Group Show

I have some work is this show opening tomorrow night....


Slight Gestures
Curated by Gregory Denton and Xenia Benivolski

The ten artists whose works make up Slight Gestures create objects and images that are strangely compelling, and they do so with relatively simple methods and with everyday materials. Certainly, these strategies are not new in art making, but these ten share a sensibility that deserves some direct attention. The pieces are marked by a sentimentality and reverence that offsets the straight conceptualism of some of the process-based work, and inspires reverence and curiosity in the viewer. Why do we keep some things while we throw others away? How do you decide which piece should be seen, what is worthy of an audience? what is the minimal requirement for a gesture?

Entropy and chance play a role here, as does humour:

By allowing technical flaws the artists are freed from the burdens of style and are guided instead by moral and emotional attachment to an absurd end. In an interview with Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Jörg Heiser once said "These stories of failure and collapse and then not failing after all – that’s also the heroic theme of slapstick: the hero who accidentally breaks something, but in so doing brings about a stroke of good fortune and knocks over the villain, etc. You laugh because something that cannot really work actually does work. It’s a kind of triumph."

In choosing these artists, we wanted to know if that sensibility could be made clear. We asked the artists for their own views about their practice and used their input to create the show’s title. In the transcription of that conversation, included here, Nikki Woolsey describes her sculptures as a collage of objects that speak to one another - their relationship is even described as a romantic one. In seeing these works together, we create a larger conversation between the diverse and thoughtful practices of these artists.

By using found and ready made objects, prints and collage, artists are building things that they feel warrant our attention and sentiment. Janis Demkiw is embellishing an embellishment, James Gardner rescued pieces of compositions from his studio floor otherwise headed for the garbage bin, Victoria Cheong presents a projection screen specific for video that has detached itself from its original function and Mark MacKinnon aesthetically alters his TTC Uniform in a minimal, performative gesture.




This exhibition features work by:

Nadia Belerique
Victoria Cheong
Lyndsey Cope
Janis Demkiw
James Gardner
Christy Kunitzky
Cameron Lee
Mark G. MacKinnon
Jennifer Rose Sciarrino
Nikki Woolsey

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, October 14 at 7:00pm.

The exhibition continues on Friday, October 15 and Saturday, October 16 from 11:00am - 6:00pm.

A commemorative publication will accompany the exhibition.

via Xenia's website