Movable Facture is a response to the possibility of opening a forum for research into the material nature of video as a moving image medium. The project brings together 5 artists working in Canada and the USA whose projects involve narrative elements that have become embedded in structural processes of working.

Punctuated by a reading, a screening, a video bar music night, and a public discussion, the exhibition will involve multiple avenues to engage with these projects in playful and considered approaches. The three-week installation is accompanied by a catalogue featuring interviews with the artists, and two book works that will be available for purchase throughout the course of the exhibition in VIVO’s exhibition spaces.

T.S.O.Y.W. (2007), by Amy Granat and Drew Heitzler is a two-channel dystopian road trip through America’s landscape. Sublime environments including pit stops at iconic earth works set the scene for a romantic recent re-imagining of Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Using Jean Genet’s irreverent suggestion that Werther’s love interest be supplanted by a motorcycle, the artists worked simultaneously to present interior and exterior perspectives, constructing a sprawling atmosphere that slowly mounts to draw out the experience of a lethargic, winding, and tragic personal journey.

More or Less Square (2006) by Isabelle Pauwels, considers the aspects and forms of un-presenting possible mediated narratives. Consisting of a book with video, the project passes the viewer through various modes of visualizing research while at the same time issuing a challenging invitation to consider what has or could happen when a relationship is established (or resisted) between an audience and a spectacle.

Benjamin Tiven’s works [Chess Story] (2012) and The Small Infinity (2009-2010) are linked together through a complex relationship of coincidence and repetition. Addressing narrative frameworks and personal history, the pieces draw on the nature of media-based work as it is expanded into a field of relationships. The network of intersections created by the artist is re-condensed through avid research for our immediate consumption.

The installation pieces Daisies Roll Up Film (2008) and Dawn Surf Jellybowl Film (2011) by Jennifer West immerse the viewer into a lush environment of scrolling film and image, playing on the advancing length and physical forms of film as these may be captured and contained. Video acts as a mode of presentation and preservation, a place to store the moment of the life of these films. With overt references to materials, evocative experiences are made to butt up against an intense interest in the textures of film’s social history.

My bio:

Allison Collins is an independent curator, writer and researcher who lives and works in Vancouver, BC. Her recent curatorial projects have included Suspicious Futures: Select Works of Susan Britton at Vtape, Toronto, DIM Cinema, Vancouver (2011) and PLATFORM, WInnipeg (2012); and Hold Still Wild Youth: The GINA Show Archive, at Or Gallery and VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver (2010), In 2011 she produced ARCLines, a series or written profiles tracing the inception of each of Vancouver’s artist-run centres, published on arcpost.ca. She is currently the Event Manager for Institutions by Artists: The Convention, a three-day international conference that will examine the performance and practice of artist-run initiatives. Her writing has been published by C Magazine, Fuse, ArtSlant, Or Gallery, Vtape, and by Publication Studio, Vancouver.

Two artists books will be available for purchase during the exhibition, a limited edition of More or Less Square by Isabelle Pauwels ($20), and [Chess Story] by Benjamin Tiven ($15). All proceeds will go directly to the artists.

Artists:

Amy Granat (New York) http://www.presenhuber.com/en/artists/GRANAT_AMY/available-works/overvie…and

Drew Heitzler (Los Angeles) http://www.blumandpoe.com/artists/drew-heitzler#works

Isabelle Pauwels (Vancouver) http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/isabelle-pauwels/works/

Benjamin Tiven (New York) http://benjamintiven.com/

Jennifer West (Los Angeles) http://www.marcfoxx.com/artist/view/1444

Movable Facture, curated by Allison Collins, is a response to the possibility of opening a forum for research into the material nature of video as a moving image medium. The project brings together 5 artists working in Canada and the USA whose projects involve narrative elements that have become embedded in structural processes of working.

Punctuated by a reading, a screening, a video bar music night, and a public discussion, the exhibition will involve multiple avenues to engage with these projects in playful and considered approaches. The three-week installation is accompanied by a catalogue featuring interviews with the artists.

T.S.O.Y.W. (2007), by Amy Granat (New York) and Drew Heitzler (Los Angeles) is a two-channel dystopian road trip through America’s landscape. Sublime environments including pit stops at iconic earth works set the scene for a romantic recent re-imagining of Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Using Jean Genet’s irreverent suggestion that Werther’s love interest be supplanted by a motorcycle, the artists worked simultaneously to present interior and exterior perspectives, constructing a sprawling atmosphere that slowly mounts to draw out the experience of a lethargic, winding, and tragic personal journey.

More or Less Square (2006) by Isabelle Pauwels (Vancouver), considers the aspects and forms of un-presenting possible mediated narratives. Consisting of a book with video, the project passes the viewer through various modes of visualizing research while at the same time issuing a challenging invitation to consider what has or could happen when a relationship is established (or resisted) between an audience and a spectacle.

Benjamin Tiven’s (New York) works [Chess Story] (2012) and The Small Infinity (2009-2010) are linked together through a complex relationship of coincidence and repetition. Addressing narrative frameworks and personal history, the pieces draw on the nature of media-based work as it is expanded into a field of relationships. The network of intersections created by the artist is re-condensed through avid research for our immediate consumption.

The installation pieces Daisies Roll Up Film (2008) and Dawn Surf Jellybowl Film (2011) by Jennifer West (Los Angeles) immerse the viewer into a lush environment of scrolling film and image, playing on the advancing length and physical forms of film as these may be captured and contained. Video acts as a mode of presentation and preservation, a place to store the moment of the life of these films. With overt references to materials, evocative experiences are made to butt up against an intense interest in the textures of film’s social history.

Two artists books will be available for purchase during the exhibition, a limited edition of More or Less Square by Isabelle Pauwels ($20), and [Chess Story] by Benjamin Tiven ($15). All proceeds will go directly to the artists.

Parallel Events

Video Bar
Programmed by Eli Bornowsky
Friday June 15 8pm-12am

DIM Cinema at the Pacific Cinematheque
Movable Facture: Time Frames
Tony Conrad, Beverly Conrad, Keith Roden, David Rimmer, Paul Sharits, Hollis Frampton
Monday June 18, 7:30pm

No Reading After the Internet
Rosalind Krauss, Gene Youngblood, Phillip Lopate, Peggy Gale, Maria Gloria Biocchi
Wednesday June 20 7-9pm

A Public Conversation over Dinner. Benjamin Tiven will participate by Skype.
RSVP here
Saturday June 23 7pm

The research for Movable Facture was developed through a curatorial residency at VIVO Media Arts Centre with curatorial and production support from Amy Kazymerchyk, Events and Exhibitions Coordinator.

Funding for the residency was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Grants to Professional Independent Critics and Curators Program.

Funding for the Production of the exhibition Movable Facture was provided by the BC Arts Council Project Assistance in the Visual Arts.

VIVO would like to thank Brian McBay, Alex Muir, Michelle Fu, Peter Carlone, Mike Yoo, Pacific Cinematheque, Western Front, Contemporary Art Gallery and the Or Gallery for supporting Movable Facture.

image: Dawn Surf Jellybowl Film (2011) by Jennifer West