contemporary Art Gallery Artist Talk Shannon Oksanen loc. TBA 604 681 2700
THURSDAY
4
TUESDAY
Nov 22 Presentation House Gallery Juliette and Friends runs to Jan 11, 2009
19
TUESDAY
MONDAY
SUNDAY
3
Nov 21 Gropp's Gallery Opening Call 604-568-0961
Nov Hel The &E Flab Nab run Rec
Nov 5 Gallery Gachet Balance of Power, Words and Symbols, and Nomads runs until Nov 23
MONDAY
SUNDAY
SATURDAY
Nov 17 Cinematheque In Person! Filmmaker & Musician Peggy Anne Berton 7:30pm The Legend of Buck Kelly, 9pm Scarecity
Nov 1 Western Front New Music Stand Alone I - Bird on a Wire 8pm
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v7 len Pitt Gallery e Set-Up -†Vanessa Kwan Eric Metcalfe b -Jenipher Hur & Avery bata ns until Dec 19 ception Dec 12, 8-11pm
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7
y Gachet Mapping: ver s Pacific n ntil Dec 10
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FRIDAY
THURSDAY
Nov 8 Artspeak Persistence: An Archive of Feminist Practices in Vancouver Runs to Jan 31, 2009
Nov 7 Western Front New Music En Masse III - Fake Jazz Fridays. Guest Curators Jeremy Van Wyck and Bill Batt 8pm
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Nov 26 Cineworks Thought on Film XI Out-loud reading group to coincide with XXOX, 6pm
Nov 27 Or Gallery Edition Launch Rodney Graham runs to Nov 30
Nov 26 Western Front Media Arts Perspectives on an Archive Screening: Between Here and There, Now and Then 7-9pm
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WEDNESDAY
Dec 10 Western Front Media Arts erspectives on an rchiveScreening eturn to Sender pm - 9pm
27
THURSDAY
10
Nov 28 Richmond Art Gallery Change Without Notice†Seaton and Susan Stewart Opening 7-9pm runs to Jan 25, 2009 Nov 28 Western Front New Music Stand Alone II - Pauline Oliveros 6-11pm FUSE @ Vancouver Art Gallery
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SATURDAY
12
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SUNDAY
14
MONDAY
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Nov 29 Western Front New Music Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening Workshop 10am - 12pm Pre-reg: Nov 29 Western Front Performance Art Fia Backström: Herd Instinct 360˚i0, 7pm
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MONDAY
12
Nov 29 Vancouver New Music Diamanda Gala's Let's not chat about despair St. Andrew's-Wesley Church, 8pm
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WEDNESDAY
Nov 14 Open Space Skid -†David Poolman, Jo-Anne Balcaen, Marlaina Buck 510 Fort Street Nov 14 Centre A Louise Noguchi Solo Exhibition Opening 8pm Runs to Dec 20
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14
FRIDAY
THURSDAY
Nov 15 Open Space Skid. Artist talk, 2pm
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THURSDAY
15
SATURDAY
Nov 15 Western Front New Music En Masse IV - Stitching and Unstitching, 8pm
1
DECEMBER
TUESDAY
Dec 1 Western Front New Music NOW Improvisation Workshops 4pm - 6pm
Live Media Installation Gallery Gachet runs to Dec 10 Opening Nov 28, 7pm
TUESDAY
Nov 13 Centre A WACK! Public Talk Series -†Louise Nagouchi† 7pm Vancouver Art Gallery
WEDNESDAY
Nov 25 - December 10 Vancouver Rape Relief Artful Conversation between Pacific Rim Women Vancouver Art Gallery, daily from 2-4pm until Dec 10
Dec 12 Gallery Gachet Moon in the Gutter, Heroes in the Counterculture and†Inside the Outside runs until Jan 4 Dec 13 Open Space Skid- artist talk 2pm
SATURDAY
Nov 12 EDAM Dance New work by Peter Bingham, Delia Brett & Chengxin Wei Performances Nov 14, 15, 19, 21 & 22, 8pm EDAM Dance Space
TUESDAY
MONDAY
SUNDAY
SATURDAY
Nov 8 & 9 Cineworks Introduction to Final Cut Pro for Laptops with Jason DeGroote 10am - 5pm
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FRIDAY
19
SATURDAY
20
MONDAY
Dec 6 Vancouver Rape Relief Open Conference Vancouver Public Library (central branch) 10am - 6pm
Western Front Toque - Holiday Sale 303 East 8th Ave Dec 5, 6pm - 9pm Dec 6, 11pm - 5pm Bunnies by Sonja Ahlers
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