MOCCA, UTAC and Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival Present a Special Two-Venue Exhibition of Extraordinary Photographs by Internationally Acclaimed Artists Exploring the Theme: PUBLIC

TORONTO, Ont., April 27, 2012 - The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) is pleased to host the launch of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival 2012 with two of the festival’s six primary exhibitions this year: PUBLIC: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces and STREET VIEW, in our galleries from April 28 – June 3, 2012. The festival launch and the public opening reception will take place on Friday April 27, from 7 – 11p.m.

In an age of social media, global urbanization, protest and revolution, photography plays a crucial role in mediating our understanding of contemporary life. This two-venue exhibition, PUBLIC: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces, presents images from around the world to explore the ways we articulate our identity in public, and the tensions that arise from the occupation of public space. The MOCCA Main Space will feature Collective Identity with works by Philippe Chancel, Cheryl Dunn, Barry Frydlender, Baudouin Mouanda, Jon Rafman, Bill Sullivan, and Michael Wolf.  At the University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC), Occupied Spaces will feature works by Tarek Abouamin, Ai Weiwei, Ariella Azoulay, Benjamin Lowy, Sanaz Mazinani, Richard Mosse, Sabine Bitter | Helmut Weber, and Noh Suntag. PUBLIC: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces is curated by Matthew Brower, David Liss and Bonnie Rubenstein, and organized by MOCCA, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and UTAC.

Concurrently MOCCA also presents STREET VIEW, for our widely acclaimed National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art program. Spanning six decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s, STREET VIEW reflects the development of street photography as a record of city life and shifting social and economic conditions. Drawn from the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, this exhibition highlights the work of Harry Callahan, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Gilden, Leon Levinstein, Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, and Weegee, whose seminal visions helped to describe the 20th-century urban landscape. STREET VIEW is organized by MOCCA and the National Gallery of Canada, and presented in conjunction with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

The CONTACT public installation in MOCCA’s courtyard this year is a mural by Toronto photographer Scott McFarland.  Part of the series Repatriation, this large-scale photographic mural considers notions of nationalism, public duty, community, the media, heroism and sacrifice as pictorial subjects. Photographed in the manner of large-format street photography, McFarland creates a portrait of a repatriation ceremony for a fallen Canadian soldier returning home to Canada after being killed while on active duty in Afghanistan. A composite digital technique enables the artist to document a complete view of the scene. This CONTACT Public installation is curated by Bonnie Rubenstein, and presented by MOCCA and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival with support from Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.

Links / URLs

• Learn more about: PUBLIC: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces
• Learn more about STREET VIEW
• Learn more about Repatriation

Quotes

• David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA
  “MOCCA is excited to evolve our partnership with CONTACT to include UTAC says David Liss, MOCCA’s Artistic Director and Curator. “It has been both challenging and rewarding to develop this complex two venue exhibition and we are grateful to Bonnie and Matthew for their expertise with leading-edge developments and current issues in photography.

• Matthew Brower, Curator, University of Toronto Art Centre
  “Working with MOCCA and CONTACT on this project has allowed us to create a powerful dialogue between the two venues,” says Matthew Brower, Curator, University of Toronto Art Centre. “The works in each space form a coherent curatorial statement yet there are many themes and issues that carry across the venues, offering an enriched experience to viewers who view both parts.”

• Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
  “We are very pleased to unite two of our longstanding partners to present a major exhibition of works by international artists,” says CONTACT’s Artistic Director Bonnie Rubenstein. “As a focal point of this year’s theme PUBLIC, it includes a range of socio-political perspectives from collective harmony to civil discontent.”

Tags / Keywords
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, MOCCA, National Gallery of Canada, NGC, NGC@MOCCA,  Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, UTAC, Public, Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces, Philippe Chancel, Cheryl Dunn, Barry Frydlender, Baudouin Mouanda, Jon Rafman, Bill Sullivan, Michael Wolf, Tarek Abouamin, Ai Weiwei, Ariella Azoulay, Benjamin Lowy, Sanaz Mazinani, Richard Mosse, Sabine Bitter | Helmut Weber, Noh Suntag. Scott McFarland.

About the National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
The National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is a three-year program that will see the two institutions co-organize and co-present a series of exclusive exhibitions in MOCCA’s newly-renovated project space, drawn from the NGC’s exceptional contemporary art collection. These will include the presentation of single works, new acquisitions or full-scale exhibitions designed to complement MOCCA’s existing programming. Learn more about the NGC@MOCCA program.

About the NGC http://www.gallery.ca/

About MOCCA
The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art was founded from the former Art Gallery of North York in 1999, with the mandate to exhibit, research, collect, and promote innovative art by Canadian and non-Canadian artists whose works engage and reflect the relevant stories of our times. In 2005, MOCCA relocated to the West Queen West Art + Design District in downtown Toronto, in the heart of one of North America’s most dynamic arts communities and functions effectively as a nucleus of energies for cultural production and exchange. Since 2006, MOCCA draws 40,000 visitors annually.

RSS Feed for MOCCA feed://www.mocca.ca/feed/rss/
For ongoing news, please go to http://www.mocca.ca/media-centre

Supporters
The National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is generously supported by AXA Art Canada, Cineplex Media, World MasterCard^® and The Ouellette Family Foundation. The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is grateful for the patronage of THE ART DEPT., a leadership circle of MOCCA patrons.

All programs and activities of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art are supported by Toronto Culture, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, BMO Financial Group, Cisco Canada, individual memberships and private donations.

# # #

Media Contact
Fayiaz Chunara
Head, Communications and Marketing
416.395.7490
fchunara@mocca.ca

Barry Frydlender, Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles, (detail), 2011. Courtesy of the artist and Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York

Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Scotiabak CONTACT Photography Festival and the University of Toronto Art Centre.

Curated by Matthew Brower, David Liss and Bonnie Rubenstein

This two-venue exhibition, Public: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces, brings together images from around the world to explore the ways we perform and articulate our identity in public, and the tensions that arise from the occupation of public space. In an age of social media, global urbanization, protest and revolution, photography plays a crucial role in mediating our understanding of socio-political issues and conflicts. From street photography to appropriated web imagery, conflict photojournalism to conceptual projects, the works in this show challenge and redefine our perception of the public sphere.

The artists showing at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art expand the boundaries of street practice and the shifting parameters of public space to make visible unseen aspects of urban existence.

Michael Wolf (b. Germany, based in Paris and Hong-Kong) explores the dense social fabric of the urban landscape and the juxtaposition of public and private space. In Tokyo Compression (2009), his closely framed portraits of Japanese commuters on the notoriously overcrowded Tokyo subway system capture the tensions of city life.

Bill Sullivan (b. United States, based in New York) looks at a related aspect of life in the city, with his series Stop Down (2004). Photographs of elevator passengers in New York City are taken as the doors open and close. Emerging from his engagement with street photography, Sullivan’s situational practice is determined by the action of the elevator rather than by his search for a decisive moment.

Jon Rafman (b. Canada, based in Montréal) examines new forms of virtually represented public spaces, specifically from Google Street View, by mining this publicly available archive for images that speak to modern social life. In The Nine Eyes of Google Street View (2009 –), the artist selects images from the eponymous website that raise issues of surveillance.

Barry Frydlender (b. Israel, based in Tel-Aviv) creates panoramic street scenes that are visual records of contemporary urban experience. Drawing on the Western pictorial tradition, his works investigate the social structures of contemporary life through their artful engagement with everyday existence.

Baudouin Mouanda (b. Democratic Republic of Congo, based in Brazzaville), a member of the photography collective, Generation Elili, looks at urban Congolese society. His series La Sapologie (2008) documents the practices of the “Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elégantes” (Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People). Delestage (2010) and Sur le trottoir du Savoir (2011), explores how the Congolese have reconfigured public space in response to poverty and a lack of reliable infrastructure.

Cheryl Dunn (b. United States, based in New York) documents youth culture by photographing events that bring together thousands of people. In Festivals are Good (1997-2008), she examines the subculture of music festivals, focusing on the audience rather than the public spectacle they attend.

Philippe Chancel (b. France, based in Paris), works at the intersection of art, journalism and documentary. His series Arirang (2006) documents the annual mass games in Pyongyang celebrating the North Korean Workers Party and the birth of Kim Il-sung.

———

The works at the University of Toronto Art Centre suggest that the role photography plays in engaging conflict can be as contested as the spaces it represents. As cameras have become ubiquitous and networked, photography has become an ever more important component of social change.

Noh Suntag (b. South Korea, based in Seoul) explores the political and social life of modern Korea. His series String Pulling Incident (2008 – 9), documents’ the months-long mass protests against the South Korean government brought about by the decision to allow the re-importation of US beef after the mad cow crisis.

Benjamin Lowy (b. United States, based in New York) presents two related takes on his experiences as a photojournalist working with US forces in Iraq / Perspectives (2003 – 8).Windows captures street scenes of Bagdad framed by the portholes of armored personnel carriers. The second series, Nightvision, records the actions of US troops as they use the cover of darkness to interact with the local population.

Richard Mosse (b. Ireland, based in Dublin) creates an extensive series of lush images of war-torn, eastern Congo, entitled Infra (2010 – 11). Using Kodak’s infrared Aerochrome film, which was developed in collaboration with US military to reveal camouflaged positions, the photographs are Mosse’s attempt to make visible the invisible aspects of conflict.

Ariella Azoulay (b. Israel, based in Tel-Aviv) is an academic, author, curator and activist whose ongoing research explores the relations between photography and citizenship. Her project Different Ways not to Say Deportation (2010) is based on photographs taken between 1947 and 1950, which she viewed at the International Committee of the Red Cross Archives in Geneva.

Tarek Abouamin (b. Egypt, based in Halifax) is a cinematographer, filmmaker and university lecturer. In his documentary film 18 Days (2011), he captures the pulse of the Egyptian Revolution from Pierre Sioufi’s 9th floor apartment overlooking Tahrir Square, which served a hub for revolutionaries, journalists, and news networks. His curated project, Preparing for Dawn(2011), including 480 photographs selected from 8000 images gathered at the Tahrir Square Media Centre, offers a multi-faceted, photographic engagement with the uprising that led to the overthrow of the Egyptian regime.

Sanaz Mazinani (b. Iran, based in San Francisco and Toronto) creates work that explores the political and social effects of digital culture. The large circular objects from her series, Conference of the Birds (2012), are complex patterns of media-sourced imagery documenting the Occupy Movement (Toronto, Amsterdam and Rome) and the Arab Spring (Cairo, Sidi Bouzid, and Tripol).

Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber (b. Austria, based in Vancouver and Vienna) have been exploring the politics of urban space for over 20 years. Templeton Five Affair, March 1967 (2010), part of their project The University Paradox, reactivates the 1967 student protests at Simon Fraser University. The nine photographs of Events Are Always Original (2010) contain archival images that document the aftermath of a student occupation of the campus.

Ai Weiwei (b. China, based in Beijing) is an architect and artist who focuses on political, cultural and social criticism in his work. His series Study of Perspective (1995 – 2010), documents his performative gesture of giving the finger to iconic landmarks, objects and cityscapes around the world. Blurring lines between art and advocacy, Ai’s images highlight the social and political effectiveness of photography as a tool for activist expression.

Scott McFarland, Corner of the Courageous, Repatriation Ceremony for Sergeant Martin Goudreault, Grenville St., Toronto, Ontario, June 9th, 2010, 2012, Courtesy of Monte Clark Gallery.

Presented by Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and the Soctiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Supported by Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.

Curated by Bonnie Rubenstein

Part of the series Repatriation, this large-scale photographic mural in MOCCA’s courtyard considers notions of nationalism, public duty, community, the media, heroism and sacrifice as pictorial subjects. Photographed in the manner of large-format street photography, McFarland creates a portrait of a repatriation ceremony for a fallen Canadian soldier returning home to Canada after being killed while on active duty in Afghanistan. A composite digital technique enables the artist to document a complete view of the scene.

As many of you and the rest of the Toronto art world are aware, our first annual bowling tournament, The Gutter Ball this past February 8th was a roaring success!!! We continue to receive enthusiastic response as we face the big question everyone is asking: “When is it next year?” Well, it’s still too soon to answer that now but stay tuned to MOCCA’s newsletters and communications for information on The Gutter Ball 2. In the meantime, click the link to our website here to view a most entertaining video of the event, graciously recorded by Adam Palmer and generously produced and edited by Michelle Szemberg. Looks like fun to me!!

Again, MOCCA is grateful to all participants, bowlers, gawkers, Committee members and those who pledged!!

David Liss
Artistic Director and Curator (and terrible bowler)
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

SUPPORT MOCCA – SUPPORT THE CULTURE OF OUR TIME

Fela Grunwald and David Liss welcoming the bowlers to a night of fun

The Arbie C team accepting their trophy for their tournament win

TORONTO, Ontario, January 26, 2012 – The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is pleased to launch its 2012 season with three visually stimulating and contemplative exhibitions: Tasman Richardson | Necropolis, Spectral Landscape and Daisuke Takeya | GOD Loves Japan. The opening celebration takes place February 4, from 2-5pm.

Featured in the MOCCA main space, Tasman Richardson | Necropolis is an immersive multi-media meditation on the nature of video and its strong affiliations with death culture. Consisting of six installations housed within a twisting, darkened superstructure, Necropolis channels visitors through stages of erosion, narcissism, acceleration, idolatry, self-doubt, and oblivion. Tasman Richardson | Necropolis is curated by Rhonda Corvese and presented by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

For our widely acclaimed National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art program MOCCA presents Spectral Landscape. The expression “losing yourself in the wilderness” takes on new meaning in works by Peter Doig, Tim Gardner, and Sarah Anne Johnson. Here ambiguous, hallucinatory vistas collide with sublime, pastoral scenes and the idea of the ruggedness of the hinterland clashes with its ultimate fragility. In each case, the realism of the works is interrupted by a sense of sheer uncanny. These multifarious landscapes mix autobiography with illusion, and the banal with the extraordinary, offering striking images that suggest a shift in our perceived relationship with the natural world. Spectral Landscape is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and the National Gallery of Canada.

Daisuke Takeya | GOD Loves Japan, an installation in MOCCA media / retail space, is a time-sensitive project memorializing the earthquake/tsunami disaster that took place in Japan on March 11th, 2011. This installation intends to raise awareness of Japan’s long-term recovery needs and will encourage viewers to re-evaluate the meaning of love and empathy in our time. Daisuke Takeya | GOD Loves Japan is presented by the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Links / URLs

• Learn more about Tasman Richardson | Necropolis
• Learn more about Spectral Landscape
• Learn more about Daisuke Takeya | GOD Loves Japan
• Learn more about the NGC@MOCCA program

Quote

• · David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA
  “MOCCA is excited about starting our season with three very distinctive visual experiences touching upon a very wide spectrum of relevant themes and issues. Visiting MOCCA this Winter will provide visitors with a particularly rich and varied experience of artistic production and thought.”

Tags / Keywords

• Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, MOCCA, National Gallery of Canada, NGC, NGC@MOCCA, Tasman Richardson, Necropolis, Spectral Landscape, Peter Doig, Tim Gardner, Sarah Anne Johnson, Daisuke Takeya, GOD Loves Japan, Japan, earthquake, tsunami, March 11, 2011.

About the National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

The National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is a three-year program that will see the two institutions co-organize and co-present a series of exclusive exhibitions in MOCCA’s newly-renovated project space, drawn from the NGC’s exceptional contemporary art collection. These will include the presentation of single works, new acquisitions or full-scale exhibitions designed to complement MOCCA’s existing programming. Learn more about the NGC@MOCCA program.

About the NGC http://www.gallery.ca/

About MOCCA

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art was founded from the former Art Gallery of North

York in 1999, with the mandate to exhibit, research, collect, and promote innovative art by Canadian and non-Canadian artists whose works engage and reflect the relevant stories of our times. In 2005, MOCCA relocated to the West Queen West Art + Design District in downtown Toronto, in the heart of one of North America’s most dynamic arts communities and functions effectively as a nucleus of energies for cultural production and exchange. Since 2006, MOCCA draws 40,000 visitors annually.

RSS Feed for MOCCA feed://www.mocca.ca/feed/rss/

For ongoing news, please go to http://www.mocca.ca/media-centre

Supporters

The National Gallery of Canada at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is generously supported by

AXA Art Canada, Cineplex Media, World MasterCard^® and The Ouellette Family Foundation. The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is grateful for the patronage of THE ART DEPT., a leadership circle of MOCCA patrons.

All programs and activities of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art are supported by Toronto Culture, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, BMO Financial Group, individual memberships and private donations.

# # #

Media Contact

Fayiaz Chunara

Head, Communications and Marketing

416.395.7490

fchunara@mocca.ca

Curated by Rhonda Corvese

親愛なるクローン、

あのさ。日本人でいるというのはもしかしたらいいことなのかもしれない。それにね、僕は君と一緒でいられて、幸せだし、誇りに思うよ。そして君も、僕と一緒でいられて、幸せで、誇りに思ってくれるといいな。

君の友人として、敬意を表するよ。

GOD LOVES JAPAN is a time-sensitive installation memorializing the earthquake/tsunami disaster that took place in eastern Japan on March 11th, 2011. The installation intends to raise awareness of Japan’s long-term recovery needs and encourages viewers to re-evaluate the meaning of love and empathy in our time.

This installation includes three works:

1. A neon sign work, All you need is love Maybe; 
2. A deconstructed video recording sculpture Everybody Loves You 2 (ELV2);
3. and Yes, an homage to Yoko Ono’s 1966 work CEILING PAINTING (YES PAINTING).

The title of the exhibition is Takeya’s personal response to Douglas Coupland’s 2001 book GOD Hates Japan, the story of characters lost in a malaise that swept Japanese culture after the collapse of their economy in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In addition it illustrates the way some of these characters lived in the shadow of the 1995 sarin-gas assault on Tokyo’s subway system by Aum Shinrikyo, a religious death cult.

On March 11th, 2011, an earthquake/tsunami disaster devastated Japan’s east coast.  So perhaps Coupland is right, that God does indeed hate Japan and that the recent disaster merely reinforces his point that human (and divine?) indifference reigns.

GOD LOVES JAPAN aims to make the incident relevant by being a metaphor for how values that are shrugged away today with cynicism, such as ‘love’ and ‘care’, can be rebuilt and strengthened over time. By commemorating the one-year anniversary of the disaster in Japan, the exhibition aims to call attention to the still-ongoing recovery, hoping to strengthen international solidarity and to build bridges for future partnerships between peoples all over the world.

The installation includes signage with ‘All you need is love Maybe’, an ambiguous statement in red and white neon, with ‘All you need is love’ flashing in red neon, and ‘Maybe’ in unblinking white. This work seeks to question our responses the statement, asserting the Heisenberg Principle, that uncertainty is the only certainty.

These words invite the viewer to consider their personal responses to Everybody Loves You2 (ELY2), an interactive sculpture and video-installation composed of non-functioning debris collected by the artist after the 2011 tsunami/earthquake on Japan’s east coast. Functioning as a hybrid video-making booth and confessional, viewers are encouraged to interact with the installation and be recorded saying the phrase “I love you,” a phrase that has become a cliché through public discourse and mythic associations. Through this simulation of a stereotypical behaviour, viewers actively construct and deconstruct their aesthetic experience of everyday reality. The words “I love you” become a declaration of confession to a subject who is absent, questioning the notions of authenticity and reality. In addition, ELY2 is inspired by trends in internet communication (eg. Facebook, MySpace), and the Japanese youth-culture phenomenon of the print-club photo-booth. It transforms our physical experience with these media and questions replacement of spatial and social interaction with I.T. culture. This work in its earliest “functioning” form first premiered during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche 2007, curated by Michelle Jacques and exhibited at Xpace Cultural Centre in 2010.

Love survives. ELY2 evolves as a result of this interaction and integration, developing a relationship over time with viewers and the environment. By situating the dysfunctional, or deconstructed work as a victim in the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan, the sculptural structure of ELV2 will appear as though love is dead (and GOD Hates Japan). However the audience will hear the voices of people whispering, “ I love you,” in a video loop, remnants of love merely being simulated.

Finally, viewers will be guided towards a hole located on the elevated area of the installation. Upon looking into the hole viewers will see a little sign saying “Yes” (YES). The work is surrounded by photographs of Takeya’s Facebook friends that are currently volunteering in the disaster areas of Japan. Yes suggests optimism and the audience peeping downward may appear to be humanitarian rescuers. The work is homage to Yoko Ono’s 1966 installation that inspired John Lennon, and perhaps what lead him to his idealistic hit song, All You Need Is Love, through her influence.