I am curating the window space at Gallery 1313 for a few months this summer for a series about street traffic.
APRIL 2011
YUULA BENIVOLSKI
Fell Asleep in Front of the TV Again
The show had a little mention in Saturday's Globe and Mail.
Born in Moscow USSR, grew up in Northern Israel and currently live and work between Toronto and Montreal.
I work with photographs, projection, video and installation.
I'm interested in migration, tradition and ritual, comfort, acclimatization and survival, or stories and details from my childhood that shaped my views on important stuff like sex and death or any other transformative events.
MAY 2011
VANESSA RIEGER
Salivating Security and The Revolution Will Be Web Streamed Live
Interested in the power dynamics of surveillance, Rieger explores the Egyptian revolution through the eyes of surveillance cameras. In Gil Scot-Heron's poem "The revolution will not be Televised" he ends with the line "The revolution will be live". Where television was a passive experience for the audience, the internet and web cameras can empower its viewers, giving them up to the second live coverage and sometimes the control to manipulate the camera. The Egyptian revolution is considered by some to be the first web-based revolution, since facebook and twitter played important roles in organizing the people. Rieger's two pieces placed together creates a dialogue between the camera (the act of watching/witnessing) and the video footage (the action/revolutionary event).
Vanessa Rieger was born and raised in Toronto. She earned a degree in Drawing and Painting from OCAD and currently runs her own framing business, VR Frames. Rieger also helps run and coordinate The White House Studio Project, an artist-run studio co-op based in Kensington Market.
JUNE 2011
ANNA MAY HENRY
BORED BEYOND BELIEF
When we’re promised excitement and intrigue at every mall, nightclub, basement apartment and laptop, boredom is a pitiful shame. It is said that only boring people get bored. To state one’s ennui, then, is potential condemnation to a dull persona. The Boredom Party Banner acts like a celebration, but is perhaps a cry for help from behind the entrapment of windowpane glass.
“We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.”
-Graffiti from May 1968
Anna May Henry works in a variety of mediums in an endless exploration of the co-existence of everyday life with the fantastic. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
JULY 2011
BRETTE GABEL
Brette Gabel's amazing blog.
JULY 6th to 31st, 2011
Brette Gabel is a not so recent graduate of the University of Regina. While avoiding schoolwork Brette began embroidering, quilting and watching horror movies. Following school, Brette moved to Toronto where she participated in the Toronto School of Art’s Independent Studio Program. After which she became a contributing member to the White House Studio. Currently Brette is researching farming accidents, taxidermy and organizing alternative community interventions. Brette’s work strives to connect love, fear, heartache and the grotesque with craft and social interventions.
Brette Gabel’s obsession with classic horror movies is explored through a series of quilted wall hangings. By softening the most frightening scenes Gabel invites the viewer to stare the monster head on. Handmade textiles connote warmth, safety, and the domestic sphere – when combined with uncomfortable subject matter, a productive tension is created: the work both comforts and provokes with empathetic humour.
Gallery Hours are Wed- Sun 1-6pm
1313 Queen St. West 416-536-6778 www.g1313.org
Media call Phil Anderson 416-525-7688
