York Exhibition by Diana Thater Opens at the
Art Gallery of York University

The Art Gallery of York University presents The best sense is the nonsense, an exhibition of new work by Diana Thater, from February 10 to April 4, 1999. This exhibition by the Los Angeles-based artist includes work shot in film and video, and incorporates wall projections as well as video monitors placed throughout the space. The exhibition is part of a larger project that has seen very different versions of the work on view in a number of disparate locations (New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Oberlin, Ohio and Toronto). In each of these exhibitions, Thater uses the idiosyncrasies of the different spaces, combined with the inherent production qualities of film and video technology, to create sensual meditations on the experience of time and space.

Of primary concern to Thater's work is the resolution of formal composition with narrative content. Not satisfied with simply presenting interesting images, Thater actively investigates why images are used, and seeks to bring the projected visuals into the realm of the real world. The walls, floors and windows of each exhibition space, and the viewers in the space, become part of the projected image ­ or the image becomes part of the world, no longer relegated to the illusory space of two dimensions.

For the work in this exhibition, Thater and her crew filmed and videotaped various subjects in a number of locations: trained zebras at an exotic animal farm; trained horses at a Medieval Times performance arena; and a forest bower in a Los Angeles arboretum. The images captured by her camera are staged tableaux of domesticated animals and cultivated nature. We see close-ups and optical effects of patterned skin. We see strange animal performances, and plays on depth and time. Thater complexly interlaces visual composition and narrative content to insist upon a necessary connection between the two concerns.

Diana Thater lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Since 1991 she has shown a number of noted exhibitions, including solo shows at The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, the Kunsthalle Basel, and the Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. In 1997 her work was part of Skulpturen Projekte, Münster. This is her first exhibition in Canada.

During the opening reception on Wednesday, February 10, the gallery will host a public dialogue between Diana Thater and Christine Ross, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at McGill University. Christine Ross is the author of Images de surface: l'art vidéo reconsidéré (Artexte, 1996), and has written extensively on the history and aesthetics of video art, electronic art and installation. This brief informal discussion will take place at 7:15 pm in the Faculty Club, Room South 166 Ross Building (down the hall from the gallery).