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Judy Radul

Judy Radul’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Belkin Satellite, Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; and Power Plant, Toronto. She has performed widely, including at the Western Front, Vancouver and Institute of Contemporary Art, London UK.

Exhibitions

  • Underground Man

    ISABELLE CORNARO, KEREN CYTTER, CHTO DELAT / WHAT IS TO BE DONE?, TARJE EIKANGER GULLAKSEN, SUSAN HILLER, UNA KNOX, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL
    November 18–January 16, 2010

    Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?

    The title refers to Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.

    In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present—bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object—to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?

    As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.

  • Set: Room 302

    GEOFFREY FARMER, JUDY RADUL
    October 22–November 26, 2005

    Judy Radul and Geoffrey Farmer in collaboration

    Curated by Lorna Brown and Jonathan Middleton

    An act can be the process of doing or performing something, a decree or a written document, a part of a theatrical performance, a pose of intentional or unintentional insincerity. Acts hover between the real and the represented; they can be symbolic, an oblique sublimation of another, earlier act, or through repetition, can form a habit. Judy Radul’s diverse practice in performance, video, installation and writing has focused on a range of acts—rehearsals, casting calls, entrances and exits, acts of speech—that underlie or anticipate the gestures captured in the frame of the camera or the stage. Objects can be acted upon, can prop up an act, support it, influence its effects, or be entered as evidence. Objects that suggest costumes, make up kits for a reconstruction, or stand in for absent actors, populate the installation work of Geoffrey Farmer. Whether an invitation to re-enact the role of a movie hunchback, or a ’70’s feminist performance artist, his arrangements of materials and constructed environments forecast the creation of a persona and encourage an imagined narrative.

    Room 302 is a result of Radul and Farmer’s shared interests, realized through remaking, redoing and reconstructing with objects, arrangements and the mediating camera. Their collaborative installation restages the cusp between the ‘truth’ of a performance and the suggestive power of an object, the indirect means by which we grapple with the complex territory of the real.

    GEOFFREY FARMER’s work has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at Or Gallery, Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver; the Power Plant, Toronto; and 1999 Melbourne Biennial. JUDY RADUL’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Presentation House, the Belkin Satellite, and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; and The Power Plant, Toronto. She has performed widely, including at the Western Front, Vancouver and Institute of Contemporary Art, London UK.

    Set is a series of three exhibitions, a site-specific performance event and artist talks, exploring the concepts of rehearsal and reenactment and how they relate to social roles, institutions, and histories. Set is produced in collaboration with the Western Front and is supported by the British Council’s UK Today Series and the Independent Critics and Curators program of The Canada Council.

    For a full list of Set events, visit www.setproject.ca

    Postscript 16: Richard Fowler on Set: Room 302 (PDF)

Talks & Events

  • Underground Man: Conversation

    RENSKE JANSSEN, SHARON KAHANOFF, ELIZA NEWMAN-SAUL, JUDY RADUL
    November 21, 2009

    Public conversation between Renske Janssen, Eliza Newman-Saul, Judy Radul and Sharon Kahanoff. The subjects will range from work descriptions and anecdotes to contemplation on the power of representation and the potential of suspense.

    Underground Man is a project that consists of performance, film screenings, conversation, and a publication that takes method acting as a starting point. This way of acting or dealing with form, language, and representation is one of the most discussed methods in theatre and film, but within contemporary art it is applied in a more disguised (or natural) manner. This project, a case study of sorts, questions if method acting is a way to curb the self within a highly constructed and staged society. How do we act and how do we look at what is depicted?

    The title refers to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground in which the author portrays humans as irrational, uncontrollable, and uncooperative. The novel was considered a forerunner of existentialist thought and conjures up notions of going undercover in order to find information, to move in a space between the collective and the individual, off stage and on stage, between visibility and invisibility, and to be able to stage a context for oneself in order to act upon freely.

    In trying to find a new language to discuss the way we live and work, method acting is a metaphor not only for actors. With this in mind, it allows the self to respond differently and flexibly in new situations. But it requires a fine balance between memory and the present—bridging expressions between nature and artificiality, subject, and object—to create radical breaks with the past for the sake of continuity. What becomes visible and what stays invisible? How do we choose?

    As method acting requires the use of the self for the sake of external representation, the artists in this project respond to thoughts on form and method, surface and interior, and incorporate performance and film.

  • IDEA 2000

    FIONA BANNER, JUDY RADUL, STAN DOUGLAS
    January 1, 2000

    Artspeak Gallery is pleased to present you with the opportunity to acquire the ideas of leading conceptual artists. In the crowded field of cultural products, a good idea is invaluable.

    Wanna buy an Idea? Original thinkers are thin on the ground here, we figure. Why? Because it’s easy to just get by our comfy, none-too-challenging climes. But Artspeak, an artist-run space on Carrall Street, has come up with a solution to our problem. IDEA, the gallery’s latest fundraising initiative, offers punters “new, unexecuted ideas, in limited editions, by Fiona Banner, Judy Radul and Stan Douglas.” Your purchase ($55 per idea; collect all three for $165) gets you a gallery membership, plus a laser-printed certificate of the idea, perfect for flaunting at cocktail do’s. Another clever fundraising strategy: %500 buys a limited edition print of Ken Lum’s banned-in-Vienna billboard. Two Freedom Party-affiliated officials nixed the immigration-themed project, because it apparently “takes public discussion in the wrong direction.” — Amanda Payne

  • Talk

    JUDY RADUL
    April 13, 1988

    Writers/Artists/Talks, a joint project of the Kootenay School of Writing and Artspeak Gallery, consists of a series of public talks and exhibitions by writers and artists with the intention to articulate a common theoretical and practical ground for the two disciplines.