Lara got married!
And I am tall.

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

Bruce Springsteen was 25 when he wrote Born To Run. Quarter-life crisis, here I come!

Hmmmmm

Anthropology of Love, Sex, and Marriage, or Caribbean Women Thinkers?

Proenza Schouler + Harmony Korine

I'm not sure how I feel about this Harmony Korine film for Proenza Schouler. Proenza Schouler are some of my favourite designers. And I guess I've been watching Harmony Korine films since I was pretty impressionable, the thing is I've always felt kind of uncomfortable about his work, which is his intention I guess. I've just never been able to sing his praises like many of my peers. Obviously the juxtaposition of high fashion and poverty is nothing new, but it's still a conversation that I feel is unresolved, and is still offensive in some instances. I guess enlisting Harmony Korine to make your fashion film means you've got some idea of what is to come, but I wonder how the designers feel about the final product, whether they see these social issues as interesting, offensive, etc etc.
I also wonder who these models are. I googled some of their names, just in case they were in fact working models, instead of real people, which is what I would expect from Harmony Korine. It seems that this film is the full extent of all of their modeling experience.

Another thing that springs to mind is the pretty constant question of why there are so few black models in mainstream fashion. Does using black women who are not working models in this fashion film add anything to this debate? Does showing these women, who are presumably lower class, and unlikely to be the intended consumer for Proenza Schouler, wearing these clothes mean anything?
Does it make the intended consumer feel like they are connecting with some authentic outsider experience?

Is this film even really meant to sell the clothes or to simply garner attention ? The truth is, the quality is so low that unless you've already seen these clothes, and you know what you're looking at, it's kind of hard to decipher any real detail or design.
Am I doing that thing that overpriveleged feminists do, trying to force agency upon other women by interpreting this film in all of these ways?

Fashion and Feminism are two of my favourite things, and I can never really figure out where the positive influence of either on each other starts and ends.

Here's the film.



UPDATE

This interview exists.


I don't really think it adds much to the conversation though...

Yes!



I want.

Soul Sister