York Fine Arts Festival Celebrates
VISUAL ARTS, DESIGN & CULTURAL STUDIES
with an Open House, Exhibitions, New Media Installations,
Interdisciplinary Performances and Art History Symposium
TORONTO, March 05, 2007 - York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts celebrates its resident talent and the next wave of outstanding young visual artists and performers with the York Fine Arts Festival, featuring more than 40 public events packed into a three-week period running March 9 – April 1, 2007. All the fine arts are represented: dance, design, film, music, theatre, visual arts and interdisciplinary fine arts cultural studies. Events take place at York’s Keele campus.
York University’s Department of Visual Arts ranks among Canada’s largest and leading centres for professional training in the visual arts. It kicks off the festival March 9 & 10 with two shows: See Here!, a spectacular Open House featuring over 500 works in all media by 300 upper-level undergraduate students, and Here is Where we Meet, a group exhibition showcasing work by 25 graduate students in the Visual Arts Master of Fine Arts program.
See Here! highlights the work of rising young artists who will emerge onto the art scene in the next few years. The pieces on display were chosen by students in conjunction with professors in each studio area. “The work of these young artists is bold, interdisciplinary and critically engaged with our contemporary world,” said Visual Arts Department Chair, painter and curator Janet Jones.
The exhibition will transform the entire Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts at York into one giant art gallery, with works on view on all four floors throughout the building. York music students will provide live entertainment at the opening, March 9, 5-9pm. Artists will be on hand to welcome and tour visitors through the building.
Concurrently, Here is Where we Meet will be displayed in The Gales Gallery, an outstanding new facility of the Department of Visual Arts in York’s Accolade West. Dedicated to showcasing student work, the gallery is named in honour of community leaders H. Barry and Joy Gales.
The aptly-named exhibition brings together artists pursuing advanced studies at York, many of whom are already making their mark in the profession. They include well-known Canadian painter John Abrams, internationally recognized photographer Vid Ingelevics and Paul Couillard, an internationally acclaimed performance artist and founder of Toronto’s FADO performance series.
Works were selected for the show by guest curators Sara Knelman, curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and Ben Portis, associate curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The artists, Knelman and exhibition coordinator Yvonne Singer, director of York’s Graduate Program in Visual Arts, will be on hand to introduce the show at the opening reception on March 9, 4-6pm. The exhibition runs to March 16.
Several other visual arts exhibitions will be presented during the festival:
720 by 840 (Mar 12-16) highlights time-based art, encompassing 30 individual video programs and five video installations by 23 up-and-coming artists. The show is coordinated by well-known video artist, documentary filmmaker and York professor Nancy Nicol.
Print by Numbers (Mar19-23), coordinated by faculty members Barbara Balfour and David Armstrong, showcases student work in lithography, intaglio/relief and screenprinting, while the Photography area show (Mar 26-30), coordinated by award-winning photographer and York faculty member Katherine Knight, features a wide range of approaches in photo media by upper-year photography students.
The groundbreaking York/Sheridan Joint Program in Design joins the Festival with Palette of Ideas (Mar 19-30), an exhibit of applied communication design by students who combine their creative and technical skills to demonstrate that inspiration is everywhere!
With Windows on Fine Arts Cultural Studies, York Fine Arts’ cutting-edge interdisciplinary program offers interactive exhibitions, new media presentations and intercultural performances on March 10 & 12. Highlights include:
· India and the Arts
Last summer, 14 students from York's Fine Arts Cultural Studies Program undertook a residency in Mumbai, India, to experience first-hand how art is created on the other side of the world. While there, the students shared their experiences and insights through a series of podcasts. The podcasts have been condensed into a riveting video by Denise Nuttall, an accomplished tabla player and widely published scholar on Indian culture.
· L'Esprit d'Escalier or Surreptitious Experience
Video projections of interactive performance and installation works by students that investigate interactive technologies with the aim of rethinking the viewer's relationship to time and space, the cultural position of the artwork, and the mediating effect of technologies.
· Bicycle as Instrument
An audio-visual performance by avid cyclist, multi-media artist and Fine Arts Cultural Studies prof Don Sinclair. Delving into the intertwined person/machine and the rider’s physical and emotional connections with his bike, characteristics of the cyclist/bicycle are transformed and manipulated in live video and audio.
· The Body in Performance
Utilizing their own bodies as the main site of signification, students explore issues of personal, cultural and social identity and critiques of bodily representations in performance works, presented on video.
· Cabinets of Curiosities
Exploring the concept and construction of the encyclopaedic Cabinet of Curiosities, also known as the Wunderkammer (wonder-room), personal collections of intriguing objects that were precursors of today’s museums.
· Decentralized Communication
Projects considering original vs. reproducible work, the collaborative creative process, the artist-viewer relationship, and technologically-mediated communication.
Complementing these exhibits and performances is the 6th annual symposium on art and visual culture presented by York’s Art History Graduate Student Association on March 9. Titled Performative Histories of Art: Perilous conventions, Possible Disruptions, this international conference addresses current and historical issues in performance art, theory and performative practices. Presenters include graduate students from institutions such as the University of Hong Kong and University of Colorado, as well as York. The keynote address is by York theatre professor Laura Levin, whose paper, Blending into the Background: Performing Camouflage in Photographic Self-Portraits, explores the use of performative camouflage in the work of Toronto photographer Janieta Eyre.
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Chronological Summary
Here is Where we Meet – Group show by 25 visual arts graduate students, including John Abrams, Paul Couillard and Vid Ingelevics, curated by Sara Knelman and Ben Portis.
March 5-16; Opening Reception March 9, 4-6pm
(Gallery Hours: Mar 5-8: 9am-4pm; Mar 9: 9am-9pm; Mar 10: 10am-4pm; Mar 12-16: 9am-4pm)
The Gales Gallery, 105 Accolade West Building
Performative Histories of Art: Perilous Conventions, Possible Disruptions – Art History Graduate Association’s 6th annual symposium on art and visual culture, with keynote address by Laura Levin.
March 9, 9am-5pm
Harry Crowe Room, 109 Atkinson
See Here! – Open House exhibition showcasing over 500 works by 300 senior visual arts undergrads.
March 9, 5-9pm & March 10, 10am-4pm
Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts
Windows on Fine Arts Cultural Studies – Interactive exhibitions, new media presentations and intercultural performances.
March 10, 10am-2pm & March 12, 12:30-2pm
103 Accolade West
· India and the Arts
· L'Esprit d'Escalier or Surreptitious Experience
· Bicycle as Instrument
· The Body in Performance
· Cabinets of Curiosities
· Decentralized Communication
720 by 480 – Time-based art: 30 video programs and five installations by 23 student videographers.
March 12-16, 9am-4pm
Joan & Martin Goldfarb Centre for the Arts, Gallery & Room 316
Print by Numbers – Lithography, intaglio/relief, screenprinting by 40 young artists.
March 19-23, 9am-4pm
The Gales Gallery, 105 Accolade West
Palette of Ideas – Graphic design exhibit by students in the York/Sheridan Joint Program in Design.
March 19-30 (weekdays only), 10am-5pm
Goldfarb Centre for Fine Arts Gallery
Photography Exhibition – A wide range of photo media works by student artists.
March 26-30, 9am-4pm
The Gales Gallery, 105 Accolade West
York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts presents the
York Fine Arts Festival March 9-April 1, 2007
All events take place at York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto.
All the above visual art and design events are FREE and open to the public.
Info: 416-736-5888
For a detailed York Fine Arts Festival schedule, visit www.yorku.ca/finearts/festival
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York Fine Arts Festival: Meet the arts in the heart of the GTA
The Faculty of Fine Arts at York University is spotlighting its resident talent in a three-week festival packed with more than 40 exciting and entertaining events. Running March 9 to April 1, the York Fine Arts Festival features exhibitions, theatre and dance productions, film screenings, multimedia shows, and a wide variety of classical, jazz and world music concerts. Events take place in state-of-the-art facilities at York University’s Keele campus. Join us for this showcase celebrating the next wave of outstanding young talent in the visual and performing arts.
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The Faculty of Fine Arts at York University is one of North America’s leading and largest centres for fine arts education. A vibrant community of some 3,200 students and 280 faculty working at the leading edge of fine arts practice and scholarship, it offers academic studies and professional training in dance, design, film, music, theatre and visual arts as well as interdisciplinary cultural studies in the fine arts. For more than 35 years, York Fine Arts has been a premier launching pad for outstanding young talent and a major contributor to the arts and cultural scene in Toronto, Canada and beyond.
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York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 190,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 23 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Media Refer: Dianne Weinrib/Amy Stewart, DW Communications,
416-703-5479 dw@dwcommunications.net
