The Art Gallery of York University launches two new exhibitions for its fall season

From Sept. 11 to Dec. 1, the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) launches its fall exhibitions. A major exhibition by Caecilia Tripp, her first in Canada, is partnered with an exhibition of Jae Jarrell, a program of the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art. Both exhibitions will officially open on Wednesday, Sept. 11, during an evening reception that runs from 6 to 9 p.m. in the gallery’s space in the Accolade East Building at York University’s Keele Campus.

Additional works by both artists will be on view at the official Toronto Biennial of Art venue located at 259 Lake Shore Blvd. E. in Toronto. Visit the Toronto Biennial of Art website for more details.

Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding

Known for working at the intersection of artistic and scientific inquiry, Paris- and New York-based artist Tripp creates immersive film, participatory performance and sculptural installations that transgress the notions of fixed identities and bounded geographies in the service of more ethereal expression. Drawing inspiration from the depths of the Earth to the interstellar and beyond, Tripp is interested in “how collective imagination could help weave a fabric of dream that has no boundaries.”

Her exhibition, titled Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding, is the culmination of two years of research and residencies with AGYU. It brings together recent and commissioned works – including the AGYU/Sharjah Biennial film commission Even the Starts look Lonesome (2019) – that politically engage Martiniquan poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant’s pensée du tremblement: a universe of thinking that trembles, shakes, vibrates and stays multiple.

Tripp’s work has been shown in galleries, museums and public streets internationally. Some of the most notable venues include the PSI/MOMA in New York; the Museum of Modern Art in Paris; Clark House Initiative in Mumbai; the Brooklyn Museum and the Bronx Museum in New York; and Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine commune in Paris.

Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding is curated by Emelie Chhangur, interim director/curator of the AGYU, and produced through an extended engagement between artist and curator over the past two years. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Toronto branch of the Cultural & Scientific Office of the French Embassy, located at the French Consulate in Toronto. The exhibition is produced with the support of the Institut Français, Paris and the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in Canada.

Jae Jarrell

Born in Cleveland in 1935, the legendary artist Jae Jarrell made her first Revolutionary Suit in 1969. Constructed of grey tweed, the suit featured a bright yellow suede bandolier stitched along the edge of the jacket. Running from shoulder to hip, the slots of the bandolier are filled with either brightly coloured wooden pegs or pastels, ammunition for creation or for revolution. For Jarrell, the bandolier was not simply a fashion accessory. “We were saying something when we used the belts. We’re involved in a real revolution,” said Jarrell.

From the beginning of her practice, Jarrell merged art and design with Black liberation politics. In 1968, Jarrell co-founded the influential collective AFRICOBRA, the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, in response to what she said is "a lack of positive presentation of African American people in media and the arts."

Co-presented with the Toronto Biennial of Art, the Jae Jarrell exhibition gathers together sculptures, original designs and archival material spanning nearly 50 years of Jarrell’s radical practice.

Among the many important cultural institutions that have exhibited Jarrell’s work are the Smithsonian Institution, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the Langston Hughes Center for Visual & Performing Arts in Seattle, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the National Center for Afro American Artists in Boston.

Jae Jarrell is curated by Candice Hopkins and Tairone Bastien and is co-presented by the AGYU and the Toronto Biennial of Art.

The AGYU gallery hours are Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed on Saturdays.

The AGYU promotes 2SLGPTQIAP-positive spaces and experiences and is barrier-free. All events are free and open to the public.

The AGYU is a public, university-affiliated, non-profit contemporary art gallery that is supported by York University, the Canada Council of the Arts, the Province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council and the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.