September 2012: The First YYretroZpective and Latest YYZBOOKS Release
Mallory Wilkinson
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OPENING RECEPTION YYretroZpective SATURDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2012 - YYretroZpective
An
artist-initiated and self-curated take on the retrospective exhibition.
At YYZ, we put artists first. We provide them with the space and
support to create freely and we respect their vision and practice in
whatever form they wish to present it. We believe that it is important
for an artist-run centre to support artists at all stages of their
careers, from giving them their first show out of school to taking a
survey look at their practice. GALLERY HOURS FOR INTERVIEWS
NEW RELEASE
BOOK LAUNCH | H& IT ON Edited by Adam Lauder and featuring IAIN BAXTER&
ALSO AVAILABLE One for Me and One to Share: Artists' Multiples and Editions Byproduct: On the excess of Embedded Art Pracitces Art and Cold Cash decentre Performance, [Performance] and Performers Pro Forma - Full Series afterthoughts
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BRIAN GROOMBRIDGE | small telescopes
Brian Groombridge will be exhibiting sculptures and wall works in YYZ’s first YYretroZpective. It is a chance to view a selection of his production since 1989. In many instances, the art was only shown once and this is an opportunity to see how particular works engage with each other. Groombridge’s practice is characterized by a deceptive simplicity of form and an economy of materials. He makes evocative use of structural and poetic elements, including aspects of communication and perception, construction and measurement. He refers to the transient nature of things, to balance and to reciprocity. Recent work explores a perceptual notion that he has developed, called ‘'undeliverable space,'' which comes from a continuing interest in parameters challenged by the absence of a fixed dimension.
Elisa Strinna & Eva Cenghiaro: Wood Songs, 2002. Photo credit: Giuditta Ambrosini. Groombridge has selected the practice of artists Elisa Strinna and Eva Cenghiaro (Italy) to complement his exhibition. They will exhibit the audio work Wood Songs (2002) in our YYZWINDOW, which consists of a series of records fabricated from found wood and played on a standard turntable. BRIAN GROOMBRIDGE has been exhibiting since 1978, his first solo show being at YYZ in 1979. Groombridge attended both Sheridan College (1972) and the Ontario College of Art where he participated in the O.C.A. NY Off-Campus Study Program (1977). A selection of his recent exhibitions include, Like- Minded, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg (2012), Model (interior) of Piet Munson House, Utrecht, 1922-24, Convenience Gallery, Toronto (2010), Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto (2008), Me and Them, Kenderdine Art Gallery, Saskatoon (2007), and The Cold City Years, The Power Plant, Toronto (2005). Groombridge is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto. ELISA STRINNA was born in Padua, Italy. After graduating from Bologna> Fine Arts Academy, she received her MFA in Visual Arts from IUAV, Venice. In her work, Strinna focuses on issues such as the relationship between man and nature, the connections between art market and politics, and the cultural dynamics produced by the transnational displacement of people and goods. Some of Strinna’s latest exhibitions include RE-Generation, MACRO Testaccio, Rome (2012), HELICOTREMIA, festivals of recorded audio, Greenhouse Gardens, Venice (2012), EXTRA SPIRITO, Baldassini Palace, Rome (2012). In 2011 Strinna won the 13th edition of Movin' up, the support mobility program for Italian young artists in the world. EVA CENGHIARO was born in Padua, Italy. Cenghiaro attended the University of Urbino where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts. She also studied at IUAV University in Venice, where she received her Masters of Visual Arts Design and Production. Her work aims to realize interdisciplinary projects through the use of different mediums: sculpture, drawing, landscape design and installation. A selection of Cenghiaro’s exhibitions include What’s the Matter?, Palazzo della Gran Guardia,Verona (2010), Common ground: Project for the Lagoon, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Palazzetto Tito,Venezia (2010), Eppur si muove (And yet it moves), Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guarene D’Alba (2009). YYZBOOKS LAUNCH | H& IT ON Cover image: H& IT ON (2012). H& IT ON BOOK LAUNCH YYZBOOKS new title probes the turbulent social environments generated by information technologies. In a suite of all-new photo- and language-based works, conceptual artist IAIN BAXTER& (a.k.a. Iain Baxter) stages a satirical theatre of far-from-equilibrium behaviours and trends characteristic of a chronically web-surfing culture. The artist’s intervention loosely adapts the irreverent format of Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 collaboration with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage—a constant inspiration to “the&Man,” as BAXTER& has recently re branded himself—to explore the effects of social media on the contemporary information landscape. But make no mistake, there is nothing nostalgic about BAXTER&’s nod to the “McCoolman,” as he calls him. As in all his work since 1968, BAXTER&’s approach to information is always hands on. H& IT ON follows BAXTER& as he plays with and repurposes artifacts and affects circulating within the trade routes of the Information Society to create an unruly collage of observation and ideas. H& IT ON also includes new essays by Adam Lauder and Dennis Durham that, for the first time, situate BAXTER&’s pioneering, information-based practice historically within a North American context. Lauder’s essay positions BAXTER& within a distinctly Canadian tradition of information art characterized by a persistent focus on affect, embodiment, and the multitude. The first history of information art in Canada, Lauder’s “Trade Routes of the Mind” explores Canadian artists’ reading against the grain of indigenous formulations of information and the Information Society in the work of Harold A. Innis, McLuhan, and others—from Bertram Brooker to General Idea, and beyond. Durham’s essay is essential reading for understanding the international significance of BAXTER&. It compares and contrasts BAXTER&’s art of Visual Sensitivity Information, as creator of the Vancouver-based N.E. Thing Co., with cybernetic representations of entropy found in the contemporaneous work of American artists Robert Smithson and Dan Graham. H& IT ON also includes a preface by renowned McLuhan and BAXTER& scholar, Richard Cavell. Produced with support from Dr. Darko Gagro and Dr. Peter Valjas. IAIN BAXTER& is Professor Emeritus at the University of Windsor, Canada. BAXTER& (or, “the&MAN”), has been described as the “the visual Marshall McLuhan of our times.” He is a member of the Order of Canada, as well as of the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Ontario. He received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2004. In awarding him the Molson Prize in 2005, the jury stated that, “IAIN BAXTER& is widely influential as an artist and teacher. His art has made us question, laugh, re-examine and think. He is one of society’s greatest innovators.” His pioneering information art— including experiments with Telex and telecopier—establishes BAXTER& as the first Canadian conceptual artist. Moreover, his innovative photographic practice positions him as a founder of the Vancouver School of photoconceptualism. BAXTER& created and founded the conceptual art project and enterprise N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. in 1966. NETCO was legally incorporated in January 1969, and coadministered with Ingrid Baxter until 1978. BAXTER& has worked for the Polaroid Corporation, and as a creative consultant for Sidney Oland, President of Labatt’s Breweries. His most recent work draws on a life-long exploration of the creative fusion of ecology and the contemporary information landscape. BAXTER& has lived in Windsor, Ontario, Canada since 1988 with his wife/collaborator of thirty years Louise Chance Baxter& and their cat Molson. ADAM LAUDER is W.P. Scott Chair for Research in e-Librarianship at York University, Toronto, Canada, where he is developing an online catalogue raisonné of the work of IAIN BAXTER&, the IAINBAXTER&raisonnE. He is also the author of a chapter on BAXTER& and the N.E. Thing Co. in the YYZBOOKS title, Byproduct: On the Excess of Embedded Art Practices, as well as a contributor to Border Crossings, C, and Hunter and Cook magazines. Lauder is the author of articles on BAXTER& appearing in the journals Technoetic Arts, The Journal of Canadian Art History, Rampike and Art Documentation. Lauder has also written a chapter on Bertram Brooker that appears in The Logic of Nature, The Romance of Space: Elements of Canadian Modernist Painting.
YYZ ARTISTS' OUTLET T: 416.598.4546 |
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