11th Annual C Magazine Contemporary Art Auction 2015

Presented by TD Bank

Free Public Preview, Saturday, April 11, 10 am – 6 pm

C The Visual Arts Foundation is pleased to announce the eleventh C Magazine Contemporary Art Auction 2015, a fundraiser presented by TD Bank to benefit C Magazine and its public programming. Featuring works generously donated by more than 50 Canadian and international artists, this year’s auction provides insight into the questions and concerns driving contemporary artistic practice.

For the past three decades, C Magazine has been an essential platform for critical debate about visual art and culture, examining the conditions that shape contemporary art-making. This year, our fundraising auction brings together established, mid-career and emerging artists whose work signals a return to issues of materiality, tracing the lives of objects as they move through the world.

Dana Claxton’s AIM #2 (2010) poignantly addresses truth and justice (or the lack thereof) by re-photographing redacted FBI documents that track the movements of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, drawing attention to how indigenous demands for sovereignty are treated as radical and dangerous under the lens of government surveillance. Similarly, Visitors Room KP (2013) by critically acclaimed photographer Geoffrey James, offers a rarely seen glimpse into life in the Kingston Penitentiary, capturing both the hopelessness and banality of this institutional space and the traces of the people who passed through it.

For other artists, these material explorations centre on the domestic space of the home, creating inventive personal archives from everyday objects. Derek Sullivan’s screen print, After the life for the most part (f) (2014), uses chance combinations to make new meanings from the book covers taken from a single bookshelf in the artist’s home, while Diane Borsato employs the principles of Ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) to create playful compositions of objects found in and around an apartment in Iceland for her ambitious new series, Arrangements (Reykjavik, Summer) (2014).

By contrast, for Duane Linklater and Karen Kraven, quotidian objects accrue symbolic meaning as they circulate in public. In a new work by Linklater, indigenous iconography is overlaid onto stereotypical Canadian flannel in Backpatch (2015), while Kraven explores another kind of currency in Jasper (2014), collaging together the intricate and colourful patterns printed onto the backgrounds of Canadian banknotes to prevent duplication and forgery. Taken together, these projects speak to the histories that objects carry with them, and to contemporary art’s ability to translate these stories into the language of the present.

Join us for a preview exhibition of these, and more than 40 other works, included in the C Magazine Auction at Division Gallery on Saturday, April 11, from 10 am to 6 pm, free and open to the public.

With artworks by Lois Andison, Katie Bethune-Leamen, Philippe Blanchard, Diane Borsato, Kotama Bouabane, Adam David Brown, Bill Burns, Sarah Burwash, Sarah Cale, Maryanne Casasanta, Dana Claxton, Sam Cotter, Chris Curreri, Sara Cwynar, Jason de Haan, Jason Deary, Dave Dyment, Brendan Fernandes, James Gardner, Sky Glabush, David Hanes, Iris Häussler, Jérôme Havre, Colleen Heslin, Dil Hildebrand, Marla Hlady, Aryen Hoekstra, Hanna Hur, Lili Huston-Herterich, Geoffrey James, Laurie Kang, Alex Kisilevich, Karen Kraven, Tiziana La Melia, Kristiina Lahde, Duane Linklater, Alex McLeod, Meryl McMaster, Colin Miner, Juan Oritz-Apuy, Luke Painter, Ed Pien, Geoffrey Pugen, Jillian Kay Ross, Jade Rude, Callum Schuster, Derek Sullivan, Michael Vickers, VSVSVS, Sean Weisgerber and Balint Zsako.

The first fifty ticket purchasers will receive the C Auction Edition, a specially created artwork by Jimmy Limit. This year’s multiple is one of four different cups cast in porcelain from commercial bottle forms found at local convenience stores in the Niagara region. Limit will concoct a special cocktail to be served in the cups at the auction.

Funds raised by the C Magazine Auction will assist C The Visual Arts Foundation in promoting the work of Canadian writers and artists through the publication of C Magazine and its public programming in the coming year. Participating artists will receive a portion of the sales. A charitable donation receipt will be issued to the purchaser for bids in excess of the estimated value, by C The Visual Arts Foundation, charitable no. 88643 1162. Donations can also be made through canadahelps.org

The C Magazine Auction is presented with the support of Akau Framing & Art, Akimbo, Bonhams Canada, Chair-man Mills, Colourgenics, Denbigh Fine Art Services, The Food Dudes, Division Gallery, Megan Kalaman Consulting, Midfield Wine Bar & Tavern, Museumpros Art Services, Sonic Print, Steam Whistle Brewing, Superframe, Sonic Printing, TD Bank Group and Toronto Image Works.

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