Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 4, 2013, 8 – 10 p.m.
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen Street West
A large crowd gathered for the launch party of Mocca’s Fall, 2013 programming season with David Cronenberg: Transformation in the Main Space, and the North American premier of Venice Biennale Silver Lion winner Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue in the Project Space.
The opening crowd and David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA (in the middle)
“Over the course of his nearly 40-year career, David Cronenberg has been influenced by contemporary art and he has been influential for many contemporary artists. We’re very excited to be collaborating with TIFF on this very special project celebrating one of Canada’s most important contemporary film artists with an exhibition of Canadian and International artworks that share thematic affinities with David Cronenberg’s films and ideas.” – said David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA.
Installation view of the main gallery
David Cronenberg: Transformation features six new, TIFF-commissioned artworks from leading Canadian and international contemporary artists who share Cronenberg’s inspirations from literature and philosophy—writers such as McLuhan, Burroughs and Ballard—and his fascination with biological horror, the human psyche and the merging of humans and media. Artists featured: Candice Breitz, James Coupe, Marcel Dzama, Jeremy Shaw, Jamie Shovlin, and Laurel Woodcock.
The Girl from Une Danse Des Bouffons (or A Jester’s Dance) in Marcel Dzama’s video, film still, 2013.
Masked characters appear in the macabre game of Marcel Dzama’s video, Une Danse Des Bouffons (or A Jester’s Dance), film still, 2013.
Marcel Dzama, Even the Ghost of the Past, 2008.
Jamie Shovlin, Rough Cut (Hiker Meat). Multi channel HD video, 2013.
James Coupe’s Swarm explores ideas of surveillance and paranoia, with screens capturing images of gallery visitors.
The audience seemed to be mesmerized by the uniqueness of the various projects. David Cronenberg: Transformation is open till December 29, 2013.
Visitors watching Marcel Dzama’s video, Une Danse Des Bouffons with his installation, Even the Ghost of the Past, 2008, in the background.
Multidisciplinary artist Camille Henrot won the Silver Lion for best young promising artist at this year’s Venice Biennale for her heady “encyclopedic” video Grosse Fatigue. Windows upon windows open on a computer screen like a succession of Russian dolls, revealing a dizzying array of taxonomic information, accompanied by slam poetry-style narration (written in collaboration with poet Jacob Bromberg and percussively scored by acclaimed DJ Joakim Bouaziz) that describes an increasingly breathless excursion through the history of the universe. The video is on display till September 15, 2013.
Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, (detail), 2013. Video (color, sound).
MOCCA courtyard features Maya Hayuk’s P.M.A. (Positive Mental Attitude), 2013. As is typical in her practice, Hayuk’s mural P.M.A. is a unique painting created entirely on and for the site. The artist works wholly by hand and vision. Improvised in response to the surface and location, Hayuk has incorporated the existing features of the wall into the mural – giving a clever nod to the milieu. P.M.A.(Positive Mental Attitude) will be on view until April 6, 2014
Maya Hayuk P.M.A. (Positive Mental Attitude), 2013, mural.
Photo: Alice Tallman