Rashaad Newsome, ICON (video still), 2014.
Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Gallery, New York
The Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) launches its new exhibit Silence Please, the Show is About to Begin April 8 at 6pm at the main gallery in the Accolade East Building on York University’s Keele campus.
Silence Please, the Show is to Begin is the first Canadian exhibition by New York artist Rashaad Newsome. It features recent video, performance and collage works by Newsome that explode constructions of gender, race and class.
With big, bright and bold compositions, Newsome’s work bursts with light and colour. Images drip with gold chains, diamond rings and jewel studs. Through sampling, clashing and choreographing the iconic works of hip-hop artists and the legendary moves of ballroom superstars, with motifs from Baroque architecture, images of European heraldry and tales from medieval poems, Newsome proclaims a new vision of blackness and queerness.
Silence Please, the Show is About to Begin runs until June 14.
Rashaad Newsome, ICON (video still), 2014.
Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Gallery, New York
Too shy to bust a move or strike a pose? Not to worry. Choreographer Cara Spooner is on AGYU’s Performance Bus for Speed Dating for (Non) Dancers. The Performance Bus encourages riders to release their inner dancer while on route to the exhibition opening of Silence Please, the Show is About to Begin on April 8. Bumpin’ and shakin’ along on a school bus brings a whole new definition to embodied experience. AGYU’s Performance Bus is free and departs OCAD U (100 McCaul St.) at 6pm sharp and returns downtown at 9pm.
The tone at the AGYU shifts with Daniel Cockburn’s I Can Feel It, on display April 8 to June 14 in the AGYU vitrines. Silently rocking out along the Accolade East Building’s corridor, each of the three vitrines flashes a famous Phil Collins song with the exact same rhythm and tempo. Lyrics to Collins’ songs pulse on the video screens, one word at a time.
In case the vitrines create an earworm of Collins’ lyrics, AGYU’s experimental music platform is located just outside the gallery entrance, and this iteration features beats and chants by Toronto’s multidisciplinary TravoyintheFlesh. These sounds will be fab, fierce and fun.
If you want to see some sexy moves stripped bare, take a peep into Public Studio’s Public Window from April 8 to 19. Public Window features Untitled and Untitled (New Way), a poetic and subtle work by Newsome from 2010 that catalogues the traditional styles, variations and gestures of the New York ballroom community.
Silence Please, the Show is About to Begin is curated by AGYU Assistant Curator Suzanne Carte and is an Images Festival Off-Screen exhibition.
Later this season, AGYU invites you to get down, down, down in a burning ring of fire as part of artist Marlon Griffith’s 300-person strong street procession Aug. 9 along University Avenue from Queen’s Park to City Hall. To learn more, email procession@theAGYUisOutThere.org.
AGYU is a university-affiliated, public, non-profit, contemporary art gallery supported by York University, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and our membership. It is located in the Accolade East Building at 4700 Keele St., Keele campus. Gallery hours are: Monday to Friday, from 10am to 4pm; Wednesday, from 10am to 8pm; Sunday, from 12 to 5pm; and closed Saturday.
For more information, visit the gallery’s website at theAGYUisOutThere.org.