Exhibitions

• Persistence: An Archive of Feminist Practices in Vancouver

  JESSIE CARYL, CRISTA DAHL, JENNIFER FISHER, ELIZABETH MACKENZIE, MARINA ROY
  November 8–January 31, 2009

  

  

  

  

  Organized by Artspeak with Jessie Caryl, Crista Dahl, Jennifer Fisher, Elizabeth MacKenzie and Marina Roy

  Persistence: An Archive of Feminist Practices in Vancouver is part of a citywide dialogue with the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. WACK!, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, explores the formation, development and impact of feminism in post-war international contemporary art from 1965 to 1980. Artspeak is presenting a collection of printed material that offers a local perspective on feminist art production from the 1970s to the early 90s.

  Artspeak will exhibit ephemera and texts that span the creative experimentation, political action and critical inquiry of a wide array of feminist artists and arts collectives working in Vancouver. Including production catalogues, screening guides, event posters, announcements, as well as other documents, this collection of material allows for an examination of the dynamic contribution local practices have made to both the feminist project and creative culture at large.

  Persistence: An Archive of Feminist Practices in Vancouver has been organized to compliment VIVO Media Arts Centre’s parallel screening project November 7-8 Persistent Resistence: Early Feminist Video in Vancouver and takes its materials largely from VIVO’s archives. See www.vivomediaarts.com for more information.

• Triple Bill

  ISABELLE PAUWELS
  January 26–March 1, 2008

  Interested in the representation of contemporary narratives and subjective experience, Isabelle Pauwels’ work centres around language and social relations in conjunction with art, architecture and media. Pauwels engages with language in order to define and present personal intent, and within this determined structure presents possibilities for self-inscription. Her new three-part video work Triple Bill—the result of Pauwels’ visits to pornography theatres—is part documentary and part fiction. As a storyteller, Pauwels narrates her experience of the theatre’s architecture, social behaviours and films. Using various text screens, as well as recorded and edited conversation, Pauwels’ work forces the viewer to become a participant in the construction of the story and notions of subjectivity.

  Pornography is used by Pauwels as a way of investigating what an audience wants. While her textual representation of the experience thwarts the psychic economy of porn, the issue of desire remains central. The presentation of Triple Bill takes into consideration the physical space of the porn theatre. The work draws a correlation between the theatre and the gallery as sanctioned spaces for viewing and pleasure. Pauwels has noted that pornography presents a huge reservoir to examine human behaviour, both in how the films and roles are scripted, and in the response they elicit from viewers. Here, pleasure is seen as a function of both met and unmet expectations. In examining what an audience wants, Pauwels reveals something of the way contemporary art audiences consume. There is a tension between the artist’s experience in Triple Bill and the passivity in the viewers’ digestion, both in pornographic films and in Pauwels’ work. Her work reveals surveillance as the flip side of performance: when watching—whether in the porn theatre or in the gallery—we behave as if we are not alone, as if we too are being watched. Ultimately, we scan for moments of pleasure and aberration.

  This exhibition will be accompanied by a publication co-produced with Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto.