Vancouver, BC Contemporary Art Gallery B. C. Binning Gallery Ruti Sela Maayan Amir Alvin Balkind Gallery Opening reception: Thursday April 7, 6 9pm
forms of public protest by personalizing and dividing them into their essential components, thus analyzing the how and why of their currency and examining the ways they have been represented and distributed as text and images. In the Near Future B. C. Binning Gallery Above and opposite In the Near Future (detail) (2009) Multiple slide projection installation Courtesy Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin For American artist first solo exhibition in Canada, the CAG presents In the Near Future, her multifaceted and dynamic installation, incorporating 13 slide projectors and 354 different images. The numerous photographs were gathered from audience members over four years as part of a series of performances Hayes staged in six cities. Hayes is best known for her performance-based work, which uses public modes of address, from street demonstrations to letter writing, to analyse how political views are conveyed and represented. She is interested in examining recent historical events at a point when the language and structures that codify them are still in use. Her choice in subjects relates to the different ways in which political opinion in its most direct form is expressed. For example, in Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Screeds # 13, 16, 20 & 29 (2003) Hayes re-spoke, as performances and later as video works, the four audio tapes the SLA had Patty Hearst record describing the conditions and reasons behind her kidnapping in 1974; for Everything Else Has Failed! Don t You Think It s Time for Love? (2007) she read aloud over five days an anonymous love letter for an hour each day outside the headquarters of the Swiss financial corporation UBS in New York City. In much of her work, she breaks down different lives and works in New York. She holds a MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio from the University of California, Los Angeles (2003) and also participated in the Whitney Museum s Independent Study Program (1999 2000). Her work has been exhibited extensively across North America and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include Andrea Geyer /, Göteborgs Konsthall, Göteborg, Sweden (2010); : The Future is Unthinkable, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, Belgium (2009); We The People, Context Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland (2009); In the Near Future, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2008); and I march in the parade of liberty, but as long as I love you I m not free, New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2007). Hayes has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Haunted: Contemporary Photography / Video / Performance, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); and 2010 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010). Most of Hayes work is dependent on audience interaction. While reciting Hearst s audio tapes, from memory, she had the audience, who were given transcriptions of the original tapes, correct her when she made mistakes. For In the Near Future, Hayes invited onlookers to document her enactment of thirteen lone protests. In select public sites she picketed with placards bearing anachronistic and ambiguous slogans. Some she made up, altered or directly appropriated from bygone protests, such as Who approved the war in Vietnam?, a phrase originally used in 1962 at the Charter Day Protest at the University of California and I am a Man, a slogan taken from the civil rights movement during the Memphis Sanitation strike in 1968. The origin of such sayings is not made evident in the final installation and the particularities of this information are not essential to understanding Hayes public performances, but the reference to recent events is clear. Her actions are not designed to make clear declarations, she has no direct aim and this is not activism. Each performance is a paring down of the basic strategies of street protest the way text, body, place and time go together to define a subject and create a common language. Hayes discursive and aesthetic investigation in the history of protest chimes directly with the recent success of mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and the worldwide support for the Libyan revolt. The slogan the people want to bring down the regime, first used in Tunisia was adopted by each of the countries. There is a shared purpose not only in the reasons and aims of each uprising, but also in the way it is collectively expressed. A publication with text by CAG Curator Jenifer Papararo will be available during the exhibition, priced at $5. Please see reception for details.
Ruti Sela Maayan Amir Beyond Guilt The Trilogy Alvin Balkind Gallery Ruti Sela received her MFA from the Film Department at Tel Aviv University and a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem. Her work has been exhibited extensively, both in Israel and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Difference, Macro Museum, Rome, Italy (2011); Time to Dance, Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain (2010); El Palabrero, Hamidrasha Gallery, Tel Aviv (2010); 6 th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2010); Trembling Time: Recent Video from Israel, Tate Modern, London, UK (2010); and 11 th Istanbul Biennale, Turkey (2009). Sela has also been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Wolf Foundation s Anselm Kiefer Prize for Young Artists (2008 2009). She lives in Tel Aviv and teaches video at Haifa University, Avni Institute of Art and Design, and at the Hamidrasha Academic Art School. Maayan Amir is currently pursuing her PhD at Tel Aviv University. She received her MFA from the Film Department at Tel Aviv University. Recent exhibitions include Mediation Biennale, Poznan, Poland (2010), 6 th Berlin Biennale, Germany (2010); Trembling Time: Recent Video from Israel, Tate Modern, London, UK (2010); and 11th Istanbul Biennale, Turkey (2009). In addition to her practice as a video artist, Amir is also an independent curator. Her recent curatorial projects include Art TLV Biennale; Emerging Markets, Tmuna Gallery; and Degenerate Art, Dan Gallery, all in Tel- Aviv, Israel (2009). Since 2007, she has held the position of Curator of Experimental Film Projects for the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema. She also teaches at Sapir Academic College and the Israel Institute of Technology. For their first solo exhibition in Canada, the CAG presents Beyond Guilt The Trilogy (2003 2005) a collaborative video series by Israeli artists Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir. Its currency rests in its daring and mischievous blend of sex and politics and its jumbling of subject and author. The trilogy begins with Beyond Guilt # 1 shot in the bathrooms of night clubs in Tel Aviv where the artists record themselves negotiating sexual encounters. They are the instigators off camera, but we also see them pictured, at times agreeing to hand over the filming completely. Sela and Amir seem open to, and comfortable with, performing any of the sexual propositions presented to them, frequently upping the ante. They are provocateurs as well as ready and willing participants. The work while potentially titillating, turns at a point, where sexual evocations give way to other social and political topics. In Beyond Guilt # 2, through an online chat room, the artists invited men to a hotel room where discussions of sexual preferences lead to talk of experiences in the army and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The men appear relaxed in speech and pose; some are naked or partially clothed and while the conversation always starts with sex, it repeatedly turns to military concerns. One visitor, while holding metal handcuffs relates his position as sergeant as being perfectly suited to his sexually dominant role play. But even under these charged circumstance what is remarkable is the overall tone of ordinariness. This mundane quality runs through the series, but is most evident in the final video for which they invited a sex worker to a hotel room, gave her their camera and asked her to document their meeting. The piece is intimate as the three women develop an understanding of each other outside of the expected financial transaction. It ends with all three lying on a bed looking listlessly into the camera or at each other. Beyond Guilt The Trilogy is at times difficult to watch. The artists create risky scenarios by negotiating sex in public places and inviting strangers into their hotel room. Yet, Sela and Amir have managed to anaesthetize situations that are out of the ordinary, filled with unknowns and potential risk. They capture a banality within the sensation of these sexual encounters, neutering much of the provocation. The conflation of sex and war isn t what one would expect a depiction of spectacle and drama. It is of the everyday and seems to represent a possible tactic for coping with life in Tel Aviv. In a nation continually at war, surrounded by violence, this seems most viable. A publication with text by CAG Curator Jenifer Papararo will be available during the exhibition, priced at $5. Please see reception for details. Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir Beyond Guilt The Trilogy (2003 2005) Video stills Courtesy the artists
Public events Exhibition Opening Thursday April 7, 6 9pm Join us to celebrate the opening of our new exhibitions. Free Artists Talk, Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir in conversation Friday April 8, 6pm An in conversation event moderated by Jenifer Papararo. Following brief presentations of the artist s works, discussions will centre around the artists practices, works on display and focus on issues of process, use of performance and the reversal of subject/author roles. Places are free. Off-site programme The CAG is going mobile! Beginning in May, the CAG will be working with audiences in the streets and alleys of Vancouver. A series of artist-designed projects using mobile devices will create new ways to experience and engage with the city. The projects will use LAYAR, a location-aware, augmented reality platform which allows participating artists to create works that interact with the urban environment and offer a truly unique set of possibilities. The first project in this programme will be by Vancouver based artist Ron Tran. See our website for updates on the project and to find out how you can participate. Free Guided Visits Guided visits are free and open to the public, providing an excellent opportunity to engage with exhibitions and develop new skills for interpreting contemporary art. Saturday April 16, 3pm Led by our volunteers with Gallery Coordinator, Jill Henderson Saturday April 30, 3:55pm As part of the Canadian Art Hop, led by Curator, Jenifer Papararo Saturday May 7, 3pm Guided visit in French led by our volunteer Patricia Huijnen Saturday May 14, 3pm Led by Executive Director, Nigel Prince Sunday June 5, 3pm Led by our volunteers with Gallery Coordinator, Jill Henderson We also encourage visits from primary and secondary schools, ESL groups, university and college students and community groups. For more information or to book a guided visit for your group, please email info@contemporaryartgallery.ca or telephone 604.681.2700. Contemporary Art Gallery 555 Nelson Street Vancouver British Columbia Canada V6B 6R5 Tel. 00 1 604 681 2700 info@contemporaryartgallery.ca www.contemporaryartgallery.ca Open Wednesday to Sunday 12 to 6pm Free entry The Contemporary Art Gallery is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Vancouver, and the Province of British Columbia. We are grateful for the support of Vancouver Foundation and our members, donors, and volunteers. 2011 Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the artists or publisher. ISBN: 978-1-897302-48-4 Our learning programmes are generously sponsored by Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Cover image In the Near Future (detail) (2009) Multiple slide projection installation Courtesy Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin
www.contemporaryartgallery.ca