Column

Writer

Knowledge

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Feminism

Artists Books

This column discusses Rob Kovitz’s book “Art Fishing in Gimli,” Binna Choi and Maiko Tanaka’s book “The Grand Domestic Revolution,” Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte and Anne-Marie Proulx’s book “Lettres/Letters,” the exhibition “The Museum of Found Objects: Toronto,” and Emily Roysdon’s book “West Street.”

Noteworthy: Knowledge 

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Gallery 44

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Editorial

Contemporary art has a complex, ambivalent and largely productive relationship to practices of knowledge production. Many artists attempt to elude or circumvent what can be immediately or perhaps rationally known, strategically avoiding the repetition of familiar forms and ideas. The effect is that, hopefully, in some way they transform the _known_ into the _unknown_. It is what—for me at least—makes contemporary art so uniquely interesting in relation to other forms of cultural practice or intellectual inquiry. When this effect is successful—and success is something that critics and curators, among others, are concerned with identifying—it presents ways of experiencing and making sense of the world that raise new questions.

One of the analytical strands that weaves together recent issues of _C Magazine_ is an examination of themes that have currency within social and cultural realms outside of contemporary art. This approach is based on the premise that looking at contemporary art practices can help us to better understand society at large. While scholars such as art historians and critical theorists very frequently turn to artists to help articulate their own ideas, artists are also deeply influenced by contemporary scholarship and research, and are part of a generative dialogue between people working in and across different disciplines and institutional contexts. The artists whose work appears in this issue of _C Magazine_ are engaged complexly with ideas and questions that extend the influence and relevance of their work into social and professional realms well outside the parameters of its production and exhibition.

By operating outside of conventional disciplinary and institutional confines, artists are able to develop work that also involves publics outside the sometimes seemingly hermetic world of artists, curators and critics. Practices situated in the everyday—from community-engaged forms of public art of the 80s to relational and social practices since the 90s—exemplify this approach. A number of projects discussed in this issue build indirectly upon this history and also incorporate practices of institutional critique. In her essay, “School’s In: Contemporary Art and the Educational Turn,” Jen Kennedy explores the new forms of knowledge that can be produced within existing institutions, and in ways that are alternative to these structures. For instance, in one of the projects she discusses, Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida’s _#class_, the installation was divided into three areas: “Think Space,” “Work Space,” and “Market Space.” In “Think Space,” the gallery was transformed into an art school classroom, where anyone who came to the gallery was entitled to participate, opening the work up to a broader public and enabling visitors to define and give shape to a collective process. Here, the classroom and those who entered it became the form and content, respectively, of the artwork.

In “You and Me and Her and Us and Them: A Conversation on Using and Being Used,” Sholem Krishtalka interviews novelist Sheila Heti and painter and filmmaker Margaux Williamson about projects in which they are collaborators and muses, while also reflecting extensively upon his own role in their creative processes. Heti and Williamson describe their group as having “created their own MFA program right in their neighbourhood, learning only what each other, the Internet, and Toronto could teach them,” a process that is representative of some of the ways intellectual communities form outside of existing institutional spaces, by taking advantage of social opportunities and finding ways to sustain themselves despite limited resources.

Also in this issue, a number of contributors explore the poetic qualities of the representation and dissemination of knowledge. Mandy Ginson interviews Toril Johannessen, who tracks the appearance of words like “crisis,” “miracle,” “logic,” and “love” in academic journals, using conventions of scientific display such as pie charts and bar graphs. This particular way of ordering knowledge foregrounds emotional or spiritual concerns that might seem to be in conflict with the rational nature of scientific investigation. Similarly, in _Studies for Possible Futures: vision # 24_ (2010), a project appearing inside the back cover, artist Maggie Groat works with images of nature study selected from discarded magazines and science textbooks. Part of a larger series that also includes a collection of images of the moon, her collages look at how people in the past imagined their future place in the world. The centrefold artist project, _Summerhill, Revised_, by Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling is based entirely on A.S. Neill’s _Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing_, a popular book published in 1960 that outlines the philosophy behind the British radical alternative school of the same name. To create this centrefold, which can be removed and folded into a zine, Reed and Jickling worked with a group of teacher candidates at the University of British Columbia to compile the notes written in the margins of dozens of copies of the now out-of-print book. By foregrounding the material artifacts themselves—in this case, used books purchased from online booksellers and back issues of science magazines—such projects reveal an implicit uncertainty about the authority of these texts and enable us to draw new meaning from them.

Throughout this issue, _C Magazine_ contributors explore sites, processes and tools of knowledge production being incorporated into contemporary art practice as both mediums and subject matter. Like the artists whose work is discussed herein, we hope that doing so will create new ways of engaging and learning.

Amish Morrell is Assistant Professor at OCAD University, where he teaches Criticism & Curatorial Practice, and Visual and Critical Studies.

Editor

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Education

Social

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses topics including contemporary art and knowledge production. He situates C Magazine’s recent issues in relation to a broader interest in social and cultural realms existing beyond the discrete zone of contemporary art, and expresses an appreciation for works that raise new questions and modes of inquiry.

Editorial: Knowledge

Feature

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Spirituality

Narrative

Love

The article presents a conversation between filmmaker Margaux Williamson and author Sheila Heti about their passion for art, literature, painting, film, and photography.

You and Me and Her and Us and Them: A Conversation on Using and Being Used

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Participation

This article discusses the recent trend in contemporary art wherein artists take on pedagogical models and educational forms. Such art-as-school models often interrogate art via school and school via art, calling into question the typical spheres of operation of each within contemporary society. The article discusses projects and works by Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, Anton Vidokle, and Jacques Ranciere.

School's In: Contemporary Art and the Educational Turn

Interview

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Nature

Technology

International

An interview with Norwegian artist Toril Johannessen is presented.

Logics of Scientific Discovery: Mandy Ginson interviews Toril Johannessen

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Chris Lee is a graphic designer and educator based in Buffalo, New York and Toronto. His research explores graphic design’s entanglement with power, standards and legitimacy. Chris is an Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo SUNY.

Designer

Publisher

Artist Project

Artist

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Text

The article offers information on the art project of Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed, an experiment in pedagogy that was intended to provide students with immersive experience in contemporary art.

Summerhill, Revised: Learning In/As Marginalia

Review

Over the past 20 years, artist, writer, and curator Emelie Chhangur has emerged as a leading voice for experimental curatorial practice and engaged institutional transformation in Canada through her influencial practice of in-reach. From 2004 to 2019, while curator at AGYU, she won 25 Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) awards in exhibition-making, education, public programming, and writing, including their inaugural Changemaker BIPOC Award. In 2020, she won the prestigious Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence. She is currently Director and Curator of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

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The article reviews the “29th Bienal De São Paulo,” at the Parque Ibirapuera, in Brazil from September 25, 2010 to December 12, 2010.

29th Bienal de São Paulo

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Review of Manifesta 8: The European Biennial of Contemporary Art at the Region of Murcia in Spain from October 9, 2010 to January 9, 2011.

Manifesta 8: The European Biennial of Contemporary Art

Farah Yusuf is an independent curator and writer based in Toronto. She holds an MA in Experimental Digital Media from the University of Waterloo and a BFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University where she was the recipient of the Curatorial Practice Medal and Governor General’s Academic Medal.

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Politics

Location

The article reviews the exhibition “Brendan Fernandez: Until We Fearless,” at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario from June 10, 2010 to October 3, 2010.

Brendan Fernandes: Until We Fearless

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Language

The article reviews the exhibition “Hannah Rickard:ƒ A Legend, It, It Sounds Like a Legend,” at Artspeak in Vancouver, British Columbia from September 11, 2010 to October 30, 2010.

Hannah Rickard: … a legend, it, it sounds like a legend

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Sculpture

Video

Canadian

The article reviews the exhibition “Katie Bethune-Leamen: Older, Sadder, and All in White this Time,” at the Latcham Gallery in Stouffville, Ontario from October 30, 2010 to December 4, 2010.

Katie Bethune-Leamen: Older, Sadder, And All In White This Time

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Drawing

The article reviews the exhibition “Journey into Whatever,” at The Gallery at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design from October 14, 2010 to November 25, 2010.

Journey into Whatever

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Economy

Photography

Landscape

The article reviews the exhibition “Scott McFarland: Sans Souci,” in Toronto, Ontario from September 22, 2010 to November 7, 2010.

Scott McFarland: Sans Souci

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Installation

Conceptual

The article reviews the exhibition “Edwin Janzen: Guys in Caves,” at the Diefenbunker in Ottawa, Ontario from August 13, 2010 to September 30, 2010.

Edwin Janzen: Guys in Caves

Jane Affleck is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies program at Trent University, a part-time instructor at NSCAD University and a freelance writer.

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Found

The article reviews the exhibition “David Diviney: Head for the Hills,” at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

David Diviney: Head for the Hills

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Collage

The article reviews the exhibition “Daniel Barrow: Good Gets Better,” at the Jessica Bradley Art + Projects in Toronto, Ontario from November 20, 2010 to December 23, 2010.

Daniel Barrow: Good Gets Better

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Institutional critique

The article reviews the book “Selected Maria Lind Writing,” edited by Brian Kuan Wood.

Selected Maria Lind Writing, Edited by Brian Kuan Wood

The article reviews the book “Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century,” edited by Steven Henry Madoff.

Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century), Edited by Steven Henry Madoff

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Issue 109