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Artspeak,

Exhibitions

Surveillance Sketch

DONATO MANCINI
July 25–August 30, 2003

Gallery closed. This project is a window installation that can be viewed from the street.

Donato Mancini has developed a practice in music criticism, visual arts and media criticism and prose and poetry forms. In this latter aspect of his work, Donato combines spoken language overheard in public spaces with aleatoric compositional methods. These texts are realized in visual form, using commercial signage systems such as laser lettering and colour xerox, and enter the realm of visual art practice in their attention to the effect of colour and typography. This new exhibition will be installed in Artspeak’s storefront during late July and August, when the regular exhibition space is closed to the public.

Carrall Street in the summer is a lively pedestrian thoroughfare for tourists to Gastown, visitors to the shops, restaurants, bars and services nearby, and Downtown Eastside neighbours. Coffee houses with seating on the street provide a place to stop and watch passersby and catch their commentary as they pass. Donato Mancini’s work uses as its starting point the conversations, public altercations, and commentary of pedestrians overheard by the artist on Carrall Street during May and June. These texts will be edited, composed and executed in vinyl laser cut lettering in a range of colours, and installed in the interior window surface of Artspeak’s facade. The work will present to the audience on the street a ‘sampled’ version of overheard observations and concerns in a form that is accessible 24 hours a day for the period of the installation.