Video Store
Image credits: Courtesy of the ODD Gallery and Michele P Clarke for Access Gallery
Video Store is curated and organized by Suzanne Carte and Su-Ying Lee. Toni Latour’s compilation DVD is included in this traveling exhibition and video rental and screening program. It has traveled to ODD Gallery in the Klondike Institute of Art & Culture in Dawson City, Yukon which ran from March 7 to April 12, 2013. The gallery recorded a total attendance of 267 people in the 5-week period with over 70 rentals. The Director, Evan Rensch, heard a lot of positive feedback from viewers who were genuinely intrigued and excited by the ideas provoked by the show. One particular student at the Yukon School of Visual Arts rented over 20 titles during the course of the exhibition! Rensch was pleased that the store introduced KIAC to such a large number of Canadian and International artists.
The second exhibition took place at the Access Gallery in Vancouver, BC, held July 30 -September 7, 2013. The gallery recorded a total attendance of 400 people in the 6-week period with 48 rentals. The gallery produced an amazing series of programmes. Summer Video Nights were held on each Thursday night in August to view a selection of videos from the collection, specially chosen and presented by Vancouver-based artists and curators.
The work is on its way to New Brunswick to the only artist-run centre for contemporary art in Saint John, Galerie Tiers-espace/Third Space Gallery for an exhibition opening in January 2014.
Under New Management has also been invited to present the Video Store project for the upcoming symposium The Ecology of an Art Scene through the Canadian Art Foundation International Speaker Series in collaboration with The Power Plant.
Video Store will also be featured in The Pedagogical Impulse – an online research/creation project at the intersections between social practice, knowledge production, pedagogy, and “school”.
The Race
The Race is a video installation inspired by a passage from the 2001 anthology “Money_Value_Art”. In speaking of the labour of artists, Pierre Beaudoin says: “We mark time, tread water, run on the spot”. Springing from this quote, the installation includes three illustrative videos playing simultaneously. The first video, Running, depicts the artist running on the spot in her day-to-day clothes, while more ‘officially’ dressed runners pass her on the sea wall in Vancouver. The second video, Swimming, pictures Latour treading water at Vancouver’s Second Beach pool while swimmers lap her. Putting these activities in the context of visual art practice, the third video, Office Work, has the artist filling out grant applications, writing exhibition proposals and doing artist administrative work, while seated amongst productive office workers in an accounting firm. Overall the project speaks humorously to the trials involved in a contemporary art career.
Running
Running, 2:38, 2004
Office Work
Office Work, 3:47, 2005
Swimming
Swimming, 1:59, 2004
Suggestions
Suggestions, 2:29, 2000
Suggestions deconstructs the process of critique through tongue-in-cheek commentary that offers contradictory advice on how to produce “good” contemporary artwork. As the artist speaks, the size of the video image shrinks from 100% to 25%, suggesting a diminished sense of authority. The source material was compiled from actual suggestions the artist received over the course of many years.
Dog Eat Dog World
Dog Eat Dog World, 1:00, 2000
Dog Eat Dog World is a video installation that consists of seven television monitors arranged on the floor in a configuration that mimics communal canine behavior. The videos depict the artist barking, growling, licking and starring. Reflecting on the ever-evolving pecking orders of art worlds, this piece acts as an internal reminder to keep pace.
