Collisions

Jessica Albert Taylor Cada Eric Clement Hugo Dufour Clinton Glenn Laura Horrocks-­Denis Bianca Hlywa Nafisa Kaptownwala Zoe Koke Nicolas Martel Courtenay Maze Megan Moore Aidan Pontarini Laura Rokas Sydney Shen Emma Siemens-­Adolphe Richard Stoller Guillaume Vallée

Interfold is pleased to present its fourth issue, “Collisions.” Two entities collide and destruction occurs. Occasionally, among the rubble, a synthesis follows, making way for the new. Our experience is made up of serious and insignificant clashes on a scale ranging from mammoth to microscopic. This issue features Concordia artists’ expression of collision in various media through many lenses. Thank you to everyone involved.

Untitled, Untitled 2 / C-print / As a hyper realist figurative painter, Laura Rokas strives to expand the complex bond between painting and photography by producing a series of photographic prints that use paint and paintings as subject matter. In this context, the paintings become objects that are meshed with painted sculptural maquettes as either backdrops or environments in which the paintings will reside.

These photographs become a study of colour, materials (paper, wood, canvas, paint, resin), and relief, an indulgence in creating illusion through three-dimensional rendering, as well as a collision of surrealism, hyperrealism, and abstraction.

ZipGun 1 - ­4 / Oil on wood panel / Eric Clement’s recent work is characterized by a fascination with the symbolic weight of objects within society, particularly ones of violence.

Clement employs images of zip guns and other homemade firearms as a way of exploring the meaning behind physical objects versus perceived representation. By integrating these violent objects into the peaceful realm in which his paintings operate, Clement attempts to strip the object of their symbolic significance, thereby encouraging the viewer to consider the functions of representation and symbolism throughout society.

Untitled / Photographic print / St足Damase is a small town with a clear barrier from the farms at its border. This series titled St 足 Damase demonstrates the collision between this small town, the vast land that surrounds it, and the untouched elements of nature that peek through. Megan Moore reveals the contrast between the control held over the nature surrounding St足Damase and the cluster of homes at its centre. Small glimpses of mountains and clouds hide in the background, serving as a reminder of the limits of this control.

Collage No. 2 / Cut paper on card support / These works explore the relationship between painting and collage as modes of expression. The way in which the collage media is cut and laid on the supporting surface in a series of motions comparable to painterly marks echoes the artistic processes of paint-based production. By expressing collage as an extension of the painterly form, Stoller strives to isolate, expose, and question the feeling of dissonance that emerges when observing the painterly in works of a non-paint medium. The result is a collection of images that bridge the gap between paint and collage, thereby transcending the harsh restrictions of medium-specificity.

“Inside Out, Outside In” no.1 / Sheet metal, metal rods, human body, red spray paint / “Inside Out, Outside In” is a series of work that studies the relationship between two distinct and conflicting personalities: one that exists enclosed within itself, constantly turning inward and one that exists beyond itself, bursting infinitely outward. Through this clash of emotions a dynamic equilibrium is attained that allows one to discover the power of adaptation and transformation.

This complex study of human emotion is born into simple and organic forms. First materializing into a red metal sculpture that echoes the human body, it evolves into a minimalistic metamorphic piece made of wood and metal. In a dialogue of red lines, these two works evoke the eternal, far-reaching but sometimes broken rhythm of the energy and feelings that flow in and out of us, all the while connecting us.

Diarchy #1, Diarchy #2, Diarchy #3 / Weaving / As a weaver, Taylor Cada creates congruity between two opposing forces. By laying down each expanse of yarn between the threads of the stressed warp, Taylor creates a steadfast, codependent bond between these two adversaries. In doing this, the artist fosters a kind of harmony that exists as a result of inherent material discord. The result is a process through which repetition, regiment, and static motions become dynamic, expressive, and idiosyncratic marks.

Swimmers / Photocopier and digital media /

Swimmer’s Feet / Photocopier and digital media / This series of work illustrates a collision between the organic and mechanic. It explores the relationship that humanity has with technology and the effects that this relationship has on views of being human. The machine becomes 'internal', a fragment limb. The work binds humanity with the machine by photocopying each body part, letting the fragmented pieces be downloaded onto the computers memory. It is an intense gesture of extreme intimacy with the machine ­a hyperbole to reality.

L’hallucination d’Ajijic, Portrait devant l’escalier de pierre / Digital print from a 35mm negative / Working mainly with the materiality of a medium to convey themes of memory, death, and decay, this series is the result of an experimentation with two distinct forms of celluloid: the negatives of abstract images taken with a 35mm camera and an old Super8 roll found in a bazar. The goal was to create a series of paradoxical images, a collision between moving images that were captured by a stationary medium (a photograph), and moving images that were captured in reproducible motion (Super8 film used as still images). The actual 35mm negatives, mostly light painted landscapes, have been used as a frame for the Super8 filmstrips, which depict footage of a Mexican family from the 1950’s. Paint, ink, chemicals, and glue are the main elements of the material process that allowed for the creation of these psychedelic and ghostly images. As a physical representation of decaying recollections, these prints are an attempt to recreate the moment when memories die, an attempt to mimic the mental explosion, which like a dying star, a celestial destruction, can form beauty out of oblivion. This series is the result of an artist residency Guillaume Vallée held in Mexico during the month of June 2012.

Lost, Bike / Photographic print / Familial Album is a photographic series comprised of images appropriated from Aidan Pontarini’s family albums alongside photographs taken by the artist himself at his Nona’s house. Using photoshop to restructure some of his Nona’s old family photos, Pontarini illustrates the faults of human memory and the resulting trauma of fractured family histories. However, these heavier themes are diluted with undertones of playful absurdist humour. By placing himself in some of the images, Pontarini interjects his own fictionalized history and vague memories of growing up in those surroundings. The outcome is a collision between past and present, reality and fiction, memories and forgotten histories, ultimately offering the viewer an experience that is both familiar and unsettling. The works are all digital prints of varying sizes and will also be made into an artist book.

Blur, Eclipse / Acrylic on canvas / Jessica Albert’s work was created with the focus of better understanding optical illusion art, specifically the reaction that a person has when they are drawn to a work of art while simultaneously wanting to turn away from it.

Optical illusion art can have this exact effect. Our eyes try to understand why everything stands out and almost vibrates while at the same time it is painful for them to view this imagery. These works explore a different kind of collision, one in which our eyes process and react to. Though this work can be difficult to look at, it is also perfectly organized and therefore the lines and shapes that make up the following images are both colliding and coinciding simultaneously.

I Wonder What It Tastes Like / Inkjet Print : Hot Dogs, Acrylic, Rocks, Ash, Wood, Tarp / Sanitized modern kitchens are the perfect place to preserve processed food. In "I Wonder What It Tastes Like", these preserved food products are completely deconstructed and transformed by imaginary forces (maybe a long time lapse or a cataclysm) but their highly processed qualities ensure that they retain recognizable features even after such extreme changes. A scientific team from the distant future discovers their highly mutated remnants. They dissect and analyze them with hopes to understand the era in which they came from. They discover ketchup and mustard preserved in a melted fat geode and wonder about the meaning of a sausage DNA helix rising from barbecue ashes.

CLINTON GLEN

It occurred to me the last day of the 2012 Art Matters Festival, as my artists were taking down their work, that I was exactly where I wanted to be. Surrounded by amazing artwork and people who were so motivated and inspired that they put their heart and soul into their pieces and took the plunge to actually show it to someone else – what wasn’t there to be happy about? That made me think about the first tentative steps we take, be it as artists, curators, writers, or any combination of those roles, and the trepidation that accompanies such endeavors. Will anyone take our work seriously? Is the intent clear? Will the audience engage with it? Above all, am I ready to put my work out into the world and will I be able to handle the scrutiny?

Months prior to the festival, when I was thinking of applying as a curator, I put together my application package, held my breath for a moment and then quietly slipped it under the Art Matters office door. There was no turning back. I imagine that a lot of the artists who had submitted to the festival that year felt the same way as their cursors hovered over the online submission button before they clicked “send”.

Now, a year later and on the verge of the 2013 Art Matters Festival, I look back on how much of my life this festival has consumed and I write this with mixed emotions. It has been a long journey from the moment I decided to take part in the festival as a curator in 2012 to being a part of the executive team this year. So much tedious work has gone into this festival on behalf of so many people and I find myself with that same sense of trepidation as before.

How will people respond to the festival?

This is a feeling that I, as a writer and a curator, expect will never leave me.

Regardless of this trepidation, I am also extremely excited and proud of how the fine arts community at Concordia University, and in Montreal in general has helped to promote and encourage this festival. Art Matters has been an integral part of the fine arts student experience since its inauguration thirteen years ago.

The immense amount of work that has been shown throughout the years and the passion and energy of everyone who has worked on the countless exhibitions is only magnified by the increasing intensity and reputation of the festival. If it sounds like I am gushing, it’s because I am. As an art history student, the art object is so often removed from my educational experience that to see art being made now and being shown now is electric.

However, one question keeps plaguing my mind and that is: where does art go from here?

Indeed, where does art go?

Some of us involved in this experience will be graduating in April and will have to face a world outside the safe confines of our classes and studios. All of the ambition and passion we have incubated during our time in a post-secondary institution will be put to the test. One of the things that I find so hard to reconcile about the relationship between the art world and the cultural identity of society at large is that art tends to be consumed en masse, but what is the ultimate result of that? We spend years of our lives pouring our emotions, our intellect, and our souls into our work—be it through art history essays or fine art production. We breathe our inspiration into still matter and make it come alive. But where do we go from here?

One might approach this article as a lament on the devalued position of art in greater society, yet I would like to suggest something different. One of the great privileges I have had while working for Art Matters is the resulting network of people that has been created around me.

There are so many resources for curators and artists outside of Concordia’s walls that we sometimes see the world as us versus them. I have never felt that being in fine arts, being in art history, or being a student was a competition. We are all in this together, whether we realize it or not, and when we emerge into the “real” world it will become crucial to continue to support each others work and ideas.

After all, the audience for our exhibitions,

paintings, sculptures, installations, and the like are other artists. After all, from where do we draw our inspiration?

One of the questions I get asked most often is “how are curators for Art Matters selected?” To be honest this isn’t an easy question. There is always the accusation of nepotism, that someone knew someone who decided they should have an exhibition. The same is said for the artist selection process. To be perfectly blunt, it has nothing to do with this. Anyone who has anything to do with Art Matters is where they are because of their passion and inspiration. First and foremost, it is about putting oneself out there and trying. We, as Concordia students, are all offered inspiring opportunities with this festival, ones that are unique compared to the vast array of undergraduate fine arts programs across Canada and the United States. My only piece of advice, one that I am sure everyone has heard at some point in their life, is simply to try. Put yourself out there.

Stick to your guns, know what you want and why you want it.

So getting back to that ultimate question, “where does art go from here?”—the only answer I can honestly give is, “anywhere”. Regardless of the economic realities that force major cuts to fine arts programs and place the arts as “less than” the sciences, business, or engineering, art will never go away. A lot of the venues that Art Matters works with are run by people who studied at Concordia. They understand where we are now as students and represent where we may be in five or ten years. From artistrun centres and collectives to professional galleries, these are all environments that are fueled by individuals who originated where we are now. This is why they are always so eager to be involved in Art Matters; they were once in our shoes and can teach us a thing or two. Art will go anywhere as long as we have the energy and passion for it. All we must do in order to propel its momentum is actively involve ourselves in the institutions, communities, and movements that support it.

DELVING INTO CULTURAL APPROPRIATION WITHIN SEA PUNK AESTHETIC NAFISA KAPTOWNWALA There has been a lot of talk in the last little while about cultural appropriation within the Sea Punk aesthetic. This appropriation can be found when you’re cruising through Tumblrs like yardsale666.tumblr.com (an online fashion blog closely linked to Sea Punk aesthetic) and come across an image of someone wearing a bindi and holographic Arabic text on their shirt. How does this mode of borrowing contribute to notions of cultural distinction and Internet appropriation?

Not that long ago, a friend of mine told me about a situation where, here in Montreal, an Indian girl had stopped a White girl at a party for wearing a bindi.

The White girl had shoulder length blue hair and was wearing a fur coat, a child’s leather backpack, and platform heels.

She looked like a Sea Punk. Apparently the Indian girl had confronted the White girl and explained how her use of the bindi personally offended her. After the story was shared my friend turned to me and asked, “Well, does it offend you?”

Although the appropriation of bindis does not personally objectify my ethnicity

as someone who does not practice Hinduism, I still focused on this use of the bindi as a fashion accessory that has been popularized more recently by the Internet and started to consider why non-Western references are so popular within the context of Sea Punk and other Internet based aesthetics.

I find it interesting how these questions of culture and representation always seem to gravitate towards notions of appropriation. I had a friend once tell me that basic appropriation isn’t a strong enough offense to deem something culturally insensitive because it is far too common within art, fashion, and culture.

Appropriation is our reigning social habit.

We cut, copy, and paste information and images constantly and with extreme ease. So where exactly does this leave marginalized people—those affected by and featured in the images consumed, distributed, and re-conceived? I’d like to make the distinction that although appropriation may be rampant, the kind of appropriation that is used to mock, misrepresent, and fetishize cultural identities should not be disregarded

simply because the act of basic appropriation happens all the time and is therefore seen as innocuous. Especially because this particular kind of cultural appropriation socially disenfranchises those affected by it. Images or ideas that are extracted from a culture and then used to misrepresent the culture outside of its cultural context are capable of creating misguided social perceptions, which can disenfranchise the cultural identity being represented.

I would like to suggest that Sea Punk’s aesthetic appeal is rooted in its self- reflexive reference to the Internet and its appropriation of familiar images in surprising ways. These images are not solely ethnic icons, but also comprised of symbols like the McDonald’s or Fila logos.

By referencing icons specific to both the East and West, this aesthetic attempts to crystallize the Global Village aspect of the cyber world. Sea Punk’s aesthetic is anti-aesthetic. Its avant-garde intention is to look like the result of poor Photoshop skills and Google Image search results being put through a blender. It’s this avantgarde use of aesthetic that makes it hard

to distinguish whether the artist’s overt application of images directly linked with race and identity is a conscious attempt to subvert those ideas, or if they’re just being straight up offensive. The use of avant-garde aesthetics can often act as a kind of buffer that derails the viewer and prompts them to believe that the artist consciously inserted loaded symbols.

However, it often seems more likely that they inserted those symbols in a careless and irresponsible way. I can understand the suggested intent to integrate a multitude of references to things picked up all over the web; however, in a Western context, appropriating symbols of non-Western cultures can be seen as promoting hegemony. In choosing to insert cultural icons in a way that accentuates their difference or foreignness, there is an implied claim made about what is normative or adheres to Western hegemony and what is Other.

bell hooks describes the phenomena of “eating the Other” as the use of symbols of Otherness in order to enhance one’s own identity as a transgressive, post-racial subject.

This desire to emphasize the Other and the subsequent mistaking of cultural appreciation with appropriation is present in the work of DIS Magazine featured artists Dora Budor and Maja Cule. We see this most specifically in Waves and Fades, an image that is part of the series

entitled Sustainable Living Improvement Ideas and Ecoware for Summer 2012.

One specific work from the series, Waves and Fades, depicts a Black man modeling a snakeskin durag for an online store.

The icons that this piece invokes such as durags and wave and fade hairstyles are culturally significant symbols linked with Black males. Again we see how this work, like a lot of popular Net Art, uses an antiaesthetic aesthetic. Its intentionally shitty 90’s graphics and poor Photoshop skills makes it seem like one big ol’ LOLZ. This is where the cross-cultural appropriation becomes problematic. If the work itself is presented as a sort of kitschy joke then by association, so are its references to waves, fades, and durags. In this light, the appropriation of these symbols outside of the context of their culture can be seen as though the work is mocking the implied ethnicity. Budor and Cule may have inserted the culturally specific reference because they genuinely think that the culture of waves, fades, and durags is great and want to be able to participate in it. However, hooks’ theory of “eating the Other” would suggest that by reducing an ethnicity to a symbol, this rendering of Black men is fetishistic. It is fetishism for taking interest in facets of the identity and abstracting ideas of the identity from the context of its culture, which ultimately objectifies the ethnicity.

Let’s imagine that the Indian

girl that stopped the White girl at the party had approached the confrontation by saying, “bell hooks says that by wearing that bindi you are reducing me and my ethnicity to a symbol” ...ain’t nobody want to hear that. My question is “why not?”

A possible step in helping us develop a groundwork of ethics in the Internet’s cut, copy, and paste community is to apply the ideas of identity politics theorists to this contemporary cyber world discourse. We need to integrate the voices of figures like bell hooks and Edward Said, and dissociate them from their pigeonholed function of only existing for Post Modern theoretical development. Not only do we need to apply the ideas of these theorists, but also engage in a critical discourse that deals with the specificities of Internet identity politics, including issues that deal with web aesthetics outside of the cyber world. For the White girl, wearing a bindi may have been intended as a simple aesthetic interest but it came off as mockery and fetishism to the Indian girl. If there were more active and public conversations dealing with these topics, maybe the bindi disagreement wouldn’t have occurred. It seems that now is a more perfect time than ever to open up these dialogues. The Internet has made images and information about foreign cultures extremely accessible, which is such a beautiful thing, but unfortunately this open access can get abused.

Image Credit: Dora Budor and Maja Cule, “Waves & Fades Durag” taken from series Sustainable Living Improvement Ideas and Ecoware for Summer 2012, 2012.

ZOE KOKE The other day, I was explaining to a friend that it’s too bad I don’t aspire to be a singer in some band, although admittedly I’ve thought about it. I explained that my artwork is about things—love, loss, disconnection—that don’t read quite right in an artist statement but could go over really well in a song. Artist statements embarrass me, not because of a shyness towards the themes in my art but because of the directness of the statement itself. The truth is I want to be an artist because I want to talk about personal things in indirect ways. So, the process of justifying, self-branding, and constantly articulating what I am doing artistically—a process that has coloured my art school experience—continues to terrify me, while the desire to make meaningful art will likely never stop.

Let me begin by saying I don’t know how to write an artist statement. I don’t know how to analyze or describe my own work adequately because I make it. Everything I make confuses me and if it doesn’t, I am suspicious of it. As a result of this struggle, I have come to believe that it is the viewer who is responsible for finding the themes in a given artwork. Their role is to respond to the conditions that the artist sets forth. My role is to concentrate on setting

up those conditions. This is to say, that I would like what I produce to be more compelling than my intentions for making it. I have decided to let go of the artist statement or in other words, the need to always know exactly what I am doing artistically, because I have come to realize that the only reason I care about art is because it can express what can’t be explained through language. It makes me feel and think in unpredictable ways.

It connects me to something beyond my understanding. My favourite works of art are able to speak loud and clear without an obvious history or text to relay their meaning. How do they do this?

This past December, my sister (a current MFA student) and I had just landed in Hawaii. We were eating at a small café on a sparse mini-golf course when we approached the issue of artistic sincerity. She was explaining how she felt about Institutional Critique. She called it a cop out. In her eyes, making art about the academy for the academy was missing the point. I said something to the effect of, “but these structures need to be broken down and challenged.” She took thoughtful bites of a fish burger.

With unneeded enthusiasm, I brushed on post-modernist forms of deconstruction and the anti-capitalist foundation of

Institutional Critique. She pointed out that many artists working to critique the institutions of art are still benefiting from that same system by being exhibited in galleries; in fact, they aren’t actually doing anything to break down the system in any tangible way. She punctuated this by calling them callous, boring, and insincere. I am starting to believe she is right. This got me thinking about the legacy of Duchamp, the popularity of irony, the art blog mentality, and the aesthetics of the Internet. These are the trends that are enforced by teachers and students alike. Would it not be more interesting if artists embraced their role as creators and made sincerely original art? Why keep contained in the trap of making art about art?

There’s dozens of answers to this question. The response I see as the most general but also the most obvious is that we live in a fearful world.

Making safe art (art about art, art that absorbs and reflects the art world and art historical trends, and art that consistently describes one aesthetic) is professionally advantageous. Human nature dictates that we are supposed to be scared of what we don’t know and as a group of people who are inherently vulnerable, us artists are deeply affected by this fear.

We reject references we can’t recognize along with the unpopular people at the party. We are seduced by contagious trends that fuel a constructed world of rules and regulations. But, what we often forget is that art—the expression of the human spirit via the creation of goods and experiences that have no practical function in the scope of human survival— is in itself an absurd thing, regardless of whether there’s champagne at the opening. Art is inexplicable in many ways but has been dressed up with formalities and an elitist economy that formalizes and at times narrows its fundamental nature. Mushing buttery pigment on a board is weird! Presenting and exchanging that buttery board within a faction of our fearful species is even weirder. I have come to realize that I need to accept my role as an artist, as an uncertain and strange one, if I want to make art from a sincere place. While doing so, I will naively or hopefully believe that the institutions of art need respond to that art, rather than dictate it.

The unfortunate reality is that the majority of people—artists included— want, expect, and accept easy answers.

We rely on pre-sanctioned trends and familiar methodologies. The art world, like all industries, is often a lazy, scared, and

uncreative place as well as an incredibly status driven place. So, if I let go of the need to know exactly what I am doing as I make art, I must also let go of the expectation that the institutions of art will immediately accept what I make. Caring too much about institutional acceptance can only inhibit the possibilities of an artist’s work. As artists and cultural workers, we can challenge the forms that art is expected to take by creating the forms that we want to exist. Many creative modes and lifestyles that have spawned the most challenging and engaging instances of art production emerged in spite of institutionalized structures. Many creators have never entered into these structures. Every iconically successful artist was probably at one point the unpopular person at the party. So, if we want to be sincere in our art making, we must let go of fitting in. The gallery is the trusted host but we should allow ourselves to sometimes be the eccentric, honest, and even unlikeable guest.

I have come to believe that the quest for sincerity in the process of making art is interrupted by judgment— of oneself, of the abstract and sometimes confusing nature of making art, as well as the precarious position that art clings to in a capitalist world. These elements are compounded by our struggle as young artists to understand ourselves, discover what we want to communicate, and negotiate how to communicate it. Fear underpins all of these hurdles. Unlike many other professions, there is no right way to be an artist. All that is required of you to make art is that you are sure of yourself or at least can pretend to be, but making sincere art asks you to know yourself and give yourself time to experiment and fail before you flourish.

As a young artist, I am still working on knowing myself, what I want, and what I am interested in. At this point I am attempting to fade out the ingrained notion that the hope of institutionalized success is a reason to keep making art.

I often remind myself that many of the artists I most admire did not start making impressive work until they were in their forties and of course lots of them never saw or will ever see their own success manifest as art world fame.

It appears that in order for me to make sincere art in this expedited age, I will have to let go of any smudge of desire for a hasty kind of success. I will also have to remember that there will always be current trends along with paint colors and styles that speak to me from

other easels—the greener grass behind the picket fence. For me, this means using odd colour combos and pastels, and the pressure to use fancy cameras and to adopt an Internet aesthetic. There will always be our fashionable and impressive friends who inspire us, compete with us, and share resources with us. The whole process is as confusing to me as it is intoxicating. However, it is also a lonely one and unlike in Hip hop etiquette, we generally don’t give nods or openly insult our peers. Instead we pretend that we didn’t know the artist whose color palette we are clearly ripping off. Or if we do admit to knowing their work, we must submit to some form of shame or frustration as we think to ourselves in exasperation, “I didn’t know Marcel Dzama when I started drawing this way!”

This is perhaps because somewhere deep down we know that our own sincerity has been interrupted, our fears have been outed, and we are not adequately articulating what we want to be saying. Perhaps because we don’t know what we are saying or we are scared of saying it, or because there is such immense pressure to say something in the first place. And because making and sharing art, especially the kind that resists both contemporary trends and art historical narratives is scary and without any foreseeable financial benefits. The only thing I know for sure is that as young artists, we must try our hardest to not give a fuck about much while we make it. And that we have to make a lot of it.

And hopefully as we better understand ourselves we will be able to better our art.

A REFLECTION BY COURTENAY MAZE & EMMA SIEMENS-ADOLPHE

Graduating this year, we find ourselves very interested in the work and experience of recent BFA graduates.

‘Real world’ production: post-university, post-class critique, post-assisted lab production. How does one maintain the pace of their practice and projects without the financial, technical and community support of the University?

As a personal project, we are organizing shape what your mama gave ya, an exhibition featuring the work of three practicing artists, all recent art school graduates. We have invited NY-based artist collective SSRC (Sydney Shen and Ryan Chin) to exhibit a video piece, along with the recent work of Montreal- based Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik. Their work is to be exhibited at Coatcheck Gallery, a Montreal arts space that aims to promote multidisciplinary creative praxes and fosters cross-cultural dialogue through international collaboration. A panel discussion between local artists and those featured in the exhibition will act as an appendix and as a public meditation on the aforementioned questions.

It should be mentioned that this project also grew out of an interest in questioning the artist-run model that has become the prevailing production and exhibition model in Canada for emerging artists and cultural producers. Informed by the questions that arose at the last national summit of artist-run centre professionals, Institutions by Artists, held

in Vancouver last year, we are interested in receiving insight from artists practicing outside of Canada. Bryne McLaughlin, a contributor to CANADIAN ART, drew his own conclusion after observing the general attitude marked by the conference’s various panel discussions: “the artist-run centre is dead; long live the artist-run centre”1. Regardless of the growing disenchantment and dissolution with the current arts ecology, this comment suggests that Canadian artists, curators, and administrators are still clinging onto the artist-run model as an ideal exhibition practice. We can trace the rise of a majority of Canada’s internationally recognized contemporary artists, curators, and cultural practitioners as having emerged from their work with artist-run centres. Therefore, this system has clearly resulted in successfully fostering cultural production.

Artist-run Centres emerged in the early 1970’s, making a few of them now over forty years old. These new venues, then termed “Parallel Galleries”, developed as a response to a lack of appropriate exhibition spaces for artists whose priorities were non-commercial, and/or who were not established enough in their careers to be showing in institutional or public galleries2. Canada’s first was Intermedia. A Vancouver assemblage of artists, filmmakers, writers, poets, actors, and intermedia artists, who, for five years between 1967 and 1972,

worked together to establish, support, and promote an experimental artist’s workshop, and to produce an innovative program of exhibitions and performances.

They were collectively known as The Intermedia Society and were awarded a $40,000 grant from the Canada Council of the Arts in 19673. That same year they opened the Intermedia artist’ workshop in downtown Vancouver, Canada’s first Artist-run space. With continued funding from the Canada Council, they produced workshops, performances, and exhibitions regularly from 1967 to 1970, with the society dissolving by 19724. This was the first manifestation of a public art space committed to the dissemination of contemporary artwork, while being completely independent of the commercial gallery and museum system.

Prior to this, there existed many artists who had teamed to form collectives, performance groups, video cooperatives, and notably, art publications. The Coach House Press was a late Sixties manifestation, a small press run by a group of Toronto artists, writers, and poets. Gorilla was an underground art paper, also printed by a group in Toronto, and Image Nation started as an innovative newsletter for Rochdale College in 1968 and had transformed into a photography magazine by the early Seventies. Image Bank was a cross-Canada art- mailing system developed by artists out of a desire to show one another their work, and work happening outside of the country. File Megazine, begun by the newly-formed collective General Idea was another. AA Bronson of General Idea writes about this project in his 1983 essay, The Humiliation of the Bureaucrat: [...] Especially in Canada, artists’ publications became a connective tissue allowing us to see ourselves as existing, as an existing art scene with real artists you could take pictures of. This was, then, the only way to see ourselves, to know ourselves. FILE started as a response to the networking then actively pumping images, manuscripts, ephemera through our mail slot and collecting in our archives. Now we needed a way to recycle this material back through the system it reflected, to allow a self-image, or the possibility of selfimage5.

Both the independent art publications and Intermedia developed out of a need for an alternative to the available options for the dissemination of the artistic outputs of artists in Canada. Often these efforts were an outright rejection of those options, being traditional media and traditional galleries.

This grassroots movement towards a more selfgoverning and self-supportive art structure was happening no where else. The possibility exists that it could not have happened anywhere else: the linear construction of the urban areas in Canada, the reliance on media, the lack of Canadian identity, the lack of any real art market, the aggressive cultural domination of American popular media, and the complete impossibility of competing internationally with the 1970’s-80’s New York art market created the Canadian art ecology of that time. Such a cultural climate was the impetus for the formation of the now-dissolved ANNPAC, the Association of National Non-Profit Artists Centres, in 19766.

The Canadian Council’s key role in the formation of these spaces and the materialization of such ideas and projects cannot be stressed enough. The Canada Council was intended to operate at “arm’s length”7, or independently of government. It was responsible for with one another through the Image Bank mail system, began to meet one another and collaborate. Appropriately, the Council’s slogan is Strengthening Connections8.

Today, artist-initiated and managed organizations find themselves somewhat standardized. They each follow the not-for-profit arts organization model, do not charge admission fees, and are non-commercial to the extent that they de-emphasize the selling of work. As of 2011, there exists a network of over 130 exhibition and production centres—with extremely varied artistic concerns—that spans the country and continues to provide support and exposure opportunities for contemporary Canadian and international artists9.

A 2011 report commissioned by the Canada Council and prepared by Marilyn Burgess and Maria De Rosa identifies seven categories that describe the workings of any given Canadian ARC. 1) Organizations with a general mandate to advance the contemporary arts without specific reference to a narrower field of intervention 2) Organizations dedicated to specific artistic practices Organizations operating production facilities 3) Organizations with a mandate to serve multiple 4) disciplines and/or multidisciplinary arts Organizations with a mandate to serve a particular 5) identity-based community Organizations dedicated to politically or socially 6) engaged art 7) Organizations dedicated to serving emerging artists10 Of course, these mandates are not exclusive of one another and many Centres’ overlap to include more than one. Burgess and De Rosa further outline:

1) Self determination and artistic experimentation 2) Collaboration and networking 3) A grounding in larger social movements 4) A more recent trend towards increasing professional capacity As four attributes of ARCs that have defined their position in the context of Canada’s visual arts sector11.

Emerging in the late 1990’s, this last ARC attribute of increased professional capacity is also seen as a contemporary concern. It has been suggested that the boundaries between Canadian artist-run centres, public galleries, museums, and private galleries are increasingly ambiguous.

Curatorial practices, formerly the specialized domain of museums and public galleries, have become increasingly entrenched within artist run centres. As an example, while Centres continue to solicit artists’ work through ongoing open calls, half of all ARCs in the MDR-Burgess survey also indicated employing curators or artistic directors to develop their programming. Similar to public galleries and museums, ARC’s are also now required by the Canada Council to have an active

and financially accountable Board of Directors in order to be eligible for funding. It is an alarming observation on the shifting Canadian economy of art and art funding that ARCs, now institutions in their own right, are being urged towards a more public structure which is seemingly at odds with Artist-run values. It has also been argued that this professionalization and alignment with museums, universities, and commercial galleries, is a natural and healthy progression for the Centres, and is due in part to continuous operation in an environment with stable access to funding12.

Just as much as the market-led economy can be understood as an antithesis to many contemporary art practices that challenge notions of commodification and reification, increased bureaucratization has also proved to impede creative freedom. So this is where we find ourselves now: leaving one institution only to move to another.

In organizing a panel discussion comprised of artists of varying backgrounds, working in two international cities (Montréal and New York) and partaking in different cultural ecologies, we hope to incite a dialogue that will shed light on artists’ first hand experience in producing work outside the framework of the University. Has the structure of

the artist-run culture either aided or disappointed the artist’s practice? What actions did they feel they must take after graduation to maintain their work?

Do they also question the archetypal Canadian term “cultural worker” and the presupposed need to diversify our practices?

Dates of Exhibition and Panel Discussion: April 3 - 18, 2013 - shape what your mama gave ya at Galerie Coatcheck. Opening April 4.

April 5th - U GOT SCHOOLED: a moderated panel discussion on post-institution art production Featuring: collective SSRC (Sydney Shen and Ryan Chin), Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik and Rachel Shaw. To be moderated by Art History MFA candidate Sally Ling. Facilitated by courtenay maze & Emma Siemens - Adolphe

End Notes: 1 Bryne McLaughlin, “AA Bronson, Anton Vidokle Challenge Canada’s Artist-Run Culture at Institutions by Artists in Vancouver” Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancouver October 12 to 14, 2012.

2 Marilyn Burgess and Maria De Rosa, The Distinct Role of Artist-Run Centres in the Canadian VisualArts Ecology, Prepared for Research Section Canada Council for the Arts, by MDR Burgess Consultants: October 13th, 2011.

3 AA Bronson, “The Humiliation of the Bureaucrat: Artist-Run Centres as Museums by Artists”, 3published in Museums by Artists, edited by AA Bronson and Peggy Gale. Art Metropole, Toronto 1983.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Canada Council for the Arts, Accessed February 13, 2013, www.canadacouncil.ca 7 Eds. J. Khonsary and K. L. Podesva. Institutions

by Artists: Volume One. Folio series. Fillip Editions / 7Pacific Associations of Artist Run Centres (PAARC), 2012.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Marilyn Burgess and Maria De Rosa, The Distinct Role of Artist-Run Centres in the Canadian Visual 10Arts Ecology, 11 Ibid.

12 Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres (PAARC), Accessed February 11, 2013, www. paarc.ca

Works Cited AA Bronson, “The Humiliation of the Bureaucrat: Artist-Run Centres as Museums by Artists”, published in Museums by Artists, edited by AA Bronson and Peggy Gale. Art Metropole, Toronto 1983 Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference / Conférence des collectifs et des centres d'artistes autogérés, Accessed February 11, 2013, www.arccc-cccaa.org Canada Council for the Arts, Accessed February 13, 2013, www.canadacouncil.ca Eds. J. Khonsary and K. L. Podesva. Institutions by Artists: Volume One. Folio series. Fillip Editions / Pacific Associations of Artist Run Centres (PAARC), 2012.

Marilyn Burgess and Maria De Rosa, The Distinct Role of ArtistRun Centres in the Canadian Visual Arts Ecology, Prepared for Research Section Canada Council for the Arts, by MDR Burgess Consultants, October 13, 2011.

Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres (PAARC), Accessed February 11, 2013, www.paarc.ca RCAAQ, 5eme RÉPERTOIRE Des Centres D'Artistes Autogeres Du Quebec Et Du Canada | 5 th DIRECTORY Of Artist-run Centres in Quebec and Canada – Special Edition. ABC Art Books Canada | Livres d'art Canada, 2003 McLaughlin, Bryne “AA Bronson, Anton Vidokle Challenge Canada’s Artist-Run Culture at Institutions by Artists in Vancouver” Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancouver October 12 to 14, 2012.

Image Credit: Sydney Shen, Shape Comber, 2010. 16 mm film stills.

NICOLAS MARTEL

Situé au second étage d’un building d’appartements sur Sainte-­ ‐Émilie dans Saint-­ ‐Henri, le Saint-­ ‐Émile Skillshare est à la fois un atelier, un espace de galerie et un lieu d’apprentissage. Lieu de création activiste engagé, le Skillshare est une organisation qui fonctionne sur une base de consultation communautaire et d’après des principes d ‘anti-­oppression.

Le lieu est composé d’une salle de sérigraphie, d’une chambre noire, d’une salle de couture et d’une galerie. Le studio ouvert et l’un des principaux services offerts par le lieu. Ils ont aussi une programmation qui sera lancée à partir de la mi-­mars, après la réparation d’un tuyau brisé qui paralyse les activités du centre.

Le collectif étant une structure ouverte et inclusive, le Skillshare propose à ses membres un échange d’habiletés et de talents. Par exemple, quelqu’un qui sait tricoter peut apprendre aux autres ce qu’il sait faire en échange d’un cours de photographie. Ce sont sur ces bases que le lieu se développe et se transforme. L’avantage de ce type de structure est que les membres ont une influence directe sur la forme que prend le lieu. Pour le moment, les studios sont ouverts aux membres en tout temps, dépendamment de la disponibilité des locaux. Sinon, pour les non-­ membres, le centre est ouvert le samedi sous une base de donation volontaire.

Avec des initiatives comme celles de Sidetracks, leur équipe bénévole de sérigraphes, et des collaborations avec divers organismes communautaires, le Skillshare participe à plusieurs mouvements engagés avec une approche basée sur l’art comme moyen de résistance. Leur contribution amène, avec un vent de fraicheur, une approche alternative à la sensibilisation envers des enjeux importants. Ils possèdent aussi un présentoir de magazines ‘’Do it yourself’’ très complet et intéressant sur divers enjeux.

Le Skillshare est présentement en train de débattre sur l’avenir de leur organisation. N’étant plus un groupe de travail du GRIP (groupe de recherche et d’intervention publique) depuis peu, le collectif vise à se transformer en organisme à but non-­lucratif. Pour eux, cette option compte ses pours et ses contres. Devenir une OBNL permet à une organisation de ce genre de toucher de l’argent pour leur fonctionnement, mais par la même occasion de se soumettre à une structure institutionnelle qui peut restreindre leur liberté d’action et leur côté plus engagé.

C’est un lieu qui gagne à être connu et qui est une belle ressource pour des étudiants en arts de tous horizons.

Pour plus d’information visitez leur site web à : steemilieskillshare.org

Jessica Kendall Albert is a multidisciplinary artist who concentrates primarily on painting with acrylics. Albert focuses on two different styles of art: realistic and optical illusion. Her realistic style is influenced by both Renaissance and Baroque art and by her expression of meticulous attention to detail and form. Contrastingly, the style of Albert’s optical illusion art consists of lines and shapes that demands and challenges the attention of the viewer.

Inspired particularly by the work of Bridget Riley, Albert draws heavily from the Op movement of the 1960’s. Her style requires extensive calculations and planning with the ultimate goal being the ability to create imagery that forces the viewer to question the difference between seeing and understanding; between illusion and reality.

Taylor Cada is an avid pedestrian. If he had to be anything other than himself he would be a blue whale or the sky above a field of lavender in the summertime or an emancipator or all three simultaneously. Also, he loves beets and lavender.

Eric Clement’s practice centers around the artistic relationship between historical context, current practical issues, and concerns that are strictly aesthetic. Working with oil paint and mixed media on wood panel or canvas, Clement creates works that explore the process of representation through technique. By emphasizing the delicate traces of the artists handiwork that lie beneath the surface of any given piece, Clement attempts to bridge the gap between the artistic process and the physical qualities of the art object itself.

Coming from the advertising world, Hugo Dufour has developed an obsession with the concept of selling culture and his photographs strongly reflect that: they must tease, they must attract, they must please, and then raise the question about why you were initially drawn to them. As he only sells lies and happiness, all the content of his art is created by the game he plays with the viewers. With that goal in mind, he loads his pictures with heavy symbolism and metaphors that are definitively sophisms.

When one looks deeper into them, they see they make no sense. What he makes is artificially meaningful emptiness, parodies of the emotions crafted by advertisement.

True art commences initially based on abstract ideas formed within the sub conscious. The sub conscious, un-tainted by ego, is a full reflection of one’s individual essence. Bianca Hlywa intends to be aware of her hyper sensitivity to the sub conscious, developing the connection that creates honest artwork.

This connection to true individual essence, evidently mystic, is reflected in the art that she produces. Hlywa’s work, in many cases, questions the values of the society around her. Working through a wide range of different mediums, her work often puts to use familiar techniques of creating awe to speak about what is, or is not, sacred.

Laura Horrocks-Denis strives to express the invisible yet tangible realm of human emotion and connection through her artwork by moulding that which is imperceptible into a visual reality. By exploring the power of symbolism and subtext, Horrocks-Denis attempts to create a body of work that functions on a deeper, more subconscious level of human perception and understanding. Her work exists within a realm of feeling and instinctual awareness. Often exploring the relationship between narrative and concept, Horrocks-Denis employs playful shapes and colours to create works that are simultaneously simple in content and rich in subtext.

Through photography and video Megan Moore focuses on spaces linked to childhood memories.

Her work draws attention to familiar elements of domesticity while demonstrating the individual character of these places.

Through photographing evocative landscapes and interiors her work emphasizes how people are shaped by the spaces that surround them.

Laura Rokas is an interdisciplinary artist who is currently in her graduating semester of the painting and drawing program at Concordia University. When she’s not working on an art project, she’s probably either riding her bicycle or sleeping.

Richard Stoller is currently pursuing a BFA in Art History at Concordia University. This is his first time begin featured in Interfold Magazine.

Aidan Pontarini is currently completing a BFA with a focus in photography and painting at Concordia University in Montreal. He independently published an artist book entitled Helpful Henry’s Guide To Domestic Existence. He was a featured artist in Concordia’s annual undergraduate show, Combine in 2012. He was the cover artist for the Spring 2012 issue of The Void and is now its art director and production manager. He is also a part of two upcoming group exhibitions, one at Concordia’s VAV Gallery and another at Art Matter’s Erase and Rewind show.

Guillaume Vallée is interested in radical forms of animation and analogue techniques as a way of considering the direct interaction between different mediums. His work is an exploration of materiality within the creative process. In attempts of creating a more complex relationship with his subject matter, Vallée makes use of cross-medium forms that range from cameraless techniques to optical effects and found-footage, often resulting in surreal and chaotic imagery.

EDITORIAL

This is the fourth issue of Interfold Magazine and my very last as Editor-in-Chief. Interfold has expanded from its humble beginnings in September 2011 to become something much larger than I anticipated, working to support student artists, writers, designers and curators but also promoting the artistic community at Concordia University. I am so very proud of how Interfold has grown and very sad to be leaving such an amazing team. I owe everything to the members of Interfold, past and present, and could not have done this without the people who have been there since day one. Thank you everyone who made the past four issues a success! I hope you enjoy “Collisions.�

Sincerely, Bella Giancotta Editor-in-Chief

Editor-足in-足Chief/Co-足Founder: Bella Giancotta Managing Editor: Iain Meyer-足Macaulay Art Director: Jeremy Sandor Graphic Designer: Kyle Goforth Web Designer: Levi Bruce Head Writer: Nafisa Kaptownwala Senior Editor: Emma Warren Copyeditor: Claire Bargout Events and Communications Executive: Rachel Woroner Multimedia Coordinator: Aaliyeh Afshar Outreach Coordinator: Nicolas Martel Contact: info@interfoldmagazine.com

info@interfoldmagazine.com

www.interfoldmagazine.com

www.interfoldmagazine.com

ISSN 1929-1302 Interfold Magazine