The Art Gallery of York University’s (AGYU) Spring 2009 mash-up is almost here. It starts with The Communism of Forms: Sound + Image + Time – The Strategy of Music Videos, a fluid exhibition whose first presentation at Galeria Vermelho in São Paulo, Brazil, three years ago has been remixed and restaged to resonate in the Toronto context.
Containing over 50 international works, the playlist has been edited, some works dropped out, others added and new works specifically commissioned for Toronto. The exhibition itself is divided between two venues – the AGYU and Red Bull 381 Projects in downtown Toronto – and has insinuated itself into this year’s Images Festival.
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While the spirit of the original presentation has been maintained, exhibition strategies akin to those employed in the works themselves will be presented to create another communism of forms. At AGYU, a series of seven programs – Black Album, Flipside, Replay I, Replay II (a selection of work by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard), MyTube, After Party I (a program of work by the nomadic collective assume vivid astro focus) and After Party II – will function as an archive of various themes in the history of artists’ music video. Red Bull 381 Projects will feature newly commissioned work and installations that diverge from specific reference to the genre to form new iterations of the interplay between sound, image and time.
The mash-up between the two venues is also present inside the exhibition with an intervention, programmed by the Images Festival, of Ming Wong’s Lerne Deutsch mit Petra Von Kant (Learn German with Petra Von Kant). Wong’s installation, in the midst of the AGYU’s exhibition, not only provides a filmic counterpoint to the themes taken up by artists working in the music video genre, but also provides another dimension to the viewers’ experience of the exhibition.
The launch of AGYU director and curator Philip Monk’s latest book, And While I Have Been Lying Here Perfectly Still: The Saskia Olde Wolbers Files (2009), and Mike Hoolboom’s publication Projecting Questions? Mike Hoolboom’s Invisible Man: Between the Art Gallery and the Movie theatre will also take place during the opening reception of The Communism of Forms at the AGYU.
The opening reception for The Communism of Forms will take place Wednesday, April 8 from 6 to 9pm at the AGYU and Thursday, April 9 from 6 to 9pm at Red Bull 381 Projects. The exhibit will run until June 14 at the AGYU, Accolade East Building, Keele campus, and until May 14 at Red Bull 381 Projects, 381 Queen St. W., Suite 200, Toronto. The AGYU exhibit is curated by AGYU assistant director/curator Emelie Chhangur and Earl Miller in Toronto along with Fernando Oliva and Marcelo Rezende in São Paulo, while the Red Bull 381 Projects exhibit is curated by Nicholas Brown and Miller in Toronto as well as Oliva and Rezende.
The following is the list of artists at each of the venues
AGYU: assume vivid astro focus, Bani Abidi, Bad Beuys Entertainment, Márcio Banfi, Laura Belém, David Blandy, Daniel Borins, Bull.Miletic, Miguel Calderón (Los Super Elegantes), Cocoon, Marilá Dardot and Cinthia Marcelle, Dennis Day, Fabio Faria, Chelpa Ferro, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Rodney Graham, Maki Guerzi, Mike Hansen, The Histrionics, Kaoru Katayama, Yuki Kawamura, Laibach, Rodrigo Matheus, Peaches, Elodie Pong, Stuart Pound, Sara Ramo, Tasman Richardson, Pipilotti Rist, Giorgio Ronna and Matias Aguayo, Corine Stübi, Tetine, Guido van der Werve and Ming Wong.
Red Bull 381 Projects: Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, Brady Cranfield, Anitra Hamilton, Mike Hansen, Rodrigo Matheus, Wagner Morales and Jeremy Jansen, Andrew J. Paterson, Valeska Soares and Weekend Leisure.
The AGYU Performance Bus will take exhibit goers to the opening reception of The Communism of Forms on Wednesday, April 8. While on the bus, listen to an audio-interpretation of Mike Hoolboom’s early film work by acclaimed video artist and writer Steve Reinke. It’s a throwback to Reinke’s HOOLBUS from 2004 that brought visitors to the opening reception of The Invisible Man. Reinke brings it all back, this time in celebration of the launch of Projecting Questions? Mike Hoolboom’s Invisible Man. The free Performance Bus leaves the Ontario College of Art and Design, 100 McCaul St. in Toronto, at 6pm sharp and returns downtown at 9pm.
For more information about what’s happening, visit the AGYU Web site. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday from 10am to 4pm, Wednesday from 10am to 8pm and Sunday from noon to 5pm. Admission to everything is free. To view the latest exchanges on the AGYU blog, visit the Studio Blog Web site.