September 11, 2009,
UBC Visual Arts Faculty Exhibition
Opening: Friday, September 11, 2009, 4 – 7 pm. From September 11 to October 3, 2009.
The recent turn toward visual culture, materiality, and the “thing” in the humanities is central to issues around artistic praxis and reception. It has become all the more urgent in a world where new and obsolete products stare back at us from a commoditized landscape. How are these issues reflected in contemporary artworks, and how might these works be resisting this logic, shedding light on new kinds of relations with the material world?
As practicing artists and visual arts instructors, we often find ourselves discussing the intersection between our individual art practice and our social responsibility as educators. We focus on our role as agents. The focus of this exhibition deals with what we might not always ask ourselves: the artworkís agency. Turning our focus toward the nature of the material artwork sparks a number of illuminating questions:
What is an art image, object, or event today?
What do they stem from, and what are they responding to?
What is important about materiality, and how does it matter?
If artworks can be understood as having an agency beyond our role as authors and viewers, what does the image, object, or event demand of us?
What is the nature of this demand?
What responsibility do we have toward them, and why does this matter?
Artist talks:
Monday, September 21, 5.30 – 7.30 pm
Gu Xiong, M. Simon Levin, Manuel Pina, Richard Prince
Monday, September 28, 5.30 – 7.30 pm
Christine DíOnofrio, Barrie Jones, Phil McCrum, Marina Roy
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Saturday noon to 4 pm.
For more information call: (604) 822-4563.