Overview:
Site-specific installations and interventionist work exploring the notions of Intimacy in Public Space through the disciplines of Performance, Dance, Mixed Media, Theater, Visual Arts and New Media.
Curators: John Naccarato & Sarah Nesbitt
Event: Part of the Art Matters Festival, 2008
Locations: Concordia University, Public Spaces throughout Montreal & Eastern Bloc
Dates: Feb. 29 to Mar. 15, 2008
Artists/Performers
Title of Work: Wait
Artist: Vincent Chevallier
Project Type: Performance/Intervention
Description: wait for an appropriate moment / disclose your hiv status / wait /
Title of Work: Wizard of Zoop
Artist: Guillaume Boudrias-Plouffe
Project Type: Interventionist Performance
Description: Hey Kids !!! AstroClown the Superhero Scientist Clown, Yvan the European Gymnastic Instructor and Pow-Wow, Master of Hamster Style Aquatic Kung Fu, invite you to participate in their crazy adventures !!!!!
Title of Work: Things Found at the Webster Library Which are Vaguely Depressing to Me
Artist: Anna Wilkinson
Project Type: Intervention/Installation
Description: Playing with the conventions of museum exhibitions and the traditional curatorial voice, this installation piece narrates the sadness of everyday objects found in Concordia’s Webster Library.
Title of Work: Positioning Subjectivity
Artist: Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte
Project Type: Performance/Intervention
Description: The work aims at illustrating the presence of two sets of subjectivities within an individual’s framework. Two video projections (material based on the Rorschach Inkblot Test) interact within the performance.
Title of Work: T H E H O L E T R U T H
Artist: Lauqa Maccaulay
Project Type: Site-Specific Installation/Intervention
Description: bookworms, come burrow into this cozy old paperback: illustrations of insignificance, divulging all molecules and constellations. a treatise on non-being, a voidful volume to have on hands (!)
Title of Work: Pink Project
Artist: Marisa Hoick
Project Type: Performance/Intervention/Documentation
Description: Through documentation and performance, Pink Project explores personal identity as a dancer and interest in the body. As reflected in the temporality of materials; my body won’t last forever.
Title of Work: Synonymous
Artist: Juan Ortiz-Apuy
Project Type: Video/Intervention
Description: Exploring writing as the construction of knowledge and how it is imprinted upon us – often violently and permanently – shaping our sense of ourselves and the world.
Title of Work: 5 probable 20 seconds in a run
Artist: Jae Ok Lee
Project Type: Video Performance
Description: Exploring the notion of probable time as an opposition to absolute time. (Video) The mystery of private running unfolds at a solitary segment of the city.
Title of Work: Out of Order
Artist: Michael Bishop
Project Type: Media Intervention
Description: Out of Order is a work that allows the user to interact with a typeface whose main feature is randomness. “Sense the limits of the letter form: out of randomness; out of order.”
Title of Work: The Sand Paper Princess
Artist: Claudia Chan Tak
Project Type: Performance/Intervention
Description: A new kind of ballerina: she is noisy, weirdly graceful and available for caress. An interactive intervention, please enjoy!
Title of Work: Insular Museum Of Fenestral Artifacts
Artist: Anonymous (Artist does not wish his name published due to nature of work)
Project: Installation, Site-Specific Intervention/Documentation
Description: Insular Museum Of Fenestral Artifacts is a clandestine museum located just off the shore of the island of Montreal. It is built from the artifacts that are the focus of the museum’s solo exhibition.
Title of Work: Fall Prey
Artists: Choreographer: Metanoiia (Jenn Doan) Interpreters: Forty Nguyen, Lesley Smith, Lea Paranoia, Vanessa Bousquet
Project Type: Dance Site Specific
Description:
in uncontrollable descent, grasping at straws…
fall_two_fall_three_fall_four_…
letting go only to find what is beneath…
Title of Work: Look in My Box
Artists: J. Bembridge, A. Alsip, A. Draghici, A. Bukojemsky, C. Deetjen-Woodward, P. Baldion Fischer, K. Nobin, P. Kadowaki, M. Beaulieu
Project Type: Performance/Intervention
Description: Exploring the sexually explicit landscape using the medium of the peepshow. Six large black boxes will be placed on campus, allowing the public to interact through a peephole with the performers who are situated inside.
Title of Work: The Hypothetical Inside
Artist: Chloe Desjardins
Project Type: Video/Installation
Description: “Self and subjectivity then are primarily an experience continuously constructed externally and remain open to change…” and that it is through contacts with institutions, artifacts and other subjects that the subject builds itself.
In the Press :
The Art Matters festival came to a close Saturday night with two engaging vernissages at the Eastern Bloc gallery. Intimacy in Public Spaces, curated by Sarah Nesbitt and John Naccarato, involved a number of installations that intruded on public space and invited the spectator to interact and play with the art. Electric carnaval électrique had many different multimedia installations and was curated by Shereen Soliman. The space had a definite Andy Warhol feel, with projection sheets dividing the loft-like gallery. A robot-like structure on wheels moved around the space, compelled to move by body heat. There were animations, videos and sound installations controlled by sensors, allowing the spectator to be more self-aware than ever. Stephanie Bokenfohr, Art Matters Comes to a Close with Fantastical Interactive Art, The Concordian, 2008
John Naccarato worked with Sarah Nesbitt to curate Intimacy in Public Space. Naccarato met Nesbitt in a performance class and wanted to build on that momentum. “We wanted to take art outside of the white box of the gallery.” Their show includes performances on- and off-campus. Some are confrontational for passersby; others provide an unusual diversion within a familiar location. Herland, Karen, Art Matter Takes Over, The Concordia Journal, 2008