Messiah(untainted), 2011, inkjet print on ragpaper, 72″x44″
February 9 – March 24, 2012
Opening: Thursday, February 9, 5-8 pm
Pari Nadimi Gallery
254 Niagara Street
Toronto, ON, M6J 2L8
T:416-591-6464
E-mail: parinadimigallery.com
info@parinadimigallery.com
MESSIAH is Michael Dudeck’s second solo exhibition at Pari Nadimi Gallery, and centers around a fictive prophet in an elaborate queer mythology Dudeck has spent the last 3 years developing. Focusing on the moment of Death of the Prophet, Dudeck explores the loss of subjectivity involved in being iconic. The Messianic figure must accept the projections of it’s public and correspond to, or retaliate against the invention that accompanies his/her own existence. MESSIAH explores the propaganda, the consecration and ceremonial aftermath of the life of the messianic figure through the lens of a queer science-fiction/fantasy blurring prehistory and futurity in a hybrid museological installation.
The exhibition includes large-scale photographic prints on ragpaper, which Dudeck has carved into, maimed, and painted over, a stylized video of the prophets death ceremony, excerpts from an invented sacred text displayed on the walls of the gallery as didactic information, as well as the mummified prophet encased in a plexiglass tomb.
MESSIAH is the sixth installment of Michael Dudeck’s RELIGION project following Parthenogenesis (Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, 2009), Cathexis (PLATFORM Center for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg, 2010), WombTomb (Center for Performance Research, New York, 2011), Amygdala (ace art inc., Winnipeg, 2011), and Pharmakos (The Glasshouse, Tel Aviv, 2012). In addition to these projects, Dudeck has delivered performances, group and solo exhibitions and launched publications nationally and internationally including John Connelly Presents (NYC), The Watermill Center (New York), Art Metropole (Toronto), and Gallery Connexion (Fredericton, New Brunswick). His work has been featured in the New York Times, the Village Voice, View on Canadian Art, Fuse Magazine, and he was one of 500 young artists featured in the New Museum’s Younger than Jesus Artist Directory by Phaidon Press. In fall of 2012, Dudeck is one of 12 artists selected to participate in The Winnipeg Art Gallery’s banner exhibition Winnipeg Now, which will feature the seventh installment of Dudeck’s Religion project : The Baculum Cosmogony, curated by Robert Enright and Meeka Walsh.