It’s opening night at the 401 Richmond building, so if you’re looking for something that’s warm, cozy and arty, come by the building for openings at A Space, Gallery 44, Red Head Gallery and YYZ Artists’ Outlet. You can see the Akimbo posting here and below, which include details about all of the exhibitions.
A Space
Memory and Place
Jing Yuan Huang, Hye-Seung Jung, Marissa Largo
January 9 – February 6 2009
Opening Reception: Friday January 9, 7 – 9 pm
Memory and Place does not offer consolation or imaginary safety for diasporia’s losses. The subjectivities that are symbolized by the artists are looking backward and forward, inward and outward, but none of the migrations of time, place or memory are linear, easily mapped, or complete. Not only do the works of Jing Yuan Huang, Hye- Seung Jung, and Marissa Largo do not invoke tradition or recoup ‘ethnic identity’ – which might fill the gaps of diasporic emptiness – the images refuse the stability of identity. And what they communicate are openings: not answers or cemented memories, but subjectivities in motion.
Gallery 44
Right Frame, Wrong Film
Hans Gindlesberger and Nicholas Knight
January 9 – February 14 2009
Opening Reception: Friday January 9, 6 – 9 pm, artists in attendance
Artist talk: January 9, 6 – 7 pm
Right Frame, Wrong Film challenges the viewer’s expectations about photography and seeing. Gindlesberger’s I’m in the Wrong Film is a series of cinematic photographs of a character lost in suburbia. Knight’s site-specific trompe-l’oeil installations question the ways that photography frames its subjects. James D. Campbell, the exhibition brochure writer, states: “Gindlesberger and Knight are seasoned archaeologists of the seeing and the seen. Knight excavates the conventions of photographic practice in pursuit of a fully decoded aesthetic; Gindlesberger unearths potent psychological artifacts and tropes that imply much about place, non-place, belonging and alienation.” The artists will provide a tour of the exhibition on Friday, January 9, from 6 – 7 pm. A reception will follow.
Red Head Gallery
Everything that Appears
Suzanne Caines
January 7 – January 31 2009
Opening Reception: Friday January 9, 5 – 7 pm
Caines’ work critically engages with the ritualized nature of social conventions and tries to create spaces where those conventions can temporarily be destabilized. Her work also raises many questions around the role of the audience and artist and the dynamics of insider/outsider, which suggests a playing with the gap between expectation and actuality. Her work often embraces error and incongruity.
YYZ Artists’ Outlet
Robin Collyer
Mona Kamal | Journeys
January 10 – February 21 2009
Opening Reception: Friday January 9, 8:30 – 10:30 pm
open until 9pm on Thursday February 5
MONA KAMAL’s new body of work investigates themes of deconstruction and rebirth. She utilizes objects from nature, her personal surrounding and artifacts that she has collected over time to reference her childhood memories as well as familial stories. Working more as facilitator or restorer than artist, ROBIN COLLYER produces sculptural and photographic works through processes that eschew formal and compositional criteria. Through avoiding conventional means of production, Collyer facilitates “as-is” or “fixed-up” objects in unexpected ways.
Above Image: Robin Collyer’s Restored Panels brown (detail), 2008. Wood, paint, varnish, oil.
