The Gaze | Chimera by Sumaira Tazeen

What do we look at – and why? In The Gaze, an exhibition of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films, eight artists present engaging and thought provoking interpretations of “looking.” View the videos on the digital screens in Mississauga Celebration Square! Screening schedule is on the AGM website.

Over the next few weeks, the AGM blog will feature guest posts by The Gaze artists, revealing the conceptual framework behind their videos.

Chimera by Sumaira Tazeen

Sumaira Tazeen, Chimera, video still

Gaze is actually an insight to me. It is an insight of the eye of your mind through which you analyze, that is different from the physical eye. It makes you decide between the positive and the negative within yourself as well as in your surroundings.

My video Chimera is an extension of the work that I created in Pakistan first in 2009 and another in 2011. It all started with idea of me representing my feelings for Pakistan and Karachi where I used to live before immigrating to Canada. The video was shot with digital HD Camera and edited at a production house in Karachi, Pakistan.  I have slightly tweaked the same video to make it part of this show.

The Call for Submissions for The Gaze here was exciting to me, however it was also difficult to create the relation that truly represent my thoughts about  the city/country. I have made my video silent with a collaged imagery of my own lips that suggests an illusion of eyes that equally measures love and surprises for the urban landscape – buildings and people, roads and crowds, bridges and bodies alike.

I am hoping that my video will be able to communicate my feelings to a newly immigrated country and the city of Mississauga.

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About The Gaze

The Art Gallery of Mississauga, in partnership with the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division, publicized a Call for Artists to submit proposals of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films. A total of 8 works were selected that helped define, broaden and contribute to the philosopher Jacques Lacan’s concept of distinguishing between the eye’s look and THE GAZE.

View the schedule on our website.

 

The Gaze | Borne back, ceaselessly by Lee Henderson

What do we look at – and why? In The Gaze, an exhibition of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films, eight artists present engaging and thought provoking interpretations of “looking.” View the videos on the digital screens in Mississauga Celebration Square! Screening schedule is on the AGM website.

Over the next few weeks, the AGM blog will feature guest posts by The Gaze artists, revealing the conceptual framework behind their videos.

Borne back, ceaselessly by Lee Henderson

Lee Henderson, Borne back, ceaselessly, video still

Much of my work to date has treated mortality as its subject, constituted as both the persistence of collective histories and the brevity of individual lives. Currently, I am investigating the word medium, and its oscillation between signifying electronic means of communication, and one who communicates with the dead—every medium, therefore, is somehow between here and there.

Borne back, ceaselessly is a video designed for public display, that aims to bring discourses of class and surveillance to bear by invoking a motif from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (the novel from which the work takes its title). Videotaping my own eyes on autofocus, I fooled my camera into doubting its own algorithm, forcing it to continuously oscillate between focal lengths as it gazed into me and I into it; it alternates between “looking” past me and directly at me.

In Fitzgerald’s masterpiece about class consciousness and the preference for illusion over reality, the round-spectacled eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg are used as a proxy for a bodiless, immortal gaze which cuts through appearances and forgets nothing. This idea of a secular, all-seeing, empirical eye has stayed with me since reading the novel for the first time in high school. I suspect the motif provides a clue as to why cinematic adaptations of The Great Gatsby are doomed—the novel is about the unreliability of appearances, and cinema is after all constituted entirely by appearances. Nevertheless, I am interested in how the camera, far from being bodiless or immaterial, has its own limitations of software and hardware; in this sense, the camera suggests that all gazes are subjective… even technological ones.

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About The Gaze

The Art Gallery of Mississauga, in partnership with the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division, publicized a Call for Artists to submit proposals of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films. A total of 8 works were selected that helped define, broaden and contribute to the philosopher Jacques Lacan’s concept of distinguishing between the eye’s look and THE GAZE.

View the schedule on our website.

 

Roots and Branches | Tweetchat Recap: Artists in the Community

On Thursday, April 11, the AGM and the Mississauga Library System co-hosted a tweetchat on the topic Artists in the Community. What is the role of the artist in the community? What kind of art can be created with artists engage with the community? What are the implications of involving the community in the artistic process? How do artist projects reflect a shift in perspective about art, and how will this re-define art and the role of the artist?

Missed the chat? See the Storify transcript here.

Then join in by sharing your thoughts on the questions below! And keep an eye out for a follow up in-person panel discussion at the AGM! Details to follow.

Questions were as follows:

Q1 What makes something art?

Q2 How do artist projects in the community challenge the way we think about art?

Q3  How does engaging the community in the creation of art add a socially relevant dimension to our perception of art?

Q4 What differentiates artist projects in the community from community projects?  Why are they art?

Q5 How can museums and galleries present art that is rarely conceived with an exhibition in mind?

Q6 How can artists respond to the challenge of making art out of social practice?

Q7 How can cultural institutions educate the public about why projects in the community can be considered art?

Q8 If given the chance to make an artist project in the community, what social issue would you address, and how?

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Roots and Branches is at the Art Gallery of Mississauga until April 20. 

Image: Karen Maze, Many Faces, One Portrait, 2013, black and white photographs

The Gaze | Flotsam by Mike Hansen

What do we look at – and why? In The Gaze, an exhibition of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films, eight artists present engaging and thought provoking interpretations of “looking.” View the videos on the digital screens in Mississauga Celebration Square! Screening schedule is on the AGM website.

Over the next few weeks, the AGM blog will feature guest posts by The Gaze artists, revealing the conceptual framework behind their videos.

Flotsam by Mike Hansen

Flotsam is one of those works that is a gift. My girlfriend and I were taking a walk up the East Coast Trail, which is right beside my house in Newfoundland. We were walking and berry picking last Thanksgiving. I was taking her to the abandoned settlement know as Blacksmith, about a kilometer along the trail. Blacksmith is just up from the beautiful Trixie’s Cove, a tiny rocky beach on Fermeuse Harbour, Newfoundland.

She was wearing a stunning yellow slicker, what she refers to as her Newfoundland coat, which she bought at a Value Village in Lethbridge. She stills finds that funny and I do too. We were wandering on the beach and I started shooting my movements. I have a passion for the point of view (pov) camera. Not that I don’t like being on camera. I do host a visual art focused television program, Artsync.ca. My practice revolves around the notion that gap exists between the beholder and works of art, so my work proposes to close that space. For me the act of using the pov camera fulfills that need. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her in that yellow slicker sitting across the beach as she studied a variety of coloured and wildly patterned stones, a thought occurred to me. All of a sudden the story of the film “Blow Up” filled my head.

Thank goodness she can be cooporative, I asked her to lay over a large rock. Of course she looked at me questioning and I started to explain the plot of Blow Up and how the protagonist finds a shadow in a photograph he shot in a park. To quell his curiosity he begins to repeatedly enlarge the shadowed section of the photo, to the point that it becomes a large field of pixels. Still a bit puzzled she lays herself over the rock and I start to shoot around her from many angles. Her slicker and black and white hair jumps in the image. I sat puzzled by the video for close to a year then like the moment of the filming it all fell into place. Only a few hours editing on the computer, some processing and playing in the software Soundtrack arrived Flotsam, my take on the thriller.

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About The Gaze

The Art Gallery of Mississauga, in partnership with the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division, publicized a Call for Artists to submit proposals of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films. A total of 8 works were selected that helped define, broaden and contribute to the philosopher Jacques Lacan’s concept of distinguishing between the eye’s look and THE GAZE.

View the schedule on our website.

AGM Auction 10 | Top 10 + 1 Tips on Collecting Art

Thinking of purchasing art for your home, and wondering how to get started? The AGM Annual Art Auction is a great way to begin! With bids for artworks beginning at fairly low prices, the AGM Auction offers the opportunity to snag great deals on high quality art pieces. The question then becomes: if you’ve never before purchased art for your home, how do you make sure you’re choosing the right pieces?

In this guest post, art collector and AGM Board Member Dev Ramcharan gives his Top 10 + 1 tips on beginning an art collection.

Norval Morrisseau, Journey, 1990, from Dev Ramcharan’s collection

Art enriches, inspires and challenges us. We stand in front of it in wonder, delight, confusion and  awe, and can be changed forever by it. Sometimes we feel the urge to posses pieces that move or touch us. Many people would love to collect art, but getting started can seem so daunting. It isn’t really. To get started, just buy a piece you like. It doesn’t have to be expensive, and there are many wonderful pieces out there that don’t cost very much at all. If you’re looking for a few pointers on collecting, the following list might help stimulate your thinking.

Top 10 plus 1 tips on Collecting Art

1. Collect work that you love, work that moves and delights you, not what people tell you to collect. As a collector, important art is only important if it’s important to you.

2. Visit galleries, read good books on art, watch videos on the art and artists you’re interested in.

3. Try to meet and talk to the artists you’d like to collect; a personal connection makes the art you collect richer and more personal.

4. Don’t let the investment future value of the work you collect be the driver for what you collect. It can become tiresome quickly if it doesn’t touch you and engage your mind and/or your eye.

5. As time goes by, reflect on how your tastes and interests are evolving.

6. Consider supporting the careers of young artists struggling to build a career, and whose work “speaks” to you.

7. As your tastes mature, decide whether or not you want to collect using a couple of themes (aboriginal sculpture, women painters of Mississauga, iconic Canadian art, socially challenging work, photography, expressionist abstract, watercolors, etc. The possibilities are endless).

8. Share, share, share your art. There are few things as enriching as conversations about and in front of art. It brings out the full scope of our humanity and deepens our experience of life.

9. As your collection grows and evolves, consider seriously what you want to do with it in the long term. Consider lending, and especially donating, art to public galleries and to other public or not for profit institutions, so that they have a permanent place in a collection that will enrich the lives of generations to come.

10. Take the time to enjoy and to reflect on the work you collect. It’s a kind of magic that never loses its fascination.

11. Share your experience as a collector with other people trying to figure out how to become collectors. As time passes, you’ll find you really do have some experience based advice that can help others.

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10 | Annual Art Auction will be held at the Art Gallery of Mississauga on May 2, 6 pm. Tickets available now – The Premiere Art Auction in Mississauga! Tickets are $75 each. This includes a $50 voucher used towards any one item in the live auction. Contact Reception at the AGM 905 896 5088 / agm.connect@mississauga.ca to purchase tickets. Funds raised at this event support the AGM’s Growth Initiative and ensure that exhibitions and artist projects are accessible to everyone.

See more at: http://artgalleryofmississauga.com/pressreleaseAuction10.html

The Gaze | Joy Ride by Francis LeBouthillier

What do we look at – and why? In The Gaze, an exhibition of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films, eight artists present engaging and thought provoking interpretations of “looking.” View the videos on the digital screens in Mississauga Celebration Square! Screening schedule is on the AGM website.

Over the next few weeks, the AGM blog will feature guest posts by The Gaze artists, revealing the conceptual framework behind their videos.

Joy Ride by Francis LeBouthillier 

Francis LeBouthillier, Joy Ride 2012

Is the everyday bump and grind getting to you? Well, it got to me. Joy Ride was inspired by the experience of being employed in a middle management position. By the end of my term, I learned that there was only so much that one could do within a given situation. It became very apparent that what was happening in my environment was beyond my control. As with most of my art projects, the motivation for a work comes out of a need to represent and make tangible a given situation that has challenged me. The process of making art allows me to gain a better understanding of aspects of my life that otherwise would reside in a state of the unresolved.  It is my hope that the subject matter that I engage with moves beyond the idiosyncratic impetus and begins to resonate and have meaning with the broader public as they interact with the work.

Joy Ride invites you into an office cubicle to observe the actions and reactions of a bureaucrat in a peculiar environment. The video is shot in a way that locates the audience as an invisible presence in the room. Are you secretly spying on this person or are you upper management reviewing a surveillance recording? In slapstick fashion, the bureaucrat attempts to go about his daily routine. In the viewing of this work, does the audience allow themselves to vicariously experience the absurdity of this character’s roller-coaster world with joy and laughter by allowing the visual and experiential queues to transport them into this unsettling world of skewed equilibrium and uncontrolled inertia? Or does the audience choose to maintain the stance of “just looking”; not engaging with these office antics and reside within the position of the critical observer?

In order to create the Joy Ride video, I constructed an office (walls, ceiling, & lighting), furnished it and installed it all in an actual cube van. I hired a stunt driver to drive the cube van around while I was inside, performing as the “bureaucrat”. The dynamic movements and gravitational shifts within the office were real-time occurrences and documented by a video camera that was fixed into the back portion of the van. When we began shooting the video, I must say that the whole experience was quite frightening; the chaos and being out of control was terrifying. As the shoot progressed, I became quite accustomed to the goings on and it became much like riding public transit. The window view sequence was recorded separately and was digitally inserted into the background.

Joy Ride was originally produced for LEITMOTIF, an exhibition of artist projects in cube vans that was curated by Stuart Keeler. This exhibition was part of the 2012 Nuit Blanche, an all-night art event in Toronto.

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About The Gaze

The Art Gallery of Mississauga, in partnership with the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division, publicized a Call for Artists to submit proposals of experimental, or narrative-based, interactive short films. A total of 8 works were selected that helped define, broaden and contribute to the philosopher Jacques Lacan’s concept of distinguishing between the eye’s look and THE GAZE.

View the schedule on our website.

Roots and Branches | Artists in the Community

Current AGM exhibition Roots and Branches features the results of several artist projects created in the community. While the classic image of an artist is one who works in a studio or with a canvas en plein air, many artists, such as those in Roots and Branches, create their work in public space, as well require engagement with the community in order to create their work. In this essay excerpt, AGM Director | Curator Stuart Keeler writes about a social art practice he calls Service Media, a “more engaging and collaborative form of art in public space.”

Living in Chicago between 2001 and 2007, I noticed a number of artists engaging with the city and its citizens in public space. Their work was ephemeral, socially engaged and open ended – oftentimes it seemed inspired by a local need. Temporary Services, for instance, created a “Warming Center” between January and February of 2001. Throughout this project, the public was invited into the warmth of an office building to eat soup and receive further advice about how to keep warm and, on certain days of the week, could even sign up for professional massages. In these quiet activist-engaged projects, the audience/public becomes a participant in the situation defined by the artist. The non-literal art object is manifested by the shared cohesion of artist and viewer. While art has arguably always sought to create a mediated experience, Service Media aims to create a moment in which the viewer can negotiate this experience, using conversation as a key factor. Service Media projects have turned up in the form of public transit sites, recycling centers, the reclamation of urban areas and the web to name but a few. The artists in this genre create a temporary situation that melds experience, process and a performance-based action, while serving a “need.” These projects challenge popular assumptions about public art, social space and the “community artist” paradigm by taking a conceptual approach to the experience of site.

- Source:

Keeler, Stuart. “Introduction.” Service Media: Is it “Public Art” or is it Art in Public Space?. Ed. Stuart Keeler. Chicago: The Green Lantern Press, 2011. 2 – 12. Print.

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Roots and Branches is an innovative Artist-in-Residence project which aims to tap into the communities of Mississauga, to connect arts and literature with socially based art projects rooted in experimentation. The exhibition will be at the AGM March 7 – April 20, 2013. Information: artgalleryofmississauga.com