Toronto's
celebrated month-long Festival in May engages established and
emerging Canadian, American, and international artists to activate
urban spaces across the city
TORONTO, March 13, 2019 /CNW/ - Today, the Scotiabank
CONTACT Photography Festival announced their public installation
program for the 23rd edition of the city-wide event
spanning the month of May 2019.
Renowned American artist Carrie Mae
Weems will create three separate site-specific
installations at outdoor venues downtown, representing the first
time she has shown her work at this scale in Canada. These installations are presented in
conjunction with exhibitions at the CONTACT Gallery and the Art
Museum at the University of
Toronto.
In addition to Weems, a selection of North American and
international lens-based artists will present a diverse array of
installations to activate public spaces throughout Toronto and in eight cities across Canada. The
list of artists includes Susan
Dobson, Peter
Funch, Esther Hovers, Sanaz Mazinani, Zinnia Naqvi,
Mario Pfeifer,
Bianca Salvo, Sputnik
Photos, Nadine Stijns, Carmen
Winant, and Elizabeth
Zvonar. Venues will include a subway station,
storefronts, corporate lobbies, outdoor recreation areas, shipping
containers, and billboards.
The Festival's Artistic Director Bonnie
Rubenstein said, "Carrie Mae
Weems' dynamic images will be shown at high-profile
locations including the street level windows of the TIFF Bell
Lightbox, home of the Toronto
International Film Festival. Weems joins a legion of
internationally celebrated artists who have participated in our
public installations program. These include Ilit Azoulay,
Rebecca Belmore, Douglas Coupland, Awol Erizku, Barbara Kruger, Robert
Longo, Kent Monkman,
Martin Parr, and Mickalene Thomas to name a few."
CONTACT Executive Director Darcy
Killeen said, "CONTACT's public installation program began
in 2003 with four venues in the city and has grown to now include
16 venues, plus a series of billboard installations across the
country supported by Scotiabank, Pattison Outdoor Advertising and
Nikon Canada. CONTACT's public
installations are one of our signature programs and highly
anticipated by the international photography community and
residents of and visitors to Toronto. The CONTACT team gratefully
acknowledges the support of our partners who make it possible for
us to connect the viewing public with the work of so many
outstanding artists."
Preview of Scotiabank CONTACT 2019 Public Installation
Artists
Carrie Mae Weems
At
Metro Hall, Weems' examination of power and cultural identity is
highlighted in this unique installation comprising a selection of
images from her series Slow Fade to
Black (2010). Weems reclaims images of historically
significant black women singers of the last century whose legacies
appear to fade as time elapses. To reflect these artists' "slow
fade to black," the reclaimed images have been obscured through
blurring and the application of a tinted hue. The almost cinematic
push and pull of fervent faces—many open with longing and
passion—activates the site, at the heart of Toronto's entertainment district, and takes
the viewer on a theatrical passage through its history.
Two works from Weems' 2016 series Scenes and Take form a
dramatic installation at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on King Street West that underscore the emergence
of a shift in the cultural landscape. Presented at street level,
life-sized scenes bring viewers into the cinematic world Weems
explores, where her "muse" character inhabits the sets of
contemporary television shows featuring black female leads and
black writers and producers.
Weems' third installation Anointed (2018), a banner at
460 King Street, features an image of Mary
J. Blige, who Weems photographed for W's Art
Issue shortly after the singer's breakout performance in the film
"Mudbound". The artists teamed up in a landmark 1920s-era bank
building in Brooklyn, NY, making
pictures that reference Weems' The Kitchen Table
Series (1990) and her Slow Fade to
Black series (2010), and Blige's reign as a masterful
storyteller and Grammy award-winner.
Susan Dobson, Back/Fill
(2019), Daniels Building, University
of Toronto
Featuring a cross section of the earth's strata, Susan Dobson's photographic mural reveals layers
of buried construction debris. Derived from photographs captured at
the Leslie Street Spit, a manufactured peninsula and
wilderness reserve built entirely from Toronto's clean construction waste, a mural on
the outside of the Daniels Building is complemented by a number of
Dobson's photographs being shown inside the building. These studio
shots of artifacts retrieved from the Spit, mounted on custom-built
supports, are positioned in public space in dialogue with the
surrounding architecture and community. Invoking memories of
the building's history and recent renovation, Back/Fill
invites conversations about the demolition, preservation, and
construction of the built environment.
Peter Funch, 42nd and
Vanderbilt (2009–16), two
billboards on Church and McGill Streets; two billboards on Victoria
and Dundas Streets; two billboards on Church and Lombard
Streets
Over a nine-year period, Danish photographer Peter Funch created a typological photographic
study of pedestrians in New York
City at the intersection of East 42 Street and Vanderbilt
Avenue. The series of uncanny diptychs confront viewers with
environmental portraits of anonymous commuters, frozen in place and
isolated from the bustling crowd. Although each pair of images
appears to have been captured only moments apart, in reality they
may have been taken weeks, months, or even years apart. Presented
on street-level billboards in Toronto's downtown core, Funch's seminal
project addresses the daily loop in which pedestrians inadvertently
find themselves while commenting on the unsettling politics of
bodies in public space.
Esther Hovers, False Positives (2017),
parking kiosk mural at Harbourfront Centre
Dutch artist Esther Hovers investigates cutting-edge intelligent
surveillance systems that claim to detect deviant behavior within
public spaces. False Positives depicts graphic cityscapes
created through digital collage, using photographs captured in
Brussels' business district. The
perspective in each image references the high vantage point of the
surveillance camera that has become increasingly ubiquitous in
modernized cities.
Sanaz Mazinani, Forever
in the Sky (2019), Aga Khan Museum
Sanaz Mazinani, an
Iranian-Canadian artist based in San
Francisco and Toronto,
presents a new site-specific installation at the Aga Khan Museum.
Working primarily in photography and large-scale public art and
installations, her research focuses on the study of digital image
propagation and its impact on representation and
perception. For this project suspended from the ceiling in the
Museum's atrium, Mazinani has downloaded images from the Internet
and digitally mirrored them into elaborate patterns that reference
Islamic ornamentation. Careful examination reveals a sky adorned
with clouds dotted with warplanes.
Zinnia Naqvi, Yours to Discover (2019), Peel
Art Gallery Museum + Archives (PAMA)
Yours to Discover is a new site-specific
installation by Toronto/Montreal based artist Zinnia Naqvi, presented
on the façade of the PAMA in Brampton,
Ontario. Historical photographs mined from Naqvi's family
archive, along with personal objects and ephemera quotidian in
nature, have been assembled and photographed by the artist in her
studio. These tableaux vivant (living pictures) query the
intersection of national and newcomer experiences and identities
within post-colonial paradigms.
Mario Pfeifer, If you
end up with the story you started with, then you're not listening
along the way (2019), south façade of The Power Plant
Contemporary Art Gallery
Born in Dresden, Germany and based in Berlin and New
York, Mario Pfeifer's work
explores conventions of film and media. The text in Pfeifer's newly
commissioned banner at The Power Plant speaks to an important
thread in his practice, about looking and seeing the familiar
differently and opening up to the unfamiliar. His large-scale
banner mirrors the environment in which it is presented, evoking
questions about the Canadian landscape while also questioning the
politics of land and territory.
Bianca Salvo, Universe
Makers (2016–18), Osgoode Subway Station
Using collected documents and visual records, Italian artist
Bianca Salvo explores public beliefs
and false perceptions of interstellar exploration 50 years after
the first moon landing. Her project Universe Makers will
activate the Osgoode Subway Station with images that confront
history and the veracity of photographic realism. Positioned within
the framework of ubiquitous subway advertising, the images will
underscore the ability of photography to question and examine the
truth.
Sputnik Photos, Lost Territories (2017–19),
Brookfield Place
Poland-based Sputnik Photos, a
collective comprising artists from Central and Eastern Europe, will create a site-specific
installation at Brookfield Place. The collective uses the
individual experiences of its members as starting points for an
analysis of socio-political processes and socio-cultural phenomena.
From 2008–16, they surveyed the physical, political, and
socio-cultural terrain of the former Soviet Republic. The resulting
Lost Territories archive geographically and thematically
spans the breadth of the post-Soviet region. The installation at
Brookfield Place establishes a poignant contrast between their
images capturing the end of "utopia" and the modern architecture of
the galleria and highlights the failure of the communist era within
the context of Toronto's financial
district.
Nadine Stijns, A Nation Outside a Nation
(2012–14), The Bentway Conservancy
Dutch artist Nadine Stijns attempts to capture the memories,
dreams, and flow of capital and possessions throughout the Filipino
diaspora. In addition to traditional portraits, landscapes, and
still lifes, many of which include meticulous documentation of
"balikbayan box" supplies (tax-free goods sent by Filipino migrants
back to family in the
Philippines), Stijns photographs a variety of visual sources
and then layers the images to create a tangible depiction of
migrant life. This work performs as documentation of labor
migration, but it is also itself a document, an object that unites
the individual migrant with their homeland.
Carmen Winant, Coming
To Power (2019), four billboards on Lansdowne Avenue at Dundas
Street W and College Street
American artist and writer Carmen
Winant explores representations of women through collage,
mixed media, and installation. Drawing from the archive of the late
lesbian photographer and filmmaker Honey
Lee Cottrell, Winant presents new works that illustrate
Cottrell's practice of photographing women. Subverting notions of
the projected male gaze in advertising, this public art project
will be presented on billboards in Toronto and across Canada. Locations
include:
Halifax - two on North Street at
Alderney Drive
Montreal - three on Van Horne
Avenue at St. Laurent Boulevard and St. Urbain Street
Ottawa - two on Cumberland
Street at Besserer Street
Winnipeg - one on McDermot
Avenue at Hargrave Street; two at Bannatyne Avenue at Hargrave
Street
Saskatoon - one on
20th Street W and Avenue H; one on Avenue J and Idylwyld
Drive
Calgary - two on 9th Avenue
at 9th Street SE; one on 9th Avenue at 11th
Street SE; one on 9th Avenue at 12th Street SE
Edmonton - one on Jasper Avenue at
117th Street
Vancouver – two on Clark
Drive at East 4th Avenue; two on Clark Drive at East
2nd Avenue
Elizabeth Zvonar, Milky
Way Smiling (2018), Westin Harbour Castle
Conference Centre
Vancouver-based artist
Elizabeth Zvonar brings a heightened
view of the cosmos to the cityscape in her monumental image
Milky Way Smiling. For this project, she culled a photograph
from a popular science magazine and transformed it through digital
collage and manipulation. With its band of cosmic light gently
curved into a smile, Zvonar's whimsical galaxy of shining stars
brings the metaphysical to passersby at street level.
About Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
CONTACT fosters and celebrates the art and profession of
photography with its annual Festival in May and year-round
programming in the CONTACT Gallery in Toronto. CONTACT presents lens-based works by
acclaimed and emerging artists, documentary photographers, and
photojournalists from Canada and around the world. The curated
program of Primary Exhibitions (collaborations with major
museums, galleries, and artist-run centers), and Public
Installations (site-specific public art projects), are the
core of the Festival. These are cultivated through
partnerships, commissions, and new discoveries, framing the
cultural, social, and political events of our times.
The featured and open exhibitions present a
range of works by local and international artists at leading
galleries and alternative spaces across the city. CONTACT also
includes a wide range of events including a book fair,
lectures, talks, panels, workshops, and symposia during the
Festival and hosts exhibitions and programs at its Gallery
throughout the year.
CONTACT, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1997, is
generously supported by Scotiabank, Scotia Wealth Management,
Nikon Canada, Pattison Outdoor
Advertising, Toronto Image Works, Transcontinental PLM,
3M Canada, BIG Digital, Waddington's Auctioneers and Appraisers, Four
By Eight Signs, Beyond Digital Imaging, Steam Whistle Brewing, Art
Toronto, The Gladstone Hotel, The Globe and Mail, NOW
Magazine, CBC Toronto, and
Canadian Art.
CONTACT gratefully acknowledges the support of Celebrate
Ontario, Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund, Ontario Ministry of
Tourism, Culture and Sport, Ontario Arts Council, The Government of
Ontario, Partners in Art, Canada
Council for the Arts, La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso, the Howard
Webster Foundation, Hal Jackman Foundation, Mondrian Fund, Istituto
Italiano di Cultura, Goethe-Institut, Tourism Toronto and all of
their funders, donors, and programming partners.
About Scotiabank
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www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter
@ScotiabankViews.
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