August 30–October 27, 2012
Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery
Concordia University
1400, boul. de Maisonneuve West
Montreal, Québec, Canada, H3G 1M8
Bertille Bak, Olivia Boudreau, Louis-Philippe Côté, Rachel Echenberg, Erin Gee, Nelson Henricks, John Massey, Thérèse Mastroiacovo, Alana Riley, Jana Sterbak, Sharif Waked, Hong-Kai Wang
Curator: Mélanie Rainville
The Gallery launches its fall season with the thought-provoking group exhibition Interactions. Presenting a wide range of practices—from paintings to installations and videos, some of which are featured in its collection—it explores how we may access and interpret contemporary artworks.
Interactions, an exhibition that offers both a pedagogical and esthetic experience, deals with the reception and interpretation of contemporary art by investigating the rift that persists between contemporary art and the public, one that is often transformed into controversy. It explores the constantly shifting relationship between art and viewer and raises such questions on the reception of artworks as: What is our relationship to contemporary artworks, and how do we interpret them? What impact do they have on our way of understanding and reflecting on the world around us? What role does art play in society?
Interactions subjects the works to various interpretive strategies that deepen and stratify their reception. This dialogic and participative exhibition includes 30 participants from different backgrounds and levels of knowledge who respond to the works through video interviews and written commentaries, all of which are offered to the visitor as part of their viewing experience. Interactions presents also a selection of documents on various controversies that have arisen in Québec and Canadian art contexts.
Events:
Dexterity
This series of lectures, presenting innovative initiatives that are being generated by university art galleries in Canada, will provide a context for the work done at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery and highlight the important role that is being played by university galleries in reshaping exhibition making, public programming and publishing. At the Gallery, at 6pm:
Thursday September 13: The Art of Seeing with Nicole Knibb, Education Coordinator, McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University.
Thursday September 20: Door to Door with Christof Migone, Director/Curator, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga.
Wednesday October 3: READ Books with Kathy Slade, Manager, READ Books and Founding Editor of the Emily Carr University Press, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
Tuesday October 18: Community Art Lab with Vicky Chainey-Gagnon Director/Curator, and Yaël Filipovic, Curator, Education and Cultural Action, Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University.
Wednesday October 24: Artist’s Book of the Moment (ABoTM) with Michael Maranda, Assistant Curator, the Art Gallery of York University.
Check our website for more information.
*Image above:
Jana Sterbak, Artist as Combustible, 1986. Colour photograph. Collection of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University. Purchase – Special Purchase Assistance Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, 2002. Photo: Richard Max Tremblay. Courtesy of the artist and the Galerie Laroche/Joncas.