WEDNESDAY MAY 13, 7-8PM
PANEL DISCUSSION
SOPHIE HACKETT, BONNIE RUBENSTEIN AND DAVID LISS
THE DRAKE HOTEL
A lively conversation with CONTACT curators Hackett (AGO), Liss (MOCCA) and Rubenstein (CONTACT) to examine the current climate surrounding the medium of photography and the CONTACT 2009 theme Still Revolution.
1150 Queen St W
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MAY 8 - JUNE 13
HANK WILLIS THOMAS: VISIONARY DELUSIONS
GEORGIA SCHERMAN PROJECTS
OPENING THURSDAY MAY 14, 6-9PM
ARTIST TALK SATURDAY MAY 16, 1PM
Visionary Delusions excavates the “Still Revolution” that has not only distorted Black American culture but has also fuelled the powerful corporate propagation of a false utopia. Curated by Olivier Fuller, this CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival Feature Exhibition showcases, for the first time in Canada, Thomas’ most significant bodies of recent work B®ANDED and Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America.
Sourced from an evolving mass of iconic images of corporate advertising, Willis Thomas’ work explores the creation of the cultural African-American identity. By mining the marketing imagery of brands through five decades, Thomas draws out parallels between contemporary relationships and those of the past, exposing underlying cultural and racial signifiers and stereotypes.
Unbranded presents a series of images taken from magazine advertisements dating from 1968 to the present, digitally manipulated to be devoid of any original texts and logos. The removal of all aspects of advertising information exposes the reinforced delusional cultural constructs embedded in the images.
B®anded employs the ubiquitous language of advertising to poignantly comment on issues of gender, race, class and history. The idiom of the medium as the message is explicitly dissected through Willis Thomas’ re-appropriation of corporate advertising and branding.
“The reason I work in the language of advertising is that more than half the world is literate in that language. We’re all inundated. My goal is to try to imbed my own propaganda and agenda in the already existing language of advertising.” HWT
Willis Thomas received his BFA in Photography and Africana Studies at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts and his MA in Visual Criticism and MFA in Photography from the California College of Arts. He has shown extensively both nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at PS1, New York, The Studio Museum, Harlem, and the Zacheta National Museum of Art, Poland and was most recently was included in 30 Americans from the Rubell Family Collection, Miami. He is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship and the Aperture West Book Prize from which his first monograph, Pitch Blackness, was published and which will be available during CONTACT. He is represented in New York by Jack Shainman Gallery.
IMAGES
Are you the right kind of woman for it?, 1974/2007
Smokin Joe Ain’t Je’mama, 1978/2007
Available in a variety of sizes and colors, 1977/2008
Mandingo of Sandwiches, 1977/2007
Exhibition hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10am to 5pm, Saturday, 11am to 5 pm, or by appointment.
133 Tecumseth St
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MAY 14 - JUNE 13
ELDON GARNET: DOMINION AND CATEGORIES OF DISAPPEARANCE
CHRISTOPHER CUTTS GALLERY
OPENING THURSDAY, MAY 14, 6-9PM
Eldon Garnet's creates photography that is predicated on constructing a series of images to frame an abstract narrative about our current social, political and economic environment. In Dominion, as with much of Garnet's work, the polarities of beauty and threat, rapture and effrontery confront each other. Pushing the boundaries of photographic depiction, Garnet presents metaphoric constructs for the individual condition – one that is, within our current cultural moment, fragile and precarious. He creates iconic images that are lyrical yet threatening: the individual in a struggle against an undefined violence, or the body under attack. In one image, two men violently fight against the background of Mies van der Rohe's iconic Toronto Dominion Centre. In another photograph a lone man immersed in a river struggles with the heavy current. We are confronted with the hope of a future in the difficulty of the moment.
Based in Toronto, Garnet has established an internationally recognized artistic practice, working as a multi-media artist and writer since the 1970's. Surveys of his sculptures and photographic work have been held at the National Gallery of Canada (CMCP) in Ottawa, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto and the Centrum voor Fotografie in Amsterdam.
21 Morrow Ave
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THURSDAY, MAY 14, 6:30PM
TERRY O'REILLY: IMAGES OF PERSUASION
$10 IN ADVANCE / $12 AT THE DOOR
The Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications (CAPIC) invites you to an evening with Terry O'Reilly, host, creator and co-writer of CBC radio series, Age of Persuasion. Known as a delightful raconteur and scholar of media literature, his day job as one of the top directors of radio and TV commercials affords him a unique perspective on marketing and how it has changed the way we react to media.
918 Bathurst St
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THURSDAY, MAY 14, 7PM
QUICK FIX: VANESSA GRONOWSKI AND ZACH SLOOTSKY
THE DRAKE HOTEL
Come to the Drake every Thursday for Quick Fix; spontaneous performance art and other cultural happenings. This week, Vanessa Gronoswki explores photo blogging and how the presence of a photographer can transform the nature of an event.
1150 Queen St W
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THURSDAY, MAY 14, 8PM
MIKE ROBINSON: DAGUERREOTYPES, PAST AND PRESENT
THE CAMPBELL HOUSE MUSEUM
Using nineteenth-century examples and images from his own work, Mike Robinson will discuss the evolution of the daguerreotype process and illustrate what makes this form of photography so fascinating and collectible. Robinson, a Professor in Ryerson's School of Image Arts, is Canada's only practising daguerreotypist. His striking daguerreotype portraits of Toronto photographers are a highlight in the CONTACT Feature exhibition First Revolution, 1839: Daguerreotypes and the Intimate Gaze at Campbell House Museum.
160 Queen Street W
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THURSDAY, MAY 14, 10PM
LOUIE PALU: VIDEO SCREENING
THE BOVINE
Louie Palu's video footage documents the war in Afghanistan's Southern Provinces of Kandahar and Helmand while he was embedded with Canadian, British and American troops in 2008. The video contextualizes Palu's public installation, War Zone Graffiti, located throughout the Queen West neighbourhood and Ace Lane - the alleyway behind the Shanghai Cowgirl.
542 Queen St W
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SATURDAY MAY 16, 23 AND 30, 12-4PM
SCREENING - CONTACT 918 PROJECTIONS
Projections will be presented every Saturday in May showcasing images that have been submitted by a global network of photographers. Daily feeds of images accompanied by interactive installations encourage audience participation. CONTACT 918 strives to connect photographers and communities, both local and international.
918 Bathurst St
