ISSUE3 JANUARY2013
TRANSPARENCY
CONTRIBUTORS Kate Andrews Emily Estelle Belanger Myrianne Giguère Laura Hudspith Cody Jacobs Bianca Laliberté Vivien Leung Nicolas Martel Lauren McGowan Caroline Steele Ingrid Tremblay Basia Wyszynski Alice Zhang
Interfold Magazine is pleased to present its third issue, “Transparency.� In October we asked artists from Concordia to submit work that addresses transparency either formally or conceptually. In response to this poignant topic, we received an overwhelming number of submissions from which we curated this magazine. We would like to thank everyone involved and we hope you enjoy Transparency.
TRANSPARENCY
CAROLINE STEELE IMG00652 [ Acrylic and Oil on Raw Canvas ] This piece is based on a photograph taken by the artist during one of her daily commutes in the Montreal metro system. Elements of the source image were then added to create both a more painterly and graphic style. The transparency or absence of paint on the support is used as a constituent of the image; it acts as a tonality, a color. The transparency left by graphic white outlining aims to remind the viewer of the passage of time; of the people who have invested the space and left over the period of time that covers the commute. There is a dichotomy between the left and right pictorial space where the artist is exploring the notions of human and machine using the language of the other.
LAURA HUDSPITH Biomorphic Mass [ Cheesecloth, Adhesive ] Biomorphic Mass: a ridged cloth structure of components delicately balanced atop each other yet seemingly arbitrarily placed. As the observer moves around the sculpture, one begins to notice that the form is ever changing, reminiscent of an array of organic objects. The work seeks to draw the attention of the viewer to their own visceral and tactile assumptions about the world, as they perceive it. Using dualities of light and shadow, and mass and emptiness to call into question how we perceive objects, this sizable airy structure and its heavy shadows speak of both weightiness and all the space in between. Biomorphic Mass invites the viewer to see through its form and consider that our assumptions of objects in the world may not always align with reality.
BASIA WYSZYNSKI The Future Is Not What It Used To Be [ C-Print ] Basia Wyszynski resolves her fears surrounding the finite nature and scientific certainty of death by locating its antithesis in the infinite mystery of sky and space, and by preserving this enigma eternally through photography. Whilst in one respect, these photos embody the horror of the passing of time - the loss of a certain time and place, and the sadness of the definite inability to ever go backwards and return to a specific cloudy day held in ones memory - they simultaneously strive to showcase the beauty in the ceaselessness of our geological atmosphere. Whilst death is a certain end for all that is earth bound, the shapeless, formless and timeless material that is sky and space is eternal in its enigmatic beauty.
MYRIANNE GIGUÈRE
MYRIANNE GIGUÈRE Les rhino-lapins qui ressuscitent les pensées mortes [ Glass, Enamel, Painted Found Objects ] La démarche de Myrianne Guiguère, qui l’amène à mouler des vieux jouets et figurines pour tenter de récupérer des parcelles de leurs souvenirs, est de situer des personnages dans un univers dichotomique: entre le rêve et la réalité / entre la peur et la curiosité / entre le monde de l’enfance et celui de l’adulte / entre ses souvenirs et ceux d’objets inertes. Les rhino-lapins qui ressuscitent les pensées mortes est une sculpture alliant la pâte de verre émaillée à un objet trouvé. Elle évoque la mort; celle des pensées, des idées. L’oubli. Elle évoque aussi la vie, ou plutôt le retour à la vie. Elle soulève l’idée de la dichotomie : entre la vie et la mort; cet espace indéfinissable. Inspirée par un rhinocéros en plastique trouvé, par un lapin en céramique usé et par une cocotte trouée d’alvéoles, L’artiste tente de créer un univers exutoire. La technique de la pâte de verre permet l’utilisation d’une semi transparence, de créer des personnages vaporeux, figés dans leur dualité.
KATE ANDREWS ORBS [ Oil on Mylar ] This project explores vast space and intricate detail. When we look at the night sky we perceive it as two-dimensional. We comprehend it as an opaque blanket, above and separate from us. Kate Andrews is fascinated by the sky as an immeasurable expanse of space, enveloping our planet and us then expanding infinitely outward. When we look at the sky and its intricacies - star patterns, far away planets - we are seeing through layers of time, intervals of space and matter, narratives of other worlds. With this piece Andrews attempts to represent the immensity of the night sky, and the incalculable quantity of information waiting to be discovered within its eternal layers.
ALICE ZHANG New Grace [ Graphite on Paper ] This piece explores the notion that the appearance of beauty and childhood innocence is often deceptive. The boundary separating the duality of appearance vs. truth and beauty vs. ugliness is blurred and tangled. There is always something darker and more sinister hidden within innocence and vulnerability, which is what this piece seeks to reveal. Nothing is as simple as it may appear to be.
CODY JACOBS Untitled I (Previous page), Untitled II [ C-Print ] Humans tend to absorb the world within a visual realm where everything is polarized into black or white. By viewing life through these extremes, one is unable to observe that which lingers in the in-between: the shades of grey. Through this series, Jacobs attempts to merge varying visual worlds, thereby creating a space within her photographs for images that are neither “black” or “white”. Applying multiple exposures onto a single thirty-five millimeter negative produces a transparency between the multiple images. In doing this, she attempts to eradicate visual certainty and question the ways in which the viewer will absorb and categorize what they observe in the photos.
EMILY ESTELLE BELANGER 2010, 2012 [ Ink on Paper ] For a series entitled “DRAWING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL I DIE,� Emily Belanger revisited a few of her most characteristic pieces and added annotations. Nothing left obscure: a drawing was selected from each of the last four years, motivations spelled out with acute precision in the painfully confessional tone of late adolescence. The labels aim to deflate potential academic readings of her esoteric imagery, and though the work is evidently not free of artifice, you are forced to consider that artifice. An attempt at transparency in the sense of being held accountable for the abstruse tropes she has been leaning on for years.
INGRID TREMBLAY
INGRID TREMBLAY Déstruction Constructive [ Gyproc, Acrylic and Wood ] Déstruction constructive est une sculpture abordant la construction et la déstruction de l’espace en tant que procédés inter reliés. La déstruction est utilisée comme outil pour dévoiler la matière, ouvrir les champs fermés, construire l’espace, mettre l’accent sur la tridimensionnalité, la superposition et l’accumulation. Les ouvertures découvrent d’autres couches, d’autres dimensions, apportant une lecture nouvelle de la réalité à laquelle nous faisons face. Derrière des murs, on découvre d’autres murs se superposant, des débris de destruction s’accumulant. Une tension émerge entre la brutalité du geste, la fragilité du résultat et l’équilibre de la composition.
M A W Lauren McGowan Max Evans is telling me about how they’re really into camouflage right now, Depanneur Camouflage, “The plan is to go into the Dep wearing camouflage that suits the Dep.” Someone interjects, “Not just suits but is like, specific. Like a gym rack or a chip rack.” “Like Cheetos? You’re gonna wear Cheetos?” This is what it’s like to get to know MAW collective. When we meet for the first time, the six of them are sitting on a couch at their apartment in Griffintown. All are wearing funky shirts. Four out of six have beards. The apartment looks like a Wundercabinet of curiosities that has exploded, covering every inch of the space in stuff. There are floor to ceiling trinkets and gizmos everywhere. MAW is hard to pinpoint. Working as a group without one single leader, Gabriel Baribeau, Jackson Darby, Max Evans, John Gunner, Craig Spence and Simon Zaborski appear to work under one great motherbrain, constantly churning and constructing their next move. MAW was created two years ago. Their first official show together was in September 2011, but they have known each other much longer. Max, Jackson, and Simon went to high school together in Toronto, “My mom is friends with his mom.” Simon then met Gabe and John in a sculpture class they all took together at Concordia, and everyone agrees that they all met Craig through Montreal parties. The title itself, MAW, is an expression of the group’s urgency for community, “MAW came from a huge brainstorm. We deviate quickly from straight lines that we’re on so we wanted it to be completely wide open, approachable.” Another member jumps in, “The immediate pseudonym is “Most Ambiguous Word.” Conversations with the group work like this. Not quite finishing sentences, but finishing thoughts.
MAW’s most recent group effort was Fetaphysics at AB Gallery in the Belgo for Nuit Blanche a celebration of the absurdity of art presentation and practice. An enormous whale pulling a chariot acted as the focal point while giant purple grapes spouting wine created a Greek Willy Wonka factory, complimented by pulsating Greek pop music. The show also featured an enormous block of MAW- made feta cheese” “Which was demolished-there were people in that corner of the gallery all night.” Fetaphysics was the last show by MAW following A Blundercraft of Wonderparts at the VAV gallery. The show was described on MAW’s website as a “large-scale installation that used chaos and dysfunctionality to exploit the fallacy inherent in industrial, technological hope,” and Rakes Progress at Control Lab, their first exhibition which, in their own words, “Deconstructed the pristine aesthetic that we had in previous shows.” MAW’s current installation can be seen in the courtyard in front of the VA building on the corner of Crescent and Renee Lévesque. It is a concrete campsite that brings us back to the camouflage. “A lot of our themes fall under outdoorsy shit- Canadiana, we’re recently into camouflage.” “Even the campsite is like camouflage in the city.” The campsite challenges our perception of a typically natural setting, not only because it is in an urban space but, because it has taken on the appearance of the urban space itself. The campsite installation began the second week of September and was completed in mid-November. Almost every aspect of the campsite was molded from found objects. Even the “rocks” surrounding the fire pit were created by making plaster molds of real rocks that the artists found.
The tent proved an exceptional challenge in figuring out how to make it a functional object. At its base is a foundation set with steel armature welded to shape and support the multiple layers covering it. The first layer is made of chicken wire pulled taught around the armature frame so that the initial layer of concrete would soak in and cure to create the first structural layer. Burlap dipped in concrete covers the skeletal structure. After this, a metal lath was attached to the layer, the flexibility and depth of which intertwined with the cement giving further structural support. Then the whole thing is then parged. The lath acts as retainer and holds the parging cement to the structure in on steep angles and awkward places. This same process was repeated for the fly. All in all, the tent alone used 30-35 bags of cement, “About 2,300 pounds of the stuff, give or take a few hundred pounds.” The other objects, such as the pile of logs and the axe, were first cast in silicone to capture the smallest details, and then later made into a plaster mold.. Another 20 bags of concrete went into the other items. The campsite was made possible by the sculpture department’s annual outdoor sculpture competition. For such a huge installation the artists had to work as one, their biggest collaboration to date. Everything was completed as a unit, “Working with people you really can do a lot”. On how they came up with the idea for such a large-scale installation, “When an idea comes to mind its never considering what we actually know what to do.”Ideas take the form of children’s books that may become operas, cow-size strips of leather, and endless objects that oneday could become something else. Each artist has their own individual strength that they bring to their collective work.
“The cool thing is there’s somebody that always knows a bit more,” “We’re pretty eager to teach each other certain things.” What MAW has created is reminiscent of the communal housing and creating of the HaightAshbury district of San Francisco in the sixties. MAW seems to have harnessed that which musicians learnt long ago - this being the power of collaboration. “Another thing about working with this many people is you can’t half-ass anything. There are so many people dedicating so much time to this one thing, that we always have to strive to be making the best work that we can.” MAW describes their work as “boyish musings” and they are unapologetically boyish. Time with them is like hanging out with your older brothers friends. They are six guys that happen to be spectacularly talented and were lucky enough to find intensely compatible creative counterparts in one another”. And they are not the only group that has found success in their gathering.
FOFA GALLERY AND FINE ARTS AT CONCORDIA VIVIEN LEUNG Gallery Director jake moore discusses the FOFA gallery’s place in the fine arts ecology
“Once you’ve established ‘place’ and not just occupying ‘space’, things change a great deal and it is an organism that needs care and feeding.” says FOFA gallery director, jake moore of the EV building exhibition space. To see the FOFA as a neutral space for the display of artwork is to gloss over the complexities that make the institution a relevant and vibrant part of the Fine Arts ecology. It acts as both a node and a channel within the larger ecology of vying ideas, trends and institutions at Concordia. A UNIQUE MANDATE The FOFA occupies a sort of middle ground, mandate-wise, between the two other recognized exhibition spaces on campus, the VAV and the Leonard and Bina Ellen galleries. Unlike the Ellen Gallery, the FOFA is not a curated space. The gallery operates on a peer reviewed submissions basis. A committee of five professors, each coming from different departments within the Faculty of Fine Arts, works on a two year mandate. The system is similar to an artist run centres’, where the programming is decided democratically by a board of artists, but with an academic slant. This crossdisciplinary peer review council brings a diversity of voices and practices to the discussion, allowing FOFA to fulfill their mandate to be unanimously representative of the Faculty.
“Our mandate is to support the faculty, students, staff and alumni of Concordia University. [...] We make public the research and curricular outcomes of this place.” said moore. To that end, the FOFA’s programming schedule is extremely tight, in order to show as many different artists as possible throughout the academic year.” “You’ll notice that the Ellen will do four shows a year and we’ll do twenty-seven that happen within nine distinct programming moments.” said moore. Contrary to the VAV, the FOFA shows artwork, not only by current students, but alumni, staff and faculty as well. Another difference between the two is that the FOFA is bound by stricter presentation techniques and must comply with the visual language of the school. Compared to the Ellen there is some work that the FOFA cannot display. moore explains, “The Ellen has something called “Museum 2 Status,” which means that they have climate control that
we don’t have.” Archival materials cannot be shown in the gallery an some pieces can only be shown outside of an archival environment for a limited time. The FOFA also plays a supportive role, frequently acting as the first space where artists exhibit their work following strict professional standards. However, students should not be afraid of approaching her. moore often conducts studio visits to help students prepare dossiers, upon their request. “If you look at our website as to how to apply, that’s what professional environments want to see. We’re introducing professional standards and then we’re helping them achieve those standards.” says moore. “When money is tight, overlapping mandates is not allowable,” says moore, “If we’re doing the same thing that someone else is doing, it’s really hard to support that.” This may explain why the FOFA seeks to make the best of the diverse amalgam of spaces that constitute the gallery. AN IMPERFECT, POLYVALENT SPACE The gallery is formed of 5 spaces that are used together and separately to achieve various creative visions and potentials. The York corridor vitrine, the main gallery, the black box, the Ste. Catherine vitrine and the courtyard. One of the most immediately noticeable spaces is without a doubt the York corridor vitrine, accessed via the MacKay entrance of the EV building. According to moore, 25,000 people walk by those vitrines in a month and everyone notices when a new show goes up. The main gallery space features a bewildering idiosyncrasy in that it had no corners originally. “That makes it difficult. It makes for a great boutique, but it doesn’t make for a great exhibition space.” says moore, “So we’ve put a corner in but that was a big decision.” “[The space] has to be flexible, we make it flexible through
a lot of creative intervention,” said moore. A great example is a monolith that was placed diagonally in the center of the main gallery, dividing the space for Contested Site: Archives and the City. It was first created to block light for a specific work, but then moved on to act as a corridor and then a partitioning device. “The thousand dollars that was spent building it has now served six exhibitions.” said moore. The courtyard and small black box space in the gallery round out the quintuple of spaces the FOFA works with. Depending on how familiar you are with the University’s politics, you may or may not be surprised to learn that the FOFA gallery was first slated to have a footprint that would stretch from MacKay to the courtyard. The FOFA gallery did not exist prior to the Fine Arts Faculty’s migration from the VA to the EV. “It was a huge step forward for the visual arts at Concordia and the faculty itself,” recalls moore, highlighting that it represented a shift in the influence that the Fine Arts faculty has within the University. However, not everything went according to plan, “Financially, the school kept chipping into it and renting out the space,” said moore. “With what you see left of the original plans for the gallery, you’ll notice there are a lot of flaws in the space.” Amongst the things that have been axed, for the benefit of Arc’teryx, was running water for the gallery, accessible storage space and office space. moore currently holds office in a closet. However, moore does not let the limitations of the space hold her back from pursuing worthwhile projects. “We’ve done that before, we assist with projects outside our space in part because I fully recognize the distinction of where things need to be,” moore says mentioning a Sergei Parjanov film they showed in the De Seve cinema. “It’s more important that the FOFA indicates that support, we support it so fully that we go where it needs to be,” said moore, highlighting the fact that the FOFA is an institution with resonance well beyond its walls. The FOFA may soon be faced with a new challenge. “They say that when we move to the Grey Nuns there’s a possibility that the gallery will move again,” said
moore, “I’ve made clear my suggestions that the school should value the storefront space.” “I continue to treat the space as being whole all the time. We can’t not invest in this because we’ll be moving someday, I have to make this work now and I try really hard.” PROGRAMMING FLEXIBILITY & INTERDISCIPLINARITY The programming at the FOFA puts together its assets and mandate in a dynamic way. A look at the gallery’s past programming reveals a series of creative innovations that make use of its relationships with other institutions and employs their resources creatively. “When I say the mandate is to serve the Faculty of Fine Arts, we’ve noticed there are times when they are best served by something from without.” said moore. It is moore’s consciousness of the broader exhibition ecosystem in which the FOFA exists, which allows her to provide students with so many opportunities. This results in shows that follow a theme of bringing in external art practices and drawing links to things that are happening within the university. A
good example was the show Domestic Queens. The committee was fascinated by a proposal by Larry Glawson, but they could not commit yet. “When the committee saw this, we were really interested, but we were like, how can make this matter more? How do we tie it in better?” Luckily, a week later the gallery received a proposal from Evergon to curate a show regarding the way that queer artists’ sexuality is manifested in their oeuvre. “I feel like with the minor in Sexuality that’s housed within the Faculty of Fine Arts we have a way to invite the participants to look at this project more than they wish to do.” said moore. As well as being a milieu for the presentation of research, the FOFA has also been the site of research. Christopher Salter of LABXMODAL once saw the gallery converted into a black box where he conducted his research. We essentially turned the gallery into a black box, a testing site for the project he was working on, but we also ran a series of weekly lectures,” said moore. People were invited to come in and witness the progression of Salter’s work, whilst simultaneously discussing his experiments in a critical, academic environment. “The pacing of the programming also allows for impromptu projects to slip in, something that
moore encourages, and adds to the already diverse and unconventional programming at the FOFA. The best example is perhaps Silver, last year’s PHOT400 show, which was able to slip in between two shows. “They launched their publication, they sold literally 100 books that day and there was a huge social response to it.” moore makes sure to keep her fingers in all the pies, “I think the idea of changing and responding to the environment is really valuable.” Much more than walls on which to hang art, the FOFA is really a product of its relationships, spatial structure and ideas and prevalent trends of the Concordia art scene. We can learn a lot about the life of such institutions and how they must grow and adapt to remain viable and relevant by taking a closer look at the forces that shape it. The FOFA stands as proof that no artistic institution can subsist in isolation for very long. They are part of a larger network that trades in ideas, expertise and resources.
LE CABINET
Nicolas Martel Located on the top floor of Le Chat des Arts’ building in the centre-sud neighbourhood, Le Cabinet is a small artist center that has the potential to grow in a way that could fill a large gap in the Montreal photo community. The initiative hails from five Concordia University graduates who were asking themselves the dreaded question that haunts every art student: What now? Concordia’s photo department has a fully equipped lab that spoils every student that attends image- taking classes and as soon as they leave school they suddenly find themselves out of options to process their images in an autonomous manner. “We are learning to work on our own but there are no real options for us to work that way outside of the school environment,” says Jacinthe Robillard, secretary and co-founder of the center. “The lack of a real option for photographers to work on their own and get technical assistance creates situations where the artists have to go to a professional lab with photos and hope their prints turn out the way they want without being able to act on their tests to get a good result. It is a costly process that does not guarantee results.” The idea for the center was initiated by Jacinthe Robillard and Catherine Tremblay who were trying to get a shared space to continue their work and share their equipment as a means to pool their resources. In sharing the idea with their friends, others joined and they soon got this idea of an open lab where people could drop in, work and share their skills with each other. After a few meetings with
entrepreneurship advisors they launched the project in the shape of a small, but solid lab. “This is our baby,” says Flavia Majils, vice-president and co-founder, while pointing to their brand new forty-four inch Canon printer. “We also have scanners and workstations that are perfectly colour calibrated for professional use.” There is a technician that is always present in the center to manipulate the printer and help out the artists in achieving the results that they are looking for. This is just the beginning, as the center will always be on the lookout for new pieces of equipment to acquire. Film support is also a major focus for Le Cabinet because of the increasing lack of resources for film development. The members of the center believe that the preservation of structures that support the production of film-based media will encourage photographers to continue to work with this quickly dissipating medium. There is a wish for this center to become a community hub, a place that will attract photographers and artists alike to share, learn, create friendships and to encourage each other’s growing artistic practice. In the future, Le Cabinet is looking for people to get involved, as there will be workshops, artist talks and residencies offered to members. Le Cabinet aims to be a space that is shaped by the initiatives of its users and as such, welcomes new members and their individual perspectives.
EN DESSOUS DE L’ART Bianca Laliberté J’en ai marre, de l’art. L’art comme concept flou qui circule, utilisé à toutes les sauces. L’art comme un énorme bain de créations, de productions, complètement désordonné. Une gigantesque peinture postmoderne. Un gros bordel anomique qui fait silencieusement mal. Mais, fondamentalement, ce n’est pas l’art qui fait mal. C’est le sol qui le supporte, sol aride de notre époque, une énorme plaine de béton qui ne laisse passer ni air, ni terre, ni feu, ni eau. Aussi longtemps que les artistes se laisseront porter dans l’illusion idéale de l’autonomie de leur travail, leur art continuera de blesser paradoxalement les âmes. Et si l’on pouvait encore percevoir un soupir, à travers eux, de l’espoir réel d’un monde meilleur ? Quelles sont donc les couleurs de ce soupir? Je ne suis pas sans savoir que certains suivent déjà cette route, celle de la critique sociale. Mais aujourd’hui, rien ni personne en ce monde ne peut se dire complètement inaffecté par l’idéologie capitaliste, à des degrés plus ou moins déterminants. La critique est donc elle-même affectée et c’est à l’aune de ce savoir qu’elle doit être pratiquée. L’idéologie est mondiale et globalisante. Le monde est régi par la propriété privée. Et ce qui n’en est pas est tout de même régi par des puissances économiques ou institutionnelles, du plus petit village du Zimbabwe aux ruines des montagnes espagnoles jusqu’aux grandes métropoles. L’artiste n’est pas moins que quiconque physiquement ancré en ce monde. Sa capacité à créer de la beauté, parfois magnifiquement, que ce soit en film ou en peinture, en sculpture ou en spectacle, ne suffit pas à le libérer complètement, ni lui, ni ceux qui le reçoivent. L’artiste a souvent eu tendance à créer un espace en dehors de la sphère sociale, ou encore à se séparer de la politique pour remplir sa mission, celle de soulever les esprits, effectuer les recherches et les investigations nécessaires à ses créations. Proust traçait littéralement une ligne entre la vie sociale et la vie de l’art. Ovide, lui, réclamait la reconnaissance de sa supériorité sur Auguste. Baudelaire a peut-être eu raison de créer un de ces espaces en dehors du monde connu pour vivre librement ses voyages et ses flâneries. Il l’a fait à une époque où il était encore possible de le faire, où la propriété privée et la surveillance ne délimitaient pas de manière aussi contraignante la sphère publique ou privée, où l’infestation psychique n’avait pas atteint un tel degré de gravité.
L’homogénéité entre la sphère publique et privée se fait de plus en plus criante. Les violences et les plaies du dehors sont intériorisées. Les lieux domestiques sont devenus des dispositifs de diffusion de l’idéologie au même titre que le panneau d’affichage : ordinateur, télévision, appel de Bell au téléphone. Nous la transportons avec nous un peu partout. L’idéologie nous suit jusque dans nos lits. Peut-être serait-ce la même homogénéité qui obligera l’artiste à se rendre compte de l’unité qui combine l’ensemble des mondes qu’il connaît? L’illusion de l’art peut-elle tirer à sa fin ? N’est-il pas temps que l’artiste s’approprie la sphère sociale ? Qu’il cesse, en quelque sorte, de feindre de n’être pas de ce monde. Admettons que ce lieu magnifique, qu’est celui dont parle Proust, existe bel et bien, comment l’artiste ne peut-il pas savoir, lui qui en explore les contrées, que les degrés d’intoxications qu’il a atteints deviennent presque aussi insupportables que le reste du monde qu’il cherche à fuir, son socle même. Et s’il en venait à vouloir le guérir, afin que renaisse la plénitude de sa solitude, il serait confronté aux conditions sociales qui régissent le sens de ses créations et les règles du monde de l’art. L’artiste n’a jamais été confronté à tant d’épreuves qu’il l’est aujourd’hui. Jamais l’art n’a été plus durement confronté à lui-même. Sa puissance émancipatrice s’effrite. Ce n’est pas l’artiste qui en est responsable, ni son talent ou son imagination. C’est l’industrie au sein de laquelle il œuvre, une industrie dans une industrie dans une industrie. Les artistes doivent se réapproprier leur puissance d’agir, leur liberté. Liberté dont l’artiste est plus que d’autres à même de se sentir illusoirement possesseur, en ce que le monde de l’art se veut champs libre, au moins certainement depuis un siècle. Pour se la réapproprier, cette liberté, il n’a d’autres choix que de commencer à participer à défrayer les routes qui constituent le territoire réel de ses activités.
L’industrie artistique est plus que jamais complexe et fragmentée. On voit apparaître des galeries indépendantes à visée sociales, des petits blocs de résistance contre les musées et galeries dominantes. Il ne faut sous-estimer ni la valeur, ni l’influence de ces instances, mais pour que s’opère un réel changement social, nécessaire à la venue d’un art ressuscité, ne doit-on pas considérer que c’est au sein même des secteurs dominants que l’art social doit se faire entendre, sans pudeur ou gêne d’affirmer la vie ? Au sein même de l’institution ? C’est l’industrie qui le contraint et l’institution qui le forme que l’artiste doit connaître pour être à même de se positionner par rapport à elle. Au mieux, il en viendra à reconnaître ce en quoi elles modèlent son art plus qu’il n’aimerait le croire. L’artiste reste et demeure un combattant, un messager, une forme de khôra. Il ne peut cesser ses explorations dans les espaces entre et au-delà des mondes, ou alors l’art mourra complètement. Mais il doit chercher à saisir comment le retour à la vie parmi les hommes peut s’effectuer pour que le sens de son œuvre se dessine par et encore après ses voyages. Ulysse avait au cœur une chose: déposer ses pieds sur la Terre d’Itaque.
ARTIST STATEMENTS KATE ANDREWS Kate Andrews has a lifelong interest in visual expression and illustration, the basis of Kate’s work lies in drawing and the photographic image. She works in a range of medias, including graphite pencil, ink, watercolour and oil paint, while working in a variety of sizes; works range from intimate, postcard-sized illustrations to larger works with ties to installation. With a keen interest in the alluring yet impossible feat of manually recreating elements found in nature, she is interested in creating feelings of delicacy and intricacy in her work, employing careful use of line and areas of colour to transform a flat surface into a textured being. Stemming from a growing interest in the sky and its ever-expanding network of matter and unearthly substance, the subject matter of recent works often includes celestial, near-indiscernible orbs of colour combined with regions of infinitesimal detail. Concepts of the vastness of the universe and its indefinite qualities provide the foundations on which Kate’s latest work is created.
EMILY ESTELLE BELANGER Emily Belanger’s work deals with bestial sensuality in neurotic detail: small-scale pieces and elaborate textures betray an agonizing process that suits her highly self-conscious subject matter. Focusing on wild animals, ambiguous genitalia, and nude vulnerability, she aims for the midpoint between humour and disgust, between familiar humiliations and a paralyzing unknown.
MYRIANNE GIGUÈRE Mes préoccupations tournent autour de trois thèmes : la mémoire, la déformation (physique, psychologique, identitaire, contextuelle … ) et le sentiment de perte. Ces trois thèmes sont dans mon récent travail reliés par le monde de l’enfance. La mémoire travestit des souvenirs lointains, qui se retrouvent à mi-chemin entre une conception de la vie implacable (ou naïve) et un monde imaginaire salvateur, à la fois idyllique et effrayant. Puis, la déformation du monde au travers le regard de l’enfance, dont la vision se mesure à ses terreurs et à ses rêves. Finalement, le sentiment de perte : tout ce qui doit être laissé derrière pour grandir. Ma démarche m’amène à tenter de récupérer ces parcelles de
souvenirs. Ce que j’ai laissé derrière, enfant, est ce à quoi je souhaite maintenant me rattacher, dans la perspective de donner une sorte de légitimité à ma conception actuelle du monde. Mon travail actuel porte sur des objets (ou s’en inspire) que je considère comme des témoins naïfs du quotidien, des objets éponges, porteurs d’une innocence nostalgique : les vieux jouets. Délaissés par d’autres, je les ai cherchés, trouvés, manipulés et aimés. Je me laisse porter par les souvenirs des autres, que j’imagine et assemble, en y insérant mes propres repères.
LAURA HUDSPITH Society often demands for us to “look with our eyes and not our hands,” yet impulse tells us to explore. Forms, textures and intricate details of the world go uncharted and untouched far too often. Laura Hudspith’s practice revolves around creating interesting forms that can be felt and understood visually. Laura is interested in recognizing the functions that form can hold, whilst simultaneously replacing the original functionalities of objects with a new role. While leaving the original form of an object intact enough to imply its former use, she attaches new forms in order to add a secondary function. She seeks to engage viewers with her work by drawing on objects that can relate to some aspect of daily life. In this way, one can attach themselves to the work in a closely familiar way.
CODY JACOBS Cody Jacobs grew up in Huntington, New York. She is currently pursuing a B.F.A. at Concordia with a major in photography and minor in anthropology. Primarily working with 35mm colour film photography, she seeks to capture moments and places that she shares strong sentimental memories with. By establishing a dream-like ambiance within her visuals, Jacobs hopes to evoke feelings of nostalgia and fading memory. Coming from a family with deep roots in photography, she is also interested in engaging with family history through the medium. Film photography expresses her individual perceptions through a more intimate means, as the medium lends itself to a complex and physical connection with the photo itself via the development and manipulation process.
CAROLINE STEELE
ALICE ZHANG
In science, whenever an experiment utilizes human participation to any degree, the researchers are forced to account for human error as a potential source of interference. This inconsistency of human nature is a flaw within any process that demands consistency and reproducibility. As a result, we either strive to perfectly reproduce reality with artificial means, or suppress this need to replicate by transforming “reproduction” into interpretation, and thus, “re-creation.” Considering this, it is fascinating to consider what would happen if the human hand was to direct a machine to replicate a work already imprinted with human error. Steele’s work explores this relationship between man and machine through the practice of producing art, and what would happen if one were to use the language of the other for reproduction.
Through her art practice, Alice Zhang plays with the deception of appearance in terms of innocence, vulnerability and beauty. She does this often through the symbolic use of certain animals and children. She loves to create beautiful images or illusions, which upon closer inspection reveal there are always darker subject matters to be discovered.
INGRID TREMBLAY Mon travail combine différents médiums artistiques et aborde les contrastes et les oppositions dans les idées et dans la composition: construction et destruction, brutalité et délicatesse, superposition et enfouissement, addition et soustraction, dissimulation et découverte, éléments de la nature et objets façonnés par l’homme. Le processus est à la fois intuitif et contrôlé, menant à des compositions expressives qui suggèrent une expérience antérieure à l’œuvre, un état initial ayant subi une transformation.
BASIA WYSZYNSKI Using snapshot photography to capture the fleeting and seemingly trivial images that envelope us throughout our daily lives, Basia Wyszynski attempts to soothe her intimate fears and anxieties about the uncertainty of the future. By meticulously cataloging the endless stream of commonplace images that constitute the “current,” Wyszynski attempts to form an archive of a beautiful “past,” in the hopes of making our uncharted path forward into the future a little less daunting. By preserving the visual of each and every minor occurrence in her daily life, she in fact preserves the very essence of these moments, thereby creating a doorway into the past; a trail we can re-trace backwards, into a time or space that would otherwise be forgotten in the darkness of the chaotic future.
EDITORIAL “Transparency� was inspired by the turbulent political situation in Montreal during the past year: student protest, anticorruption, and the artists we came in contact with on a daily basis. Interfold would like to thank everyone who made Issue 3 possible and those who took the time to apply, not to mention our contributors and hard-working staff. The variety of mediums featured in this issue should come as an endless reminder of the innovation within Concordia University and seek to inspire fellow artists alike. I could not be more pleased as Interfold goes into its second year with the momentum this magazine has picked up. A significant amount of time, energy and creation has been put into this issue and we sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Bella Giancotta Editor-in-Chief
STAFF
Editor-in-Chief: Bella Giancotta Managing Editor: Iain Meyer-Macaulay Art Director: Jeremy Sandor Graphic Designer: Kyle Goforth Web Designer: Levi Bruce Head Writer: Lauren McGowan Senior Editor: Emma Warren Copy Editor: Claire Bargout Events and Communications Executive: Rachel Woroner Outreach Coordinator: Nicolas Martel Multimedia Coordinator: Aaliyeh Afshar Contact: info@interfoldmagazine.com
JOIN INTERFOLD
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Interfold magazine is looking for its next Editor-in-Chief. Training for this position would begin immediately in preparation for the official starting date of April 2013. The ideal candidate should be familiar with Interfold Magazine and FASA structure, and have the following characteristics: A currently enrolled Concordia student with a strong understanding of the Concordia and Montreal art scene Previous curating experience Grant writing ability Strong networking skills Exceptional organizational skills, particularly time management Experience with financial planning and budgeting Team management and interpersonal skills Strong understanding of English language and grammar French is an asset but not required Knowledge of social media mandatory and programs such as InDesign and Photoshop is a plus. A course load of less than five classes per semester This position will take up a good deal of time, so the ideal candidate should be positive that their schedule allows for their utmost dedication to the magazine. Some of the busier weeks will require up to twenty hours of work dedicated to the operations of Interfold, alongside a weekly meeting chaired by the Editor-in-Chief. All interested candidates should send their CV and a brief cover letter to info@ interfoldmagazine.com before February 8, 2013. Only qualified candidates will be contacted for an interview.
HEAD WRITER Interfold is looking for a new Head Writer for the winter semester with the possibility to carry over into the 2013-Â2014 school year. Responsibilities include: Seeking new subject matter for articles both in the magazine and online Delegating tasks and events to writers Editing and copyediting Setting deadlines and meeting them Helping Interfold run smoothly and representing Fine Arts at Concordia Knowledge of art history, Montreal events and galleriesâ€? All interested applicants should sent their CV, writing sample and brief cover letter to info@interfoldmagazine.com by February 8th
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ISSN 1929-1302 Interfold Magazine