During their residency, BGL are working with a team of 10 visual arts students to assemble an installation titled Fancy Canada. The installation will be part of Oh, Canada, the largest survey of contemporary Canadian art ever produced outside this country. The show will be on view May 27, 2012 to April 1, 2013 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Masssachusetts, one of most visited institutions in the United States dedicated to new art. Curated by Denise Markonish, Oh, Canada will feature work by more than 60 Canadian artists spanning multiple generations and working in all media.

Artist's rendering of BGL's installation "Fancy Canada"

“BGL has been on our radar for a potential artist residency for a while, for their innovative collaborative approach to public art as well as the unparalleled energy and ambition they bring to the studio,” said Professor Brandon Vickerd, who organized and oversees the residency. “Fancy Canada is by far the largest and most ambitious project undertaken in the history of the Louis Odette Sculptor-in-Residence program.”

With Fancy Canada, BGL are continuing their playful investigation of security fences, building on two previous projects: Solos, an installation that spoke to collective values, social issues, political events and cultural patterns (Rodman Hall Art Centre, St. Catharines, 2010) and Fancy Fences, which suspended crowd barriers up high in trees (CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area), 2011).

“The steel fence, an urban and modern object of crowd control, offers us great possibility,” said BGL. “We want to use it to realize carousels, arches and mobiles that inspire freedom and creativity. We will transform this object that was intended to reduce delinquency into something that inspires delirium.”

For more than a decade, BGL have been creating sculptures, prints and installations that humorously critique the commercialism of contemporary culture. Having also explored larger themes such as death, truth and the role of art, BGL aims to make the viewer simultaneously fascinated and uncomfortable. Whether simulating and deconstructing the real, or appropriating and juxtaposing recycled materials, BGL sets out to unhinge the limits of the art-viewing process, prompting the viewer to take the time to watch for details and surrender fixed notions of the boundaries between art and life.

BGL was a finalist for the 2006 Sobey Art Award and was included in the Montreal Biennial 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include Cultiver son jardin at the Centre de design à l’UQAM, Montreal and Marshmallow + Cauldron + Fire =, at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver.  Recent group shows include Dorm at The Model, Sligo, Ireland, Manoeuvers at Galerie Toni Tàpies in Barcelona and Caught in the Act: Viewer as Performer, at the National Gallery of Canada.

Artist's rendering for BGL's installation "Fancy Canada"

The Louis Odette Sculptor-in-Residence program launched in York’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 2000. The program strives to create a dynamic learning environment which supports the advancement of the art of sculpture, and where students benefit from participation in and observation of professional studio practices. The residency provides the opportunity for upper-level undergraduate visual arts students to develop an enhanced working understanding of sculpture techniques from the perspective of eminent guest artists. Previous guests of the program include Justin Novak and Brendan Lee Satish Tang (2011), James Carl (2006), William Tucker (2005), Claire Brunet (2003) and Liz Magor (2000).

The Louis Odette Sculptor-in-Residence program is made possible with the generous support of the P. & L. Odette Charitable Foundation.

These audio works are “field recordings” produced by students in the Sound for Artists course taught by Professor Marc Couroux in the Department of Visual Arts. Students are given free rein to either capture the sound of an existing space or to conjure one, by editing or “preparing” the environment to create a sound documentary or fiction.

Listen to an Audio Out compilation culled from sound works by (in heard sequence) Marcelino Da Costa, Evelyn Hall, Ana Cristina Cornejo, Jennifer MacDonald, Miles Forrester and Brock Wreford:

“Sound as an art medium is growing exponentially,” said Couroux. “Exposing visual arts students to its possibilities and putting recording equipment into their hands is adding York’s voice to an important international art dialogue.”

While the projects show a great deal of diversity, they all had the same starting point. Couroux asked the class a number of questions – How wide is the field? Where is the frame? – and suggested some possibilities and considerations,  such as  allowing or activating the environment do the work,  creating folds and dips in time, background noise and the artifacts of capture.

As important as the creative process is, the artists also want their works to be heard. In addition to AGYU’s Audio Out broadcast, several sound interventions were presented in the Fine Arts complex on York’s Keele campus this season, including audio installations at the Visual Arts Open House exhibition Psychopomp in March and a dedicated show in the Special Project Gallery last December that made some serious waves in the Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts.

“People are still talking about that show,” said Couroux.  “You could hear it throughout most of the building, including in the painting and drawing studios. Sound art poses a bit of a challenge to visual media. It’s inherently temporal, and how the experience of the work unfolds over time becomes part of how you relate to the work. Sound is also very immersive. It’s harder to avoid than many other types of visual art.

“If we’re causing a disruption, I think it’s a positive one.”

The Summer Institute features public presentations on campus by Canadian conceptual artist Ken Lum, independent Vienna-based curator Ruth Noack, and Amelia Jones, Grierson Chair in Visual Culture at McGill University.

The Institute culminates in a free public lecture by Israeli cultural theorist, curator and writer Ariella Azoulay. Her talk, titled “Potential History”, is presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and takes place at MOCCA on May 3.

From left: Ken Lum, Ruth Noack, Amelia Jones

Vancouver-based multi-disciplinary artist Ken Lum is known internationally for his large-scale public commissions that speak to issues of personal and cultural identity in a globalized world. He gives an illustrated talk on his work, titled “Art in the Public Sphere”, at York on April 24.

Curator Ruth Noack, whose exhibitions on the theme of “Die Regierung/The Government” have been shown in the United States and across Europe for the past decade, speaks on “Making Exhibitions in a Global Context” April 26.

Professor Amelia Jones has written widely on contemporary art and on feminist, queer and anti-racist approaches to visual culture. She discusses her research findings in her April 30 talk, “Queer Feminist Durationality: The Trace of the Subject in Contemporary Art”.

Ariella Azoulay

In “Potential History”, her May 3 lecture at MOCCA, Ariella Azoulay will address the possibilities that motivate and direct civic actions that critique or supplant without being exhausted by state order. She will discuss these issues in relation to two photographic archives she has assembled that deal with Israel’s representation of the state and its history.

Azoulay is director of the Photo-Lexic International Research Group at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research focuses on the theory and history of photography, cinema, museum studies, visual culture, and history of political regimes.

Azoulay’s work in visual culture is informed by her research in contemporary philosophy and political theory, and by questions of gender, citizenship, and disaster. Among her ground-breaking studies of photography and politics are Death’s Showcase (MIT Press, 2001), The Civil Contract of Photography (Zone Books, 2008) and the forthcoming Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology of Photography (Verso, 2012).

As part of their residency in the Goldfarb Summer Institute, all four presenters will meet with graduate students in visual arts and art history at York’s Keele campus for informal discussions, seminars, critiques and studio visits.

The  Joan & Martin Goldfarb Summer Institute in Visual Arts offers York University graduate students and the wider community the opportunity to engage with prominent international artists, curators, cultural theorists and critics through seminars, workshops, courses and public lectures. The Institute is named in recognition of Joan and Martin Goldfarb, longstanding supporters of York’s Faculty of Fine Arts, whose generous gift has made this annual residency program possible.

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The 2012 Joan & Martin Goldfarb Summer Institute in Visual Arts: The Real and the Political
Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
yorku.ca/finearts/goldfarb-summer-institute2012

Ken Lum: “Art in the Public Sphere”
When: Tues. April 24, 2:30-4pm
Where: Room 334 Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele St.
Admission: Free

Ruth Noack: Making Exhibitions in a Global Context”
When: Thurs. April 26, 2:30-4pm
Where: Room 334 Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele St.
Admission: Free

Amelia Jones:“Queer Feminist Durationality: The Trace of the Subject in Contemporary Art”
When: Mon. April 30, 2:30-4pm
Where: Room 338 Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele St.
Admission: Free

Ariella Azoulay: “Potential History”
Presented in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
When: Thurs. May 3, 7-9pm
Where: MOCCA, 952 Queen Street West, Toronto
Admission: Free

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Media Contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
416-650-8469  | amy.stewart@yorku.ca

Diane Borsato: "Bouquet" (performed in and around Toronto, 2006 to 2012). Photo courtesy of the artist and the AGYU

Borsato works in a variety of media from photography and video to relational sculpture. On the one hand, her work is concerned with being in the city and in nature; on the other hand, with ways of learning and exchanging knowledge.

“My actions and performances are about experiencing things in an actively engaged manner,” says Borsato. “They’re about ways of knowing that aren’t solely based on reading texts or seeing. They’re also about the ways we relate: to objects, places and each other.”

In The Chinatown Foray, the artist hosted a naturalist expedition in an urban marketplace. In Italian Lessons, she attempted to learn Italian by learning salsa, physics, first aid and beekeeping by way of Italian instruction.

Diane Borsato: "Italian Lessons" (performed in Toronto, Treviso and Zafferana Etna, 2007 to 2011) is one of the works in the exhibition "Terrestrial/Celestial". Photo courtesy of the artist and AGYU. Photo by Alessandra Borsato

The exhibition Terrestrial/Celestial, comprising several recent relational projects and interventions by Borsato, presents  an unconventional exchange of observational practices between amateur mycologists and amateur astronomers.

Installation view of "Walking Studio" by Diane Borsato at the Art Gallery of York University. Photo by M. Maranda

Her new piece, Walking Studio, proposes a distinctive space for research, collection and reflection through a mobile field study lab. Both a study centre and fully functional sauna, Walking Studioframes and supports artistic practices that are site-responsive, peripatetic and relational.

Inside "Walking Studio" by Diane Borsato at the Art Gallery of York University. Photo by M. Maranda

While her works reference the grand history of conceptual, fluxus and performance art, the artist’s practice consists of simple gestures and organized events that suggest alternative ways of knowing. They enable a different way of connecting, in humourous and poetic ways, to everyday life, to the realm of “high art” and to other specialized fields of knowledge production, involving artists and non-artists alike in the process. Through her work, Borsato proposes a method of inquiry that relies on touching, tasting and feeling the world around us – from the terrestrial to the celestial.

The exhibition is accompanied by a major hardcover monograph on Borsato’s recent works, published by the AGYU and edited by Stephanie Springgay, designed by Lisa Kiss Design, with text contributions by Emelie Chhangur, Stephanie Springgay, Darren O’Donnell, Scott Watson and an introduction by AGYU director/curator Philip Monk.

AGYU gallery hours are Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm; Wednesday 10am-8pm; Sunday noon to 5pm;  closed Saturday.

For more information, visit the AGYU website.

Theatre Professor Judith Rudakoff continues her long-time collaboration with her former student Nina Arsenault (BFA Spec. Hons. ’96, MFA ’00), a transgendered playwright/performer, with TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault, a book set to launch May 4 at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

As editor, Rudakoff brought together a diverse group of contributors, including artists, scholars and Arsenault herself, to explore beauty, image and the notion of queerness through the lens of Arsenault’s highly personal brand of performance art. York University contributors include theatre Professor Eric Armstrong, political science Professor Shannon Bell and Professor Frances Latchford from Women’s Studies, plus Fine Arts alumni J. Paul Halferty (BFA ‘98), Benjamin Gillespie (BA ‘09, MA ‘10) and former student Todd Klinck.

Illustrated with photographs of Arsenault’s physical transformation over the years through more than 60 plastic surgeries, the publication includes the full script of Arsenault’s critically acclaimed stage play The Silicone Diaries, which Rudakoff dramaturged (see story).

Music professor and composer Stephanie Martin

Two ambitious compositions by music Professor Stephanie Martin were recently premiered in connection with one of Canada’s foremost oratorio choirs, the Pax Christie Chorale, which Martin has led as artistic director and conductor since 1996. Her new cantata, “Winter Nights”, is a four-movement piece for choir, chamber orchestra and tenor soloists, set to poems from various sources including her sister, Cori Martin. Pax Christie debuted the works last December at the Grace Church on-the- Hill in Toronto.

In January 2012, the Windermere String Quartet premiered Martin’s composition “From a Distant Island”, a piece she wrote on her recent sabbatical in England, during a stay at a convent on the Isle of Wight. The performance, a fundraiser for Pax Christi’s 25th anniversary season, was hosted by the law firm Fasken Martineau DuMoulin in its offices on the 24th floor of the Bay Adelaide Centre in Toronto’s financial district.

Martin’s music department colleague, Professor Dorothy de Val, provides a lively biography of one of the chief collectors and scholars of the first English folk music revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in her new book, In Search of Song: The Life and Times of Lucy Broadwood. Drawing on an array of primary sources including the diaries Broadwood kept throughout her adult life, de Val’s account sheds light on Broadwood’s early years and chronicles her later busy social, artistic and musical life. De Val has a longstanding interest in traditional English folksong, with a number of publications on the subject to her credit as well as many performances as pianist with the band Playford’s Pleasure.

Looking at art within a more political arena,  art history Professor Hong Kal’s  Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism: Spectacle, Politics and History (Asia’s Transformations) examines the role of visual culture at particular moments in both colonial and postcolonial times, drawing links between concepts of spectacle and urban space to governmentality. The book interprets the politics behind the culture of displays and shows both the continuity and the transformation of spectacles as an important tool of governance in 20th-century Korea.

Eschewing history for a fictional future, Governor General’s Literary Award-winning playwright and York film Professor Colleen Wagner paints a chilling dystopia in her latest play, down from heaven, published by Playwrights Canada Press. The story follows a girl who must navigate a world immersed in a new class struggle while trying to balance her morality with the realities of survival when a viral pandemic and food crisis challenges everything she holds dear. Pat Donnelly of The Montreal Gazette praised the scripts: “…there is rich text to feed on, a psychological thriller element, and some scathing observations about high culture and traditional religion.”

Two faculty members in the Department of Visual Arts have recently published exhibition catalogues. Anna Hudson is part of the team behind Fugitive Light: Clark McDougall’s Destination Places and Michel Daigneault is featured in Peindre dangereusement.

"Orange" by Michel Daigneault

Hudson co-curated the McDougall show for the McIntosh Gallery in London, Ontario. The hard cover catalogue is richly illustrated with many of the artist’s striking portrayals of Southern Ontario urban and rural life from 1950s to the 1970s. In her essay “Stepping into the light of Clark McDougall’s landscapes”, Hudson discusses the artist’s deep attachment to his home town of St Thomas and how it inspired him.

Daigneault’s arresting abstract paintings are showcased in the publication peindre dangereusement, produced by Montreal’s Galerie Trois Points.  The catalogue includes an essay by James D. Campbell titled “Dancer Man: Polycentrism and Semiotic Erotica in the Paintings of Michel Daigneault.” Campbell says: “Daigneault’s paintings thrive on semiotic excess and exotica, iconographic multiplicity and delightful combinatorial play; effortlessly, they draw the viewer inwards.”