Toronto Exhibitions, featuring The Power Plant Refreshes

Erin Shirreff: Roden Crater, 2009: Single channel HD video (still). Courtesy the artist and Lisa Cooley Fine Art, New York.

Refreshing Changes at the Power Plant

By Elena Potter

The Power Plant, Toronto's foremost public gallery for contemporary art, has unveiled the results of a massive renovation this spring. Dubbed the "Refresh Project," it includes major improvements to various parts of the gallery, helping to enhance public accessibility. The spring exhibitions are no less ambitious. In February, Magenta contributor Elena Potter spoke with Gregory Burke, The Power Plant’s Director, and Jon Davies, Assistant Curator, about what’s new at the gallery.

A new entrance lobby and reception area, a revamped graphic identity, and a complete website overhaul sounds like a lot to handle all at once, but it’s been a long time coming for The Power Plant. “Some of the planned changes had been talked about for years. Since the gallery opened, there was an identified need to create a proper entrance lobby; it is a bit of a no-man's land,” explains Director Gregory Burke. The Refresh Project’s focus is on improving the entry experience—a more transparent, accessible lobby, an open reception area, and a dedicated retail space for The Power Plant’s editions and publications—having received a grant for that purpose from Heritage Canada through the Cultural Spaces Program. And, anyone who’s had difficulty finding the place can breathe a sigh of relief: new signage will be erected on the exterior to aid in way-finding. “We have a wonderful old brick building, but from outside it doesn't announce itself well—it's a bit bunker-like,” says Burke.

As for the website, it’s another area where improvements have been needed for some time, but nobody wanted a band-aid solution. Jon Davies, Assistant Curator, looks forward to what sounds like a rich resource. “I’m now working on our archive of past exhibitions, and videos of performances and lectures, which will be accessible online,” says Davies. “There will also be an online version of The Power Plant's magazine, Switch, called "Switch On," that will commission new writing and add to the discourse about the exhibitions we have here. Our website’s kind of from another era, so it’s exciting to update it.” Adds Burke, “The goal for our improved communications is for The Power Plant to be known as an outward-looking institution. We don't want to be perceived as being only focused on an existing core audience. The intent of the changes is ultimately to do what we do well: to present significant contemporary art to our visitors.”

Thomas Hirschhorn: Das Auge (The Eye), 2008: Mixed media. Installation view: Succession, Vienna. Courtesy the artist and ARNDT, Berlin.While there’s a palpable sense of excitement at The Power Plant, Burke and Davies remain focused on the art: “What I'm looking forward to the most are the exhibitions, and our improved ability to deliver those exhibitions,” says Burke. And rightly so—the gallery will be presenting Thomas Hirschhorn's Das Auge, the North American premiere of this immersive installation, as well as Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle’s film-based work Always After, and installation Phantom Truck (originally featured at Documenta 12 in 2007). An exhibition featuring work by emerging Canadian and American artists, To What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong?, curated by Davies, will occupy the upper areas of the gallery. Das Auge will require a major transformation of the Lepage Gallery, The Power Plant's largest space. Says Davies of the installations, “In Canada it's somewhat rare to be a public gallery but also have the mandate and the resources to be dedicated to exhibiting international contemporary art. Since The Power Plant doesn't have a collection, we're able to devote all our resources to shining a spotlight on major contemporary works, international artists, and we also have the space for ambitious installations.”

In addition, The Power Plant’s galleries are fairly malleable spaces. Davies explains, “Paul Zingrone, [head of Registration, Installation & Facilities], is very dedicated to helping the artists realize their vision through transforming the gallery for each exhibition.” Which makes the space ideal for an installation like Das Auge, which is an immersive installation that explores found materials and the connotations of the colour red: violence, conflict, passion. Similarly, Manglano-Ovalle’s works are highly politicized, and question the dominant structures of power, and the processes of perception and truth-telling.

To What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong? features work in a range of media, from photography, to video, and some sculpture, but all is concerned with landscape. Davies explains, “Landscape is a very old genre, and a genre that's been highly deconstructed; yet these artists are still drawn to create works about the natural world. So even though the experience of landscape is already mediated through pre-existing representations, there's something poetic about the works the artists are producing.” An example is a series of photo-collages by Annie MacDonell, which use Roloff Beny’s patriotic photographic book of Canadian landscapes, To Every Thing There is a Season (1967), as their source material. Davies says the exhibition was inspired by the artists’ tendency to explore the theme of landscape, and that his primary interest is the experience of the exhibition, and in the resonance created by putting the works together.

Other changes on the horizon for The Power Plant are some staff departures and arrivals. Earlier this year, it was announced that Melanie O’Brian, formerly the Director/Curator of Vancouver artist-run centre Artspeak, would join The Power Plant as Curator of Programs. And, last month, Gregory Burke announced he will leave the position of Director, which he has held for nearly six years, at the end of May 2011.

The Power Plant — Refresh project was launched with the opening of the exhibitions Das Auge by Thomas Hirschhorn, and Always After and Phantom Truck by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle. Opening simultaneously will be To What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong?, a group exhibition curated by Jon Davies featuring Andrea Carlson, Annie MacDonell, Kevin Schmidt, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino and Erin Shirreff. The exhibitions run to May 29, 2011.

Elena Potter is a photo- and video-based artist and art writer transplanted from Ottawa to Toronto. Like many before her, she discovered image-making through the time-honoured activity of meandering urban strolls, camera in hand. Her work has been featured in Toronto at Gallery 44, Dundas Square, the Gladstone Hotel and the Ryerson Gallery. Elena blogs about art in Toronto and writes for BlogTO.

More Toronto Exhibitions

Sandy Plotnikoff: Foil Problem (2011): Holographic foils and copy toner on paper. Courtesy Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto.

Paul Petro Contemporary Art
Sandy Plotnikoff: Foil Problem
To March 26

In the past, Toronto-based Sandy Plotnikoff’s art has employed materials such as Velcro, discarded socks and other used clothing, and colourful metallic snap-button fasters. In this latest work, Plotnikoff has started using an antique foil-stamping press, which are usually used to imprint metallic-looking logos and words onto leather goods, daytimers, passport covers and myriad other consumer goods. Previously, Plotnikoff has used foil stamping on an ongoing series of found postcards often to humourous or wry effect. With the series Foil Problem; however, the artist uses this method in a purely abstract way, with no reference to text. Instead, viewers are treated to texture and patterns, and colourful, prism-like images that pop against deep black backgrounds. Also showing: Stephen Andrews.

Lindsay Seers: Extramission 2 (2009): Video still. Courtesy Matt’s Gallery, London.

Gallery TPW
Lindsay Seers: Extramission 6
Opens April 2

In conjunction with the Images Film Festival, Gallery TPW co-presents the North American premiere of London, UK-based Lindsay Seers’ video installation Extramission 6. Seers’ video draws on historical theories of vision by weaving complex personal narratives based on concepts from science, philosophy and photographic theory. The video continues her ongoing investigation of how cinematic and photographic technologies shape us. A quasi-documentary, Extramission 6 tells a fantastical story of Seers’ life as an artist, and is housed within a large cardboard model of the Black Maria, Thomas Edison’s first film studio built in 1893. The building gestures towards a decisive moment in the development of photography into film.

Diane Noomin: Baby Talk, from Twisted Sisters 2 (1995): Courtesy the Koffler Centre, Toronto and the artist.

Koffler Centre of the Arts
Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women
To April 17 (at the Gladstone Hotel)

Toronto is the only Canadian stop for this touring exhibition that provides a look at the unique niche of autobiographical comics by Jewish women. While the influential role of Jews in cartooning has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium is largely unexplored. This survey of original drawings, comic books and graphic novels, is a look at the powerful work of eighteen Canadian and international artists whose intimate, confessional and influential work. Many of the original artworks on display have never previously been exhibited in public. The exhibition continues to the Yeshiva University Museum, New York in January 2012, and the Jean Paul Slusser Gallery of the University of Michigan’s School of Art & Design, Ann Arbor in September 2012.

Paterson Ewen: Northern Lights (1973): Acrylic, oil, dry pigment on galvanized steel and gouged plywood. © Mary Alison Handford. Courtesy: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Art Gallery of Ontario
Paterson Ewen: Inspiration and Influence
To May 22

Since his death in 2002, there has not been a major exhibition of Paterson Ewen’s work in Canada. This exhibition rectifies this oversight. Curated from the AGO’s extensive collection by the gallery’s director Matthew Teitelbaum, this survey brings together painting and sculpture, including several examples of his work based in natural phenomena, for which he was most recognized. Ewen’s work influenced and encouraged many artists to experiment, engage with personal subject matter and reintroduce representational appearances. He also represented Canada at the 1982 Venice Biennale. This exhibition places Ewen’s practice in a larger context by displaying his work alongside artwork by the artists and movements that influenced him. Olga Korper Gallery stages a concurrent show of Ewen’s work until March 25.

Henrieta Haniskova: Davis Campbell (2008): From the series I am Elvis (2006 – present). Courtesy: CONTACT, Toronto.

CONTACT Photography Festival
Various locations
May 1 – 31

For photography buffs, it’s never too early to mark the calendar for Toronto’s annual month-long celebration of photo-based images. This year’s theme, Figure and Ground, derives from the writings of Marshall McLuhan, marking the centenary of his birth. McLuhan’s theories continue to inform the discourse that exists around all imagery, including photographs. The concept of figure and ground was first articulated in Gestalt psychology. Gestalt theories of perception and visual organization – the ways we perceive and recognize shape and form – remain relevant to theories and practices of art. McLuhan picked up on this in his writing, looking beyond what we immediately see – the figure – towards what typically goes unnoticed – the ground. This year’s CONTACT festival, which will be mounted in venues all over the city, will investigate the ways photography dictates perception by framing: how it inherently directs our attention, delineates the ways we perceive environments and understand the world around us. Visit CONTACT’s website for more information on this year’s program and exhibition sites.