Invisible Violence – Workshop with curator Liz Park
February 27, 2013
2:00-4:00pm
CEREV, LB 671.10
Co-Sponsored by the Curatorial Theory and Practice Working Group.
Invisible Violence brings together the work of four artists—Rebecca Belmore, Ken Gonzales-Day, Francisco-Fernando Granados, and Louise Noguchi—who use photography as a point of reference for histories of violence that inform a contemporary politics of representation. Their work intentionally covers, erases, withdraws or cuts apart the main subject of the photographs, delaying the recognition of the structural and systemic violence underlying each image. Taking this interruption as its starting point, the project asks that “we”—the audience who are informed by contemporary mediascape riddled with images of violence—problematize the first person pronoun. As Susan Sontag writes, “No ‘we’ should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people’s pain.”
Designed to incite thoughtful conversations about the representation of violence and its politicization today, this multi-part project consists of: publication of the artists’ work as a sequence of 5”x7” cards; a series of discursive events conceived as points of distribution for the publication; and a web hub that archives reflections on the discussions that take place at each event. As a set of provocations, the parts collectively evaluate the political conditions of the production, circulation and consumption of violent images.
Event is free and open to the public but space is limited, so please RSVP: cerev@alcor.concordia.ca
Publication distributed free at the event.
This project was produced by Artspeak, with web component by Gallery TPW, and curatorial research support from Center for Photography at Woodstock.
Artspeak is a non-profit artist run centre in Vancouver that presents contemporary practices, innovative publications, bookworks, editions, talks and events that encourage a dialogue between visual art and writing. Gallery TPW is a non-profit exhibition space in Toronto dedicated to the critical investigation of both still and moving images. In 2012 the gallery launched TPW R&D, a temporary project space to support a phase of shared and public research. Its website is conceived as a bulletin board of ideas, discussion and resources, and will host the web component of Invisible Violence as part of an ongoing and accumulating archive of discourse.
Artspeak gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the City of Vancouver, and the BC Gaming Commission, as well as project support from the Audain Foundation.
Liz Park gratefully acknowledges the support of Canada Council for the Arts for the Grant to Professional Independent Critics and Curators, British Columbia Arts Council for Project Assistance, and Center for Photography at Woodstock for supporting the writing of the curatorial text through its critical studies residency program.
Born in Upsala, Ontario, Rebecca Belmore is an artist currently living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since 1987, her multi-disciplinary work has addressed history, place and identity through the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance. She is internationally recognized for her performance and installation art, and was Canada’s o&cial representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale.
Ken Gonzales-Day’s interdisciplinary and conceptually grounded projects consider the history of photography, the construction of race, and the limits of representational systems ranging from the lynching photograph to museum display. Gonzales-Day lives in Los Angeles and is Chair of the Art Department at Scripps College.
Francisco-Fernando Granados is a Guatemalan-born, Toronto-based artist, writer and educator working in performance, video, drawing, cultural criticism, teaching, and curatorial practice. He currently contributes as a member of the Editorial Committee for FUSE magazine. He is also a member of the 7a11d International Performance Festival Collective in Toronto.
Louise Noguchi challenges her audience with themes that pose psychological questions. Using photography, sculpture, video and other media, Noguchi’s concepts confront the spectator’s notions of identity, perception and reality. She is a professor in the Art and Art History program, a collaborative joint program between Sheridan Institute and the University of Toronto Mississauga where she teaches photography and performance-based art.
Liz Park is a curator and writer committed to creating discursive spaces and generating forums to engage an audience with discussions of contemporary political and social realities. She received a Masters of Arts in Art History / Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia. In 2011/2012, she was Helena Rubinstein Fellow in the Curatorial Program at the Whitney Independent Study Program.
