Signals in the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War
An exhibition at two University of Toronto Galleries
Curated by Séamus Kealy
Opening: Wednesday January 16th; 5 to 7 pm, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery; 7 to 9 pm,
Blackwood Gallery
Exhibition Runs January 17th to March 2nd, 2008
Symposium: Friday January 25th, 2:15 to 8 pm
Signals in the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War (January 17 – March 2, 2008) is an inter-disciplinary project exploring contemporary art’s relationship to war and its representations. A collaboration between the Blackwood Gallery (University of Toronto at Mississauga) and the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House, University of Toronto), this project includes an exhibition of seventeen international artists at two university gallery locations, a forty-day film/video program, a catalogue, and a public symposium.
Investigating the interstices between perpetual war, dominant politics, and military aesthetics, this project confronts issues of global warfare, how it is imaged, and how it is imagined. The exhibition presents artists who are responding to these representations of war through informed critique. While a number of artists produce analyses or outraged expressions arising from their own or others’ experiences of war, other artists challenge the spectacle of contemporary war, its veracity and, ultimately, its intertwinement with a New
World Order.
Exhibition:
Maja Bajevic (Bosnia)
Dominique Blain (Canada)
Bureau d’etudes (France)
Paul Chan (USA)
Köken Ergun (Turkey)
Harun Farocki (Germany)
Omer Fast (Israel/USA)
Kendell Geers (South Africa)
Johan Grimonprez (Belgium)
Jamelie Hassan (Canada)
Kristan Horton (Canada)
Abdel-Karim Khalil (Iraq)
Annie MacDonell (Canada)
Anri Sala (Albania)
Sonja Savic(Serbia)
Sean Snyder (USA/Germany)
Ron Terada (Canada)
Symposium (Jan 25th): Expanding the subject of the exhibition, the symposium includes WJT Mitchell (University of Chicago), Stephen Eisenman (Northwestern University), Boris Groys (ZKM, Karlsruhe), Brigitte van der Sande (Curator, Netherlands), and Allan Harding MacKay (Artist, Canada).
Catalogue: Published in conjunction with the exhibition, the catalogue includes illustrations of the artworks as well as essays by Boris Groys, Séamus Kealy, Gene Ray, and Brigitte van der Sande.
Film/Video Program: Twenty-five films and videos by international artists and directors will be presented at both galleries throughout the exhibition.
All programming and events are free of admission. Free shuttle buses leave from the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery to the Blackwood Gallery for the opening (Jan 16, 7 pm) and the symposium (Jan 25, 1 pm).
Support generously provided by The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The Connaught Committee, University of Toronto, The Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto, The Centre for Studies of the United States, The Institute of Communication and Culture, Office of the Vice-Principal/Research (UTM), The Centre for Visual and Media Culture, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, UTM Residence Life, Consulate-General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Goethe-Institut
For more information, call 905 828 3789, email j.zalucky@utoronto.ca or visit www.blackwoodgallery.ca
Blackwood Gallery
University of Toronto at Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Rd. N., Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
Tel: (905) 828-3789 Fax: (905) 569-4262
Images:
Anri Sala, Naturalmystic (tomahawk # 2), 2002, Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Jamelie Hassan, Because there was and there wasn’t a city of Baghdad, 1991, Courtesy of the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery
Bureau d’etudes, Bohemian Club, 2005, Courtesy of the artists
Köken Ergun, I, Soldier, 2005
Johan Grimonprez, DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, 1997
Both courtesy of Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/TBA
Paul Chan, Tin Drum Trilogy, 2002-2005, Courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery
