The tent at Hart House Quad, a century old courtyard behind the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
July 29, 2015, 5 – 8 pm
Hart House Quad / Blackwood Gallery, in collaboration with the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery/UTAC
If ever the artworld and the music world were to come to an amicable truce, it was at the July 29th celebration of Volumes, a book and music project with a mission to merge the two often separate spheres–a mission that was aptly reflected in its launch. Hosted by the Blackwood Gallery, in collaboration with the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery/University of Toronto Art Centre, the event saw members of Toronto’s art scene chatting, clinking wine glasses, and snacking on summer fare amidst an impressive experimental soundscape live-spun by project contributors Martin Arnold, Mitchell Akiyama, and Marc Couroux. Set under a tent with chandeliers in the Hart House Quad—a century-old interior courtyard behind the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery—the evening radiated relaxed garden party elegance and conviviality, with children flitting to collect fallen roses as sound reverberated off the courtyard’s stone walls.
Blackwood Gallery Director/Curator, Christine Shaw, chats with publication editor, Christof Migone
Toronto-based composer Marc Couroux
The evening’s guests, including Christof Migone, composer Martin Arnold, artist Marc Couroux, curator Sarah Robayo Sheridan, and others
The event marked the publication of Volumes, a long-term multi-disciplinary project initiated by Art Gallery of Alberta Executive Director/Chief Curator, Catherine Crowston, and Justina M.Barnicke Executive Director/Chief Curator, Barbara Fischer, and edited by composer Martin Arnold and former Blackwood Gallery Curator, Christof Migone. The result of a decade-long institutional collaboration, the project was published by the Blackwood Gallery, in partnership with the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, and the SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art. It manifests in three parts: as a monograph, a 10-inch vinyl LP, and an accordion-fold printed gallery—with digital MP3 and PDF surrogates to be found online. As Arnold describes in the introduction to the volume, it brings together images, sound, and ideas into a remarkably wide-ranging assemblage.
The 10-inch vinyl LP
Selected works from Volumes and installation views from the five exhibitions from which the publication emerged. Clockwise from top left: Nikki Forest, My Heart the Rock Star, 2002, from Video Heros; Ian Murray, Keeping on Top of the Top Song, 1973, from Re-Play; Shannon Oksanen & Scott Livingston, Vanishing Point, 2001, exhibition not specified; Holly Ward, folklore, 2000-01, from Re-Play (top and bottom right); Sylvia Matas, In Every Direction, 2011, from Volume: Hear Here; Illingworth Kerr, Turkey in the Straw, 1929, from Come A Singing!; and Come A Singing: Canadian Folk-Songs, illustrated by Arthur Lismer, 1947, in Come A Singing!
The accordion-fold image gallery
The publication emerged from five exhibitions, held at ten institutions between 2003 and 2013. It began with Soundtracks: Re-Play, an umbrella project consisting of three Blackwood-initiated exhibitions — Come a Singing!, See hear!, and Re-Play — that toured various aural-visual works by artists such as A.Y Jackson, Prudence Heward, Illingworth Kerr, Michael Snow, Stan Douglas, Althea Thauberger, Instant Coffee, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, and many others throughout Canada in 2003 and 2004. Next came Video Heroes, a 2004 exhibition at the SBC Gallery which explored the relatively recent history and conceptual possibilities of the music video as an artistic genre. Finally, in 2013, the series ended with a re-visitation of the premises of Soundtracks in a new exhibition, Volume: Hear Here, held concurrently at the Blackwood and Justina M. Barnicke Galleries. Speaking at the publication’s launch — alongside Barbara Fischer and Blackwood Director/Curator, Christine Shaw — Christof Migone described the loose collective mandate of these five exhibitions as an attempt to bring music into the fold of visual art discourses and institutions. The exhibitions tackled this broad objective in several ways, variously tying art to music to Canadian nation-building; exhibiting experimental Canadian image/sound art; showcasing music or sound art by otherwise visually-focused artists; exploring new forms of popular visual-musical media; and/or providing conditions for the creation of sound events.
Former Blackwood Gallery Curator and publication editor, Christof Migone (left), and Justina M. Barnicke Gallery Curator, Barbara Fischer (right), address the evening’s guests
As this broad set of practices and the project’s collaborators make clear—both within the volume’s texts and in remarks made at the event Migone’s folding-in of art and music is not an easy or straightforward enterprise. Indeed, as Barbara Fischer noted in her remarks of the evening— quoting the observation of experimental Icelandic musician, Bjork — music occupies an outsider status relative to the artworld (of course, with her characteristic aplomb, Bjork — and Fischer — used much stronger language than this). According to the project’s contributors and supporters, it was this outsider status the ten-year project hoped to correct, or at least initiate dialogue on. Surely, if the lighthearted evening — and its celebrated published work — proved anything, it was that such a dialogue is possible, even welcome.
Text and photo: Catherine MacArthur Falls
*More information about the publication can be found on the Blackwood Gallery’s website: www.blackwoodgallery.ca. The book ($50 + tax) can be ordered by sending an email including the title, number of copies, and your mailing address to www.blackwood.gallery@utoronto.ca.