September 18 - November 1, 1998
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK

Stavit Allweis, Cathy Daley, Michelle Gay, Eldon Garnet, Sara Hartland-Rowe, David Hockney, Sandra Meigs, Gretchen Sankey, John Scott, Leesa Streifler, Julie Voyce, Douglas Walker

The work included in this exhibition explores relations, reactions and commentaries around an angst-filled, socially and personally affected life -- acute, albeit cynical observations of the contemporary environment. The participating artists' responses to external and internal pressures & anxieties often reflect an attitude of helplessness, abjection and dissolution. However their reinterpretation of the familiar is charged with humor and dignity, restoring their losses and offering an alternative twist to the stories they have to tell.




Media Release
The 7A*11D International Festival of Performance Art

August 20 - 23, 1998 (1st Programme)
October 26-November 7, 1998 (2nd Programme)
Toronto, CANADA

Last year's 7A*11D International Festival of Performance Art was a first for contemporary art and the performance art scene in Toronto. The Festival brought together over 60 performance artists from Toronto, across Canada and the world, showcasing new and progressive performative works that were designed to fill the voids outside traditional boundaries of established genres (theatre, dance, music,etc.). The Festival took place over five days in five distinct venues, with five distinct curatorial premises that physically and conceptually took the Queen West neighbourhood by storm.

This summer, The 7A*11D In International Festival of Performance Art returns, split into two sections, the first slated for August 20-23, 1998, the second taking place from October 26-November 7, 1998, in conjunction with other events for the fall. Once again the Festival will showcase the best local and international performance artists in five individual venues (4 venues will be presented in the summer, the 5th and the remainder of some sections will be shown in the fall). These include:

Dinner @ 5, we are what we eat. Five artists will dine with/for the audience at the supper hour, an unconventional and even inconvenient time for the audience. For the adventurous consumer, however, the artists will stir up some eats of intellectual satisfaction.

Field Trips, will bring together the work of five artists who poetically slip themselves into the urban environment; the city/street/art event/shop/streetcar, simply and subtly to blur the conventional distinction between audience and artist, creator and created. (Portions of this event will be filmed by CBC "On The Road")

Hybrids, has combed North America for startling fusions of art and life; innovative combines of trance-rant, realpolitik, rap-philosophy and pseudo-science.

Po-Po, Into The Wasteland, performances by ten artists in a decaying building. The viewer is holistically involved in the experience of the work and the space. the intent is to expand the scope of performance art by exposing it to an uninitiated audience, and to bridge a gap between pop and high culture.

Panel Discussion Interventionism, this year's panel brings together the artists and audiences of the Festival to reexamine Performance Interventions -- ways in which performance has entered, ininvited, the realms of politics and the social.

For press packages and full details, contact Shannon Cochrane at (416)821-4674. Mailing address: 7A*11D c/o 386 Delaware Ave., Toronto, Ontario M6H 2T8




Media Release
THE HOARDING PROJECT

June 11 - Dec. 31, 1998
Festival Hall
John/Richmond St.
Toronto, Ontario

On June 11, at 8pm, the public are invited to experience new art works behind the hoarding walls surrounding the Festival Hall construction site, at John and Richmond Street. The site specific installations by six artists (Michael Alstad, Martha Eleen, Bartley Harnett, Janet Hethrington, Victoria Scott and Steve Topping) will offer the public an unusual way to experience a construction site - soon to be a 15 screen, film and entertainment complex(ity).

The artists have created work which plays with the unsuspecting public's expectations when looking onto a construction site. The work is fully integrated into the private side of the hoarding and is viewed from the public space. The installations reveal the history of the neighbourhood, the conceptual idea of 'viewing/seeing', and the tension between history, development, construction and de-construction.

An opening night party will be hosted June 11, on site from 8:00 - 8:30pm, followed by a reception at the Beat Junkie, 306 Richmond Street West. This exhibition will be installed until December 31, 1998.

Media Contact: Phil Anderson, Publicist (416) 532-6296

RODNEY GRAHAM: Vexation Island and Other Works

September 9 to October 25, 1998
ART GALLERY OF YORK UNIVERSITY
Toronto, Ontario

In the summer of 1997, Rodney Graham premiered his video installation Vexation Island at the 47th Venice Biennale. That exhibition, organized for the Canada Pavilion by the Art Gallery of York University, received rave reviews from the critics and the public alike. The AGYU is pleased to bring Vexation Island back to Canada as part of our exhibition of film and video works by Rodney Graham.

Vexation Island is a cinematic "adventure film" which tells the story of an 18th-century Englishman who wakes to find himself stranded on a desert isle. Originally shot in 35mm film, the work is presented as an eight-minute video loop that retains the widescreen image of its original film format. Vexation Island begins slowly with a bird's eye view of the tropical island followed by shots of an unconscious figure in the sand. What lies ahead is an impossible tale of divided consciousness, where long bouts of sleep meet with brief awakenings, repeatedly, forever.

This exhibition includes Vexation Island as well as Graham's other film and video works, Coruscating Cinnamon Granules (1996), Halcion Sleep (1994), and Two Generators (1984). Within these works are shared themes revolving around the institution of cinema, the narrative loop, and the realms of consciousness and sleep. They are ideas, in fact, which permeate much of Graham's art.

A catalogue, with essay by AGYU Assistant Curator Jack Liang, will accompany this exhibition. Following the York show, Rodney Graham's exhibition travels to the National Gallery of Canada (dates tba).

GALLERY WEBSITE:
http://www.yorku.ca/admin/agyu/





Media Release
MCLUHAN PROGRAMME IN CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

June 16 - 19, 1998
University of Toronto

Here are the upcoming events at the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology of the University of Toronto. All are welcome!

The McLuhan Program is located at 39a Queen's Park Crescent East, Toronto. The Program is actually housed in the famous Coach House, at the back of the parking lot behind the Medieval Studies Building (which is at 39 Queen's Park Crescent East).

The week of June 15th is McLuhan Program by Design: Connecting Intelligences Week. Brought to you by: Derrick de Kerckhove, Director; and Liss Jeffrey, Associate Director.

Tuesday June 16th, 1998, at 14:00 (2:00pm) PRESENTATION: THE McLUHAN PROGRAM GOES TO CHINA Derrick de Kerckhove, Director, McLuhan Program International Eric McLuhan, Associate Director McLuhan Program International and Liss Jeffrey, Executive Producer, McLuhan Program International will report on their recent trip to China and share anecdotes and images. They were the guests of the University of Harbin, with whom, along with the Central China Television Agency, they sponsored the First International Conference of Media Effects in China. Come swap travellers’ tales and academics’ accounts of this rapidly changing and fascinating country, and hear about the future development of the McLuhan Program International (MPI).

Wednesday June 17th, 1998, at 14:00 (2:00pm) COACH HOUSE FESTIVAL MEETING This meeting is for everyone who is interested in working on the Coach House Festival, the key McLuhan Program Event for this Fall. The Festival will celebrate Marshall McLuhan (past, present and future) in October 98. The MPI will launch, an academic conference will happen, a Halloween party will take place and much more so we need all kinds of people to help with everything from research, to office work, to catering. And we always need good old handyperson work!

Wednesday June 17th, 1998, at 16:30 (4:30pm) COACH HOUSE FESTIVAL RECEPTION A reception will be held for all those involved in the Coach House Festival. Schmooze, socialize with your co-workers, snack on strawberries and sip sparkling beverages. We’d also like to invite all media artists who would be interested in putting your artistic stamp on the Coach House during the Festival, to come and discuss possibilities. We’re expecting many people to pass through the doors and this is a great way to get your work seen.

Thursday June 18th, 1998, at 14:00 (2:00pm) MEDIA EDUCATION EVENT BRAINSTORMING How can we teach media literacy? How can we provide tools to help Canadians analyze and deal with the never-ending onslaught of messages in our society? The McLuhan Program has been working with the Association for Media Literacy in an attempt to address these questions. If you are interested in helping plan a Media Literacy Summer Institute for late summer or early fall, come to this brainstorming session.

Friday June 19th, 1998, at 14:00 (2:00pm) CANADA BY DESIGN BRAINSTORMING Following this year’s highly successful Canada by Design: Building a Knowledge Nation Policy discussion series, The McLuhan Program will be producing several videos based on the series. There is a lot of room for experimentation and creative editing techniques in these educational videos, as well as a great occasion to develop your skills. This Brainstorming session will work on the content and design of the videos. Plans for the print component will be discussed, and next year’s series, PanAmerica By Design, will be presented by Executive Producer Liss Jeffrey.

Nancy - Program Assistant
McLuhan Coachouse
McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology
University of Toronto, Faculty of Information Studies
39A Queen's Park Crescent East
Toronto, Ont. M5S 2C3
416 978-7026, 416 978-5324 fax
http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/mcluhan/









Media Release
Changing Spaces: Artists' Projects from The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

26 June - 7 September
The Power Plant
Harbourfront Centre
Toronto, Ontario

Chris Burden, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, RenŽe Green, Mona Hatoum, Jim Hodges, Glenn Ligon, Yukinori Yanagi

Changing Spaces, a creative collaboration of leading international artists of the 1990s and the Fabric Workshop and Museum, is an exhibition presenting ambitious artworks that make use of fabric's physical qualities and cultural associations. Fabric is a constant in everyday life, its applications ranging from the utilitarian to the ceremonial. Because of the diversity of these associations and its own special properties, fabric is most effective to explore personal and social connections, to express issues of identity and history. In the works on view, artists reveal hidden histories, confront stereotypical and politically charged images, and present novel approaches to the familiar.

The variety of artists included in Changing Spaces shows both a multicultural view of recent art in the United States, with a particular focus on African-American artists, and an international perspective, with artists from Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. The collaborative approach with artists has been extended in the case of this exhibition at The Power Plant to include a curatorial partnership, enabling the gallery to select those works that best complement one another in this space.

Changing Spaces is an international touring program of the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, and has been organized by Mary Jane Jacob, an independent curator with expertise in contemporary art who has worked with the Fabric Workshop and Museum since 1995.

Additional generous funding has been provided by The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, an American federal agency. Changing Spaces is an international touring programme of The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia/Marion Boulton Stroud, Artistic Director, and is organized by Mary Jane Jacob.

Well-known Austrian artist Peter Kogler stretches perception into the realm of the metaphor with his two installations in Threshold. Displacing the viewer from the security of a known environment - the human connection with familiar architecture - Kogler compels us to adjust the way we process an image. In one room, he creates a cave-like environment, surrounding the spectator with huge organically shaped, mutating forms. As they float through space, our usual method of understanding physical reality is effectively altered. In Kogler's video installation, located at the end of a long narrow hallway, the space serves as a trajectory to fixate our attention and increase the hypnotic effect. Suggestive of a thick liquid draining through a hole, the work itself embodies a slightly erotic quality as it mesmerizes us, implying that nothing but darkness exists beyond.

Georganne Deen

Georganne Deen is an artist resident in Los Angeles. This exhibition of her recent paintings is her first in Canada.

Deen's deeply personal quasi-figurative works draw from her tempestuous upbringing in a Texas suburb and relate as well to the flamboyant milieu that is Los Angeles, currently one of the most dynamic of art communities internationally. Apparently comical and decorative but in fact intensely mordant, Deen's works have rich layers of meaning, their symbols deriving from an assortment of sources from pop culture to Greek and Roman mythology. Ironic and humorous, painfully sensitive and sensuously playful, this artist's images are bound to appeal to viewers for their provocative content which is both intimate and universal.

"Deen is not afraid to expose her traumas in her paintings or shy to admit in person any autobiographical facts to fill in the details. But we don't need to know her sorry relationship with her mother, for instance, to recognize her background and to identify with it. The bedroom settings of a number of these paintings neatly localize their themes in the family and suburbs. So stageset, the scenes are more than autobiographical: Georganne Deen allegorizes a past shared by a generation. Like many allegories, hers contains narratives of a passage, and this passage in Georganne Deen's case is of the downward- spiral sort: 'Let me take you down,' one of these paintings ominously quotes."