SLEEP: A Scotiabank Nuit Blance 2011 Performance at Loop

Visit Loop Gallery on Saturday, October 1 to see SLEEP - the live performance of The Two Gullivers, Flutura and Besnik Haxhillari in a Scotiabank Nuit Blanche event. The slumber-party performance begins at 630 pm.

Loop Gallery is located at 1273 Dundas Street West in Toronto (Map No. C56).

The exhibition and all related programming is curated and organized by Vesna Krtich in collaboration with loop Gallery, as part of our first publicly funded, guest-curated exhibition programming initiative. Gullivers' Rehearsal is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Additional partners include the Harbourfront Centre, The Walrus Magazine, the Drake Hotel, Oyster Boy, Scotiabank Nuit Blance 2011, and FADO Performance Art Centre.

Jane LowBeer wins First Prize at The PRINT SHOW 2011

Loop gallery member Jane LowBeer was awarded first prize at The PRINT SHOW 2011 at the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto.

Night Kingdon by Jane LowBeer

This 8th Annual Print Show features 32 original artworks by emerging, mid-career and leading printmakers. Jurors Susan Collett, a highly regarded Canadian artist/printmaker, and recipient of numerous grants and awards, including 2nd Prize in the 2002 Ernst & Young Great Canadian Printmaking Competition. Dale Barrett is Director of the John B. Aird Gallery. To select work for the exhibition the jurors reviewed 94 images submitted by 52 artists. They also awarded prizes to Jane Low-Beer (1st Prize), Lucie Simons (2nd Prize), Kurt Pammer (3rd Prize), Irina Schestakowich (The Japanese Paper Place Award), Edie Overturf (Curry's Art Supplies Award), and Carolyn Mount (Jurors' Prize).

An opening reception will take place on Thursday, September 29 from 6-8 pm. The show ends on October 21, 2011.

The Gallery is located at 900 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm. For additional information about the gallery visit their website: www.airdgallery.org

JJ Lee at IndexG Gallery

Loop member JJ Lee is showing a series of paintings called Dream in the Flower at Index G Gallery at 50 Gladstone Avenue in Toronto. The exhibit opened today and runs until October 16, 2011. JJ Lee will be in attendance at the reception on Saturday September 24 from 3 to 6 pm, and the show runs from Wednesday September 21st to October 16, 2011. The gallery is open Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1 to 6 pm.

Upcoming Panel Discussion: Performance Duos

Topics related to the upcoming loop gallery exhibition of The Two Gullivers will be the subject of a panel discussion and keynote address on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at Harbourfront Centre's Brigantine Room in Toronto.

Performance Art + Partnership
Thursday, September 29, 2011, 7:00 - 9:30 pm 
(doors open at 6:30 pm)

Panel Discussion: Performance Duos, 7:00pm
Performance art is often thought of as a solitary activity, or one that involves multiple collaborators. What unique issues are raised when intimate partnerships between artist couples become the subject of creative partnerships? Artist pairs working in performance art, often in combination with video, photography or drawing, will situate their work within the larger social, historic and political context of their shared practice.

Panelists include: Toronto-based performance duo, Paul Couillard and Ed Johnson, Governor General Award winning artists, Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, and Montreal-based Flutura & Besnik Haxhillari, (Two Gullivers). The panel will be moderated by Jim Drobnick, art critic, curator and Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at the Ontario College or Art and Design.

Keynote Presentation at 830 pm
Amelia Jones, Professor and Grierson Chair in Visual Culture, McGill University, 8:30pm
“The Body as Archive/The Archive as Body: Intimacy in the Study of Live Art”
The researcher has an "intimate" relationship with the archive, but also often with the still-living artist. Jones explores relations of intimacy as they condition our access to histories of live art.

Event Location and Ticket Information:
The Brigantine Room, York Quay Centre, Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
Ticket Cost: $10
To purchase tickets contact the Harbourfront Centre Box Office at (416) 937-4000
or visit: http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/visualarts/2011/visual-arts-special-event/

Performance Art + Partnership is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Gullivers’ Rehearsal: Drawing into Performance, curated by Vesna Krstich at loop Gallery, September 28 – October 9, 2011. The event is organized by Vesna Krstich in collaboration with loop Gallery, and in partnership with Harbourfront Centre. Loop gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, The Walrus Magazine, Oyster Boy Restaurant, Drake Hotel and FADO Performance Art Centre.

Interview with Rochelle Rubinstein

loop member Rochelle Rubinstein was recently featured on The World of Threads Festival Weekly Fibre Artist Interview Series.  In this interview, she describes her working process, sources of inspiration and other aspects of her artistic practice. Read the interview here.

Rochelle Rubinstein's current exhibition with Lanny Shereck entitled HOMESTEAD is at loop Gallery until September 25, 2011. Homestead, features a collaborative installation of Lanny's house-like structures covered with Rochelle's block-printed, painted and embroidered silk - an exploration of the notion of home and of dwelling. Together the artists intended to evoke the permanence and strength of stone in combination with the fragility and comfort of fabric.

Progress Report on The Great Hare

Artist and loop member Mary Catherine Newcomb has been creating a fifteen foot long reclining hare with a pelt made of turf in the Cambridge Sculpture Garden. This land art installation is part of the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area that begins this week on Friday, September 16, 2011.

This is Mary Catherine Newcomb's final report before the CAFKA opening this Friday.

The hare continues to grow in a satisfactory way with a few exceptions:  The fur has grown to an extent (in most places) that I have been able to take it into shape a bit.   It is also thick and bunchy (in most places) so that in this last week, I will be able to compress, comb and cut into better shape.

The ears are still looking "stuck on"  and the tips brown. In addition to this one ear has a great brown blotch. I decided to seed and hope for the best, slightly repositioning the sprinklers for optimum ear coverage.   The toe ends tend to be a bit brown as well, but I think I will be able to comb them over. I decided at the time that replacing part of the ear turf and devising a better ear irrigation system would be a good idea. I had been planning to cut the small grass bits in my back yard last week - but ran out of time - good luck as some of it is quite long and may be of some help here.  Now that the weather has turned cooler,  growth will be slow.  This week, I will replace some turf and also devise eyes and work on details (this will probably entail digging up much of my back yard - purchased turf is just not long enough.)  It will be a long week.  

 The Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area runs until October 2, 2011. This year's theme SURVIVE:RESIST.

Upcoming Show - Gullivers' Rehearsal: Drawing into Performance

Gullivers' Rehearsal: Drawing into Performance

Gullivers’ Rehearsal: Drawing into Performance

September 28 – October 9, 2011

Curator: Vesna Krstich

loop Gallery is pleased to present Gullivers’ Rehearsal: Drawing into Performance, the first major exhibition examining the drawings of Flutura and Besnik Haxhillari, also known as The Two Gullivers.

Gullivers’ Rehearsal examines the cyclical relationship between drawing and performance art. A selection of preparatory studies and other drawings will be presented along with documentation from previous performances. Through their joint practice, the Two Gullivers actively dismantle the boundaries often assumed to exist between the live event and its modes of planning and documentation. Themes of travel, domesticity, intimacy and identity are playfully inscribed into these visual scripts, which serve as an on-going rehearsal of their twin persona.

The Two Gullivers will kick off the exhibition with a slumber-party performance entitled SLEEP, as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011. They will continue to live in the gallery with their children, where they will eat, sleep and make new drawings over the duration of the show. The pair has recently obtained the unique honour of reenacting nine historical performances by Marina Abramovic and Ulay. On October 8, the artists will stage a reenactment of Nightsea Crossing, starting at Nathan Phillips Square (the site of the original performance in 1982) and ending at loop Gallery.

Flutura and Besnik Haxhillari are a Montreal-based couple that rose to prominence through their inclusion in landmark exhibitions of Eastern European art of the post-communist era. They took part in the 48th Venice Biennale (1999); After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999); and Blood & Honey, Tanzquartier, Vienna, (2003) curated by Harald Szeemann. They have since exhibited on a local and national scale, in venues such as FADO Performance Art Centre and Galerie de l’UQAM. Forthcoming presentations will take place at the Marina Abramovic Studio at Location One, NY.

Concurrent to the exhibition, loop will host a panel discussion on performance duos involving the exhibiting artists and notable Toronto-based pairs: Paul Couillard and Ed Johnson, and Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak. The panel will be moderated by critic, curator and art historian, Jim Drobnick, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Theory at the Ontario College or Art and Design. Amelia Jones, Professor and Grierson Chair in Visual Culture at McGill University, will present a keynote lecture on the intimacy between artist and researcher in the study of Live Art. The panel and keynote will take place in the Brigantine Room at the Harbourfront Centre on Thursday, September 29, 7:00-9:30pm. Tickets are $10 and will be available as of September 14th through the Harbourfront Box Office (416-973-4000).

The exhibition and all related programming is curated and organized by Vesna Krstich in collaboration with loop Gallery, as part of their first publicly funded, guest-curated exhibition programming initiative. Gullivers’ Rehearsal is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council. Additional partners include the Harbourfront Centre, The Walrus Magazine, the Drake Hotel, Oyster Boy, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011, and FADO Performance Art Centre.

Panel discussion at Harbourfront Centre, Brigantine Room:

Thursday, September 29, 7:00-9:30 pm

Reception & Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2011 performance at loop:                          

Saturday, October 1, starting at 6:30 pm (Map No. C 56)

Nightsea Crossing performance reenactment by The Two Gullivers:

Saturday, October 8, at Nathan Philips Square (9am-3pm) and at loop (3:30-5pm)

Homestead: Rochelle Rubinstein and Lanny Shereck

Rochelle Rubinstein and Lanny Shereck
Homestead

September 3 - September 25, 2011
Reception: Thursday, September 8, 6-8pm

The Weekly Hare Report from M. Catherine Newcomb

On Thursday the 25th, the morning after the Great Storm, we put the ears on the hare. With the help and daring of Rex and John it was accomplished in about an hour.  The hare itself has been growing well and ears and tail will need a bit to catch up.

I visited the hare on the next day and did quite a bit of clipping/ pruning as well as  planting a bit of seed on his crown which had been disrupted by the ear operations - and around the face where he was looking sparse.

John and Rex are triumphant at the end of it. Judy took off the bottles and took some extra photos of the hare growing into itself nicely (last three photos).

All photos are by Judy Welsh except for the moment of triumph taken by me.

Post by Mary Catherine Newcomb

Miner for a Heart

catalogue: Miner for a Heart by Yael Brotman
Penelope Stewart : La Grande Ruche

Libby Hague: My one and only life so far (detail)
Yael Brotman: Teachers House (detail)



The exhibition, Miner for a Heart, brings together ten print-based artists whose work and histories have intertwined with the print community at Open Studio in Toronto, Canada. The ten artists are Nadine Bariteau, Yael Brotman, Janet Cardiff, Libby Hague, Christopher Hutsul, Ed Pien, Richard Sewell, Penelope Stewart, Ho Tam and Jeannie Thib. Their places of origin vary from international (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel and USA), to national (British Columbia and Quebec), to provincial (North Bay and Brussels, ON). All of the artists who relocated to Toronto mirrored the immigrant narrative that was being enacted on the broader societal stage. The artists, then, all have dual allegiances, a common element in the diasporic experience. Perhaps this has freed them to experiment with cross-disciplinarity in their practices. They move fluidly from flatwork to sculpture to video to installation and back to printmaking, exploring print’s concern with support material, matrices, repetition, mark making and the impact of technology.

curated by Yael Brotman,
catalogue essay by Yael Brotman

the exhibition is at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
opening September 27.

I want to let you know about our upcoming performance at the closing of Sympathetic Connections on September 11 at 3 pm. Von Bark & The Zen Existential Puppet Theatre and I will create within the sculpture installation a retelling of the sea battle of Dan-no-ura, a story of courage, loyalty and suicide. Andrew Paterson will be the narrator, in the role of Hoichi the Earless, the bard who sang for an audience of ghosts.
The performance space will be standing-room-only for about 25 and I hope for audience participation. If you are frightened by this prospect or just busy, it will be on YouTube later on.
Sympathetic Connections at the AGO next to FRANK Restaurant and it is free and open when the restaurant is.

Rochelle Rubinstein and Lanny Shereck at Loop Gallery

loop Gallery is pleased to announce exhibitions by loop members Rochelle Rubinstein and Lanny Shereck, entitled Homestead. 

“We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us.”

Winston Churchill

This exhibition presents an exploration of the notion of habitation and homesteading.

The evocation of home in a collaborative installation, DWELLING, combines the permanence and strength of stone with the fragility and comfort of fabric.  The three structures, one hovering slightly above ground, with their accompanying chimneys or silos, evoke old barns, quaint cottages, or mini-shelters. Their lack of functionality, including an absence of doors and windows, is both alarming and sad.

Individual works by Rochelle Rubinstein consist of printed, painted and carved wood panels depicting imaginary villages. Here, ideas and concerns about the home extend to the communities that shape us. Issues of privacy, alienation, and claustrophobia permeate these environments, where Sherpa villages morph into suburbia, straw bale cottages into concrete bunkers.

Lanny Shereck has created painted and collage works of architectural and building debris, referring to the materials, methods and values with which we shape our homes. This work evokes the messy processes of destruction and construction that somehow give form to our quest for habitation.

Please join the artists in celebrating the opening reception on Thursday, September 8, 2011 from 6-8 pm.