Medrie MacPhee, Second Thoughts, 2022, oil and mixed media on canvas, 56 x 86 in. Courtesy of the artist and Stellar Art
Join us in-person for a dynamic multi-event reception for SHIFT: Ecologies of Fashion, Form and Textile.
Including sculpture, painting, photography, and performative practices, SHIFT: Ecologies of Fashion, Form and Textile addresses the intersection of visual art, fashion and textiles in the work of international and Canadian artists to consider these practices as worldmaking forms of knowledge production and an encounter with artistic and cultural expression that is part of everyday life.
The event begins with the speculative sci-fi fashion performance, we meet (up/down), created by queer Korean-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist, Jaewoo Kang, who produced the project through his SHIFT 2023 summer residency. The performance will be followed by SHIFT Opening remarks and a special book launch for Griffin’s recent publication, Janet Werner Sticky Pictures, produced in collaboration with Figure 1 Publishing and the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Montreal-based painter, Janet Werner, whose works are also featured in SHIFT, will be in attendance.
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
we meet (up down) is a speculative sci-fi fashion performance, aiming to evoke spirits, energies and characters from different timelines. Using 18th century men’s shirts as a base, each performer will put on their costumes as they transform into the entity that timetravels, which will give the audience a new perspective on their experience of time. This performance has been developed through residency at Griffin Art Projects and the “Intergenerational Eco-Fashion” Workshop that occurred during the residency. In the workshop, we explored different queer theories including Karen Barad, Donna Haraway and José Esteban Muñoz to imagine our own version of queer utopia outside the current time period we inhabit.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Sticky Pictures examines and celebrates the evolving work of Montreal-based artist Janet Werner. In her paintings, Werner builds a constellation of spatial and figurative explorations drawn from fashion magazines and art history to create collage-like composite figures that slip easily between articulations of beauty, gender, psychology and emotion. Werner’s painterly operations are both unsettling and seductive, revealing the conditions of perception and looking as passageways to understanding the intensity of the world at hand. Werner’s unique combination of abstraction, fictional portraiture, and the rich history of painting are explored in Sticky Pictures through texts by MAC Curator and Head of Public programs François LeTourneux, media historian Ara Osterweil, as well as an interview with the artist with independent curator and writer, Melissa Feldman.
To attend, registration via Eventbrite is encouraged, but drop-ins are welcome! Refreshments provided.