The Power Plant exploring moving images opens in Toronto

With the Aesthetica Short Film Competition well underway (entries are coming in from as far as Australia, Israel, India, Canada, US, Brazil and even Argentina), I am increasingly seeing the vast diversity in film. From shorts that take more traditional format to more experimental cinema, I’m finding the entire genre of moving image enhancing the cultural landscape and exploring new possibilities for contemporary visual culture. Coming up in the April issue of Aesthetica, there’s a feature on the Artists’ Cinema Project (a collaboration of the Independent Cinema Office and LUX). It’s definitely worth checking out if you want to explore the endless possibilities of film and video.

An amazing new project launches on 26 March at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. The project examines the work of four acclaimed moving-image artists. Representing a range of different generations, styles and forms, the four solo artists all experiment with the idea of screen space and play with the relationships between viewers, moving images and the site of the gallery. From pioneering video artist Peter Campus to rising young star Ryan Trecartin, these international artists are united in exploring the space of the screen through their thrilling experiments in film and video. The works presented demonstrate the different ways by which each artist considers both the representational space of the moving image, and the gallery space in which the work is presented, providing a multi-dimensional and immersive visitor experience.



Power Plant Director Gregory Burke elaborates: “Each artist engages to varying degrees with both the real, material world and the realm of fantasy and imagination, ranging from Campus psychological investigations to Sharon Lockhart working in an anthropological documentary tradition, to Joachim Koester, whose 16mm films evoke altered mental states, or Ryan Trecartin, who captures the dizzying mindset of a generation raised by the internet in his hallucinogenic videos. More, The Power Plant is pleased to present these important projects timed to coincide with the 23rd Images Festival here in Toronto.”

Ryan Trecartin: Any Ever is the first Canadian solo exhibition for this 28-year-old artist, and the first stop of its major world tour. The exhibition brings together for the first time two recent bodies of work: the three-part Trill-ogy Comp (2009), parts of which made a splash at the New Museumss 2009 Younger Than Jesus Triennial, and the just-completed, four-part series ReSearch WaitS (2010). Together they form Trecartins most ambitious project to date, a sprawling seven-video epic that is the largest of our four spring exhibitions. With an insomniac energy and frenetic editing, Trecartin choreographs a cracked parallel universe only slightly more surreal than the one we actually inhabit. The artist explores consumer culture and fractured identity in the digital age, both through his long-form videos and via the containers he creates for their viewing whose contents (IKEA furniture, schoolyard equipment, etc.) mirror the environments seen in the videos, extending them into the space of the gallery. Trecartin, whose work has already become iconic through mediums such as YouTube, was recently featured in Vogue as one of the most notable artists, finding inventive ways to depict the figure in the contemporary world. The exhibition is curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs, and Jon Davies, Assistant Curator of Public Programs.



Sharon Lockhart: Podwrka features a single new work by the U.S. artist that captures six groups of neighbourhood youth as they play in seemingly deserted yards in Ldz, Poland, offering an intimate portrait of daily life. Shot with a fixed camera, this single-channel projection highlights Lockharts concern for the interrelationship between the still and the moving image, and evidences her nuanced observational gaze at different communities she has encountered. Always very attuned to the architecture in which her work is presented, Lockhart presents this piece within two sculptural volumes at The Power Plant. Lockharts acclaimed film and photography work has been shown in galleries and cinemas around the world, including in Life on Mars: The 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2008). Co-presented with the Images Festival, this exhibition is curated by Power Plant Director Gregory Burke and Images Festival Artistic Director Pablo de Ocampo.

Peter Campus: Reflections and Inflections juxtaposes the legendary video artists iconic early work Anamnesis (1974) with a new multi-channel video, Inflections: changes in light and colour around Ponquogue Bay (2009), spanning 35 years of Campuss pioneering practice and his move from treating video as a sculptural to a pictorial medium. Sure to be one of the highlights for visitors, Anamnesis involves a closed-circuit television, which confronts viewers with images of themselves at a time-delay demonstrating the mediums capacity for transforming viewers perceptions of self and of duration in the gallery space. Curated by Director Gregory Burke, this exhibition features an American artist who has led a very distinguished career, including work in photography and computer-based images. In addition to being included in numerous biennials, major group exhibitions and in dozens of museum collections, Campus has had recent solo exhibitions at Albion Gallery, London (2007) and the BFI Southbank Gallery, London (2009-2010).

Joachim Koester: Hypnagogia explores the threshold between consciousness and sleep in the three films that comprise Joachim Koesters first solo show in Canada: Tarantism (7 min., 2007), My Frontier is an Endless Wall of Points (after the mescaline drawings of Henri Michaux) (11 min., 2007) and To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda) (3 min, 2009). Projected onto floating screens, creating a mysterious and otherworldly environment, these black and white 16mm film loops suggest conscious and unconscious states and gestures, irrationality, loss of control and possession, and the fringes of the body that Koester terms the grey zone. Koester is a Danish artist based in Copenhagen and Brooklyn. He represented Denmark in the 2005 Venice Biennale. Hypnagogia is curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs.

All four exhibitions will be accompanied by special, not-to-be-missed programmes, some of which offer direct access to the artists. The Power Plant will present Ryan Trecartin in conversation with the curators on 23 March as part of its International Lecture Series.

Please visit www.harbourfrontcentre.com for more information, dates, and tickets.


Images:
(c)Ryan Trecartin, Sibling Topics (Section A), 2009.
Courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee, New York.

Sharon Lockhart, Podwórka, 2009.
Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York.

Chic Crafts: Beauty in Repetition

Craft is undergoing a renaissance. I think that for some the word evokes sewing circles and Popsicle sticks, but really there is so much more to it, recently, I’ve even started reading Crafts magazine (published by the Crafts Council), and I find it incredibly inspiring. It makes me want to start creating! So I was delighted to learning about Junko Mori and Jacqueline Ryan’s new show opening in the Lake District at Blackwell Arts and Crafts House later this month.



Beauty in Repetition demonstrates the artists’ commitment to intensive hand working and an innate need to undertake every aspect of the creation of a piece themselves, a philosophy which comfortably links Mori and Ryan to the metalsmiths and jewellers of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Like Baillie Scott (1865 -1945), Blackwell’s architect, Mori and Ryan share a love of nature: Baillie Scott’s epitaph reads:”Nature he loved, and next to Nature, Art.”

Mori and Ryan both collect plant materials, and create drawings and sketches to abstract detail from them - examples of which are included in the exhibition. There is substantial evidence throughout Blackwell of Baillie Scott’s genius for assemblage. In a similar spirit to Baillie Scott, Mori and Ryan use the repetition of elements inspired by nature to create a harmonious whole. The sculptural works of Junko Mori and the jewellery of Jacqueline Ryan, like Blackwell itself, seem to incorporate within them some essence of natural beauty.



Beauty in Repetition offers the first opportunity to view their work both individually and in relation to each other: an opportunity which reveals an exhilarating resonance and meeting points, as well as insights into their differing working methods and processes. Nature may provide a common source, however, they interpret it in very different ways. Whereas Ryan tends to focus on abstraction, Mori focuses on form; and whereas Ryan plans her work minutely in advance, Mori prefers to allow her work to develop more organically.

Mori and Ryan come from diverse cultural backgrounds: Jacqueline Ryan was born in North London in 1966 and Junko Mori was born in Yokohama in 1974, they use different metals and create very different objects in both type and scale, yet they share a great deal in their approach to their work. Both Mori and Ryan find beauty in repetition: the bringing together of countless individual elements, each subtly different, to create a harmonious whole. Their work conveys what one can only describe as an apparent effortlessness of execution, which could hardly be further from the reality. As a result, both artists achieve an awe-inspiring visual harmony within their work. Every piece seems to have found its natural form; each is exactly
as it should be. Such skill has the capacity to produce in the viewer or wearer a feeling of serenity and joy which is surely the result of its maker’s total immersion in the object’s creation.

Artists working at their exceptionally high level of skill and commitment can feel isolated in their working practice. Their discovery of their artistic compatibility has therefore been a source of pleasure for them both. Mori and Ryan consider their work makes them natural soul mates. "We seem to share the same love of nature though we are from two different cultures," enthuses Ryan. "We correspond very closely in terms of our visual language because nature has linked us somehow…Her [Junko’s] sculptures have to be the “soul-mates” of my jewellery!"

Beauty in Repetition opens 27 March and continues until 13 June www.blackwell.org.uk

The exhibition in association with Adrian Sassoon, London.

Open daily 10.30am - 5.00pm
Admission: Adult - £6.50
Children over 5 and
Full-time Students - £3.80
Family - £17.25

Images credits:

(c) Jacqueline Ryan
(c) Junko Mori

A New Initiative for Art Graduates in London

Imagine being a recent art graduate? I mean the doom and gloom of recent times is like a nasty piece of gum stuck on your shoe, it’s annoying and hard to shake – frankly you can’t even fathom touching it. So, I feel it’s always worth a mention when galleries are doing something different with their programming to support the next generation. I’ve been a fan of the Timothy Taylor Gallery for a few years now, with shows that are not only exciting but also enriching in today’s cultural climate.

The Viewing Room, a new initiative by the Timothy Taylor Gallery launches this month. In association with Domo Baal, Christopher Hanlon, a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, London will be the first artist to have his work shown under this new umbrella series.

Hanlon's hermetic and tonally low-key paintings appear at first to be fragments of a psychologically charged drama. Typically presented in small installations, Hanlon’s apparently heterogeneous arrangements of abstract and figurative paintings slowly combine to convey feelings of disenchantment and longing, without recourse to a unifying or underlying narrative.



In Broken Vendor (2009) and Untitled (Screen 2), 2008, flat fields of subtly modulated colour situated in empty and ambiguous spaces block and frustrate the viewer’s gaze. In Hanlon’s more Baroque geometrical experiments, a multiplication of folds and attendant shadows confuse the eye, which is further disorientated by unexpected changes in the surface texture and opacity of paint.



Themes of masking and obscuring similarly occur in Hanlon’s figurative compositions. In The Lull, 2010 the artist’s anonymous and mute protagonist averts her eyes, where in other paintings his characters turn their backs towards the viewer altogether. In both his abstract and figurative paintings, Hanlon alludes to the inadequacies and failure of communication and language, whether it be visual, spoken, or expressed in a gesture.



Christopher Hanlon was born in 1978 in the UK and currently lives and works in London. He received his MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2008 and was part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries in the same year. Hanlon recently exhibited at the Renaissance Society at University of Chicago (2009), and Domo Baal, London (2009).

Christopher Hanlon opens 17 March and continues until 9 April. For further information visit www.timothytaylorgallery.com

Image Credits

Christopher Hanlon
‘Untitled’, 2009
Oil on canvas stretched over board
17 1/2 x 13 in. / 45 x 33.5 cm

Christopher Hanlon
‘Untitled (Screen 2)’, 2008
Oil on canvas stretched over board
12 1/2 x 14 in. / 32 x 36 cm

Christopher Hanlon
‘The Lull’, 2010
Oil on canvas stretched over board
23 x 16 in. / 58 x 40 cm