The Wall of Vagina by Kembra Pfhaler & Bruce la Bruce

A Extremely Limited ( Edition of 8 ) Artist Book Documenting Kembra Pfhaler's Notorious Performance "The Vagina Wall" photographed by Bruce la bruce with critical text by Michael Vannoy Adams.

"I first saw the pancake stack up of girls in a cheezey magazine I bought at 7/11, while on tour across the U.S. with my band “The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black”. It was a picture that I always remembered. I duplicated it live at the Disinformation Conference in New York in 2002. Samoa filmed us that night with his new camera. He was excited about this new performance too. We were in our traditional band outfits... I gave Alice a turkey baster filled with plain yogurt that she ‘splooged’ onto me as I was on the top.

A couple of years later, at a show in Los Angeles that was organized by Ron Athey and Vaginal Creme Davis... I did the W.O.V. live again and we decided to do a photo shoot in the garden of the hotel we were staying at. The Highland Gardens. These are the photos by Bruce La Bruce, Legendary filmaker....

Bruce La Bruce’s direction was perfect. He made us feel beautiful and important. It was a little precarious because we just sort of free~balled the situation and pretended like everything was normal when we were shooting. He motivated us to focus on our intentions. Bruce is a very important ‘pre~code’ filmaker. Because of him... punk rock boys everywhere blossomed into glamourous porn stars and artists." - Kembra Pfhaler - NYC, 2009

"Kembra Pfahler (Born August 4, 1961) is an American performance artist, rock musician and actress. As a performance artist she has been recognized on every "Top 10 List" published during the past quarter century. Her graphic depictions of the horror, repetition, degradation, and sheer misery of the human condition have been recognized as insightfully accurate in art curricula globally. Her humanistically centered positions on Feminism and  Post Beat Ban The Bomb Politics has moved a generation." - Wikipedia

"LaBruce was born Bryan Bruce in Tiverton, Ontario, and wrote for Cineaction magazine, curated by Robin Wood, his teacher. He first gained public attention with the publication of the queer punk zine J.D.s, which he co-edited with G.B. Jones. He currently writes and photographs for a variety of publications including Vice, Nerve.com and BlackBook magazine, and has made a number of films which merged the artistic techniques of independent film with gay pornography."

Available through Anteism Book Shop

Evan Gruzis Existential Crisis Book Launch

We're pleased to be launching a new artist book for Evan Gruzis at his upcoming exhibition at the Hole. The book "Existential Crisis" will juxtapoz Evan's childhood drawings with his contemporary paintings.

The book will be available later this month through the Hole & Anteism Shop.

The Hole is pleased to announce Exotic Beta, the second New York City solo exhibition by Evan Gruzis. The exhibition features ink paintings, sculpture, video and installation, including a collaborative installation with renowned designer Rafael de Cardenas. Exotic Beta is presented in collaboration with True Religion Jeans.

Exotic Beta fuses a sense of the exotic with the language of market research to explore the way meaning is made and the relativity of “taste”: Exotic like a tattoo of a Japanese character the bearer of which doesn’t know the meaning, Beta like a corporation’s second re-launching of a product after market research and focus groups have masticated all the language to the point of flavorlessness. Exotic Beta also refers to an alternative form of asset class in investment markets—like an art collector who starts buying baseball cards—adding extra relevance to the title.

Evan’s main goal is creating the potential for meaning amidst the post-apocalyptic landscape of empty signs. By using imagery that was once evocative and now is just a husk of a cultural signifier, Evan can foreground his real interest, which is the simple act of looking. His technique certainly suggests this as well. With methodical and painstaking execution, Gruzis uses a magician’s bag of tricks to keep the ink and paper looking like anything but; the gestalt is a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t pictoral modification meant to present the images both as authentic representations of the object and as hand-painted images that float between photography, airbrush and digital technology.

The centerpiece of this exhibition is the large triptych in the back of the main gallery, titled Stratatos. Featuring the silhouetted form of a skull, a Fender Stratocaster guitar and a metronome, this contemporary Vanitas presents our forever-teenaged culture’s “rebelliousness” in contemplation of it’s own ticking clock.

The “castle gallery” features light-up works and video: Dancing into Forever is the central video work projected on the back wall of the gallery. A droning un-programmed digital clock flashes 88:88 and other messages while a silhouetted figure slowly gyrates in front of a water-drenched plane. This next-generation video work uses generative software to randomize intersecting clips of video so it is an ever-changing intersection of visual information, never presenting the exact same image twice, like a live video mix. A trio of other luminescent pieces, including the light-box work Connoisseurship, which juxtaposes the stereophile and the armchair pharmacologist, round out the dark side of the exhibition.

Back in the main gallery, Self-portrait as Self-portrait’s explosion of paint drips, balloons, cocktail paraphernalia, confetti and plastic fruit are arranged into an image of the artist. The result is a drawing-photo-painting hybrid, a mise en abyme that references Gruzis’s own body of work and creates a territory for image and object to meet. In Geishas of Key West, 2009, a folding fan, ribbons, flowers and an illustration from Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions float atop an illusionistic ink painting of tile to form a concept of beauty straight out of a 1980s hair salon. Aesthetically these canvases call into question issues of taste and process and are absurd pseudo-paintings attempting to divorce the image from a single medium.

Another featured installation in Exotic Beta offers Evan’s “acid sketches”; painstaking recreations of hastily scribbled sketches made during a psychedelic experience. They relate in concept and palette to the work High Design, which frames splatter as the opposite of controlled designed form: acid wash, acid sketch, acid trip.

The selection of paintings continues with 16:9, featuring cinematic display proportions and purposeless graphic design that would be obscured in a 4:3 format “to fit your TV”. Harakolada evokes the pineapple as the international symbol of hospitality and nods to Margaritaville with its pat tropical fantasy, while the tanto blade stabbed through it introduces lethality, beauty and craftsmanship; here is an inappropriate re-appropriation of samurai culture via violence and Zen. As Laurie Anderson asked: que es mas macho? Pineapple o knife?

Many works in this show feature superimposed text, both in painting and sculpture: the chromed, autobodied ANX, the pieces Green and Indigo are everything that color isn’t: text, black and white. Angst? XANax? Zen? The sculpture, ZEN? (Helvetica, IKB), painted in International Klein Blue, is a distilled koan of challenging legibility, through which we can contemplate the void, the emptiness of “no selection”.

Many of the themes of this exhibition are activated in the collaborative installation with Rafael de Cardenas. This sculpture, inspired by a sequence in the movie Flashdance called “Imagination” (after the Laura Branigan song it features), encapsulates a strange and uniquely 1980s Orientalism. The film’s dancer devolves from post-apocalyptic geisha to businesswoman to writhing freak-out by strobe, and Gruzis and De Cardenas have grown this moment into a massive frieze consisting of their own custom kimono, presented on a multi-tiered stage that has the presence of a futuristic art deco monument.

Concurrently with this exhibition, Evan will present a simultaneous solo show of new works at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in Chelsea. Entitled Shadow Work, this exhibition features multiple desaturated works on paper, a marble mannequin sculpture entitled Monument to Fashion, and focuses on semi-autobiographical works. Like the Jungian phrase for dealing with the dark parts of your psyche that you don’t even know exist, Shadow Work, circulates images from Evan’s shadow of repressed iconography. ‘Lude Wig for example is a splattered, spectral portrait of the composer Beethoven materializing in front of a palm tree in some sort of tropical astral plane or an afterlife vacation. Bouquet Shift No. 2 re-imagines a Dutch still-life that looks sliced through the middle, bisected and offset by the slash of a sword. In one of Gruzis’ hallmark still-lifes, Placement de Produit features an unmistakeable Coca-cola bottle with pieces of tape covering the label, referencing a resistance to uncontrollable brand recognition.

Gruzis will also be releasing a new limited-edition book, Existential Crisis, published by Anteism, as well as a limited edition C-print and a silver gelatin print (both derived from the triptych Stratatos), produced by Signed And Numbered, a company specializing in artist-edition collaborations.

Evan Gruzis is a young artist from Milwaukee, WI who has exhibited around the world since graduating from Hunter College in 2008. He has had solo exhibitions at Deitch Projects (2008), DUVE Berlin (2008, 2010), Andreas Melas Presents in Athens (2010) and SAKS Gallery, Geneva (2011). He has been in group shows at The Swiss Institute, NYC; Max Wigram, London; The Deste Foundation, Athens; The Garage Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow; MACRO Museum, Rome; and many other notable institutions. His work is in the collection of Dakis Joannou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Hort Family Collection, Artist Pension Trust, David Zwirner collection, and many other notable private collections.

Evan Gruzis - Exotic Beta

September 10th - October 22nd

Opening Saturday, September 10th

7pm-10pm

The Hole, NY

Tim Barnard: New book of "Drawings

Tim Barnard Book - Drawings

Years worth of Tim Barnard's black and white drawings have been compiled in a new book simply titled "Drawings". The 96 page book dives deep into the claustrophobic, jam packed drawings of Barnard. These large drawings are featured as a whole on the page along with cropped detailed shots.

An introduction by Rupert Bottenberg gives insight into Barnard's methodology and discusses the characters of the massive crowd-scapes.

A limited edition of the book is available for a short period of time before the launch of the standard edition.The limited edition (100 copies) has a dust jacket screenprinted on a luscious black printmaking paper.¬† 

Tim Barnard Book - Cover

Free Comic Book Day - last minute artist zine

Anteism releases free book for Free Comic Book Day

In a last minute effort to support the International Free Comic Book Day Anteism has rallied a handful of artists to put together an art zine.

Seven artists have submitted comic related/inspired artwork for this booklet. The book is available to download as a PDF & Epub and physical copies will be available through the online Anteism book shop.Copies are wet off the press, photos to come. Order your copy today.

Download the Web PDF Here

Have a flip through the web version.

Open publication - More anteism

River Kuo - Artist Book

RIVER KUO - New Artworks Collection - Artist Book

River Kuo is a multidisciplinary artist based in Taipei, Taiwan. His drawings and paintings are prominent in the fashion industry of Taiwan - as well as his shop window installations. A self pro-claimed "pop artist and designer", Kuo provides a hint at his illustrative styling which links to the fashion industry and artists like Andy Warhol. These early links are severed once a large body of work is witnessed in his new book.

Kuo's style and mood are dramatic, from cutesy, colourful naive line drawings to dark portraits reminiscent of possessed children in asian horror films. His lines are minimal yet retain emotion and energy.

The publication itself is a work of art, with an unheard number of printing techniques, paper stocks, inserts and binding. The book contains fine art water colour papers, thin coloured bond papers, thick cardstocks, newsprint, vellum and even clear acetate inserts. These inserts have River's patterned floral motifs which can be removed and overlayed ontop other pages as an interactive feature.

The spine of the book has a beautiful textured glued finish. The finishing technique looks similar to a hardcover book which had the cover ripped off.

Braile, embossing, gold leaf and sewn in fabric are other interesting details that will be found when exploring the book.

The back of the book has information printed on to fabric tags which are sewn into the back cover, like the tag on a t-shirt.

I can't recommend this book enough to fans of River Kuo's art and to people who love to hold an original unique artbook in their hands.

Unfortunately the book may be hard to get a hold of as it is currently only for sale through a shop in Taiwan. There is some info below. You can also checkout the River Kuo Artist Zine / Book

*River Kuo Zine Available

書名 - RIVER KUO 發行人 - 趙慶論 發行 - JJ40嵥傑國際有限公司 ISBN - 978-957-41-7141-5 定價 - $1500元 語言 - 中/英/日 販售 - 誠品書店

作者 - RIVER KUO 製作統籌/裝楨設計 - 林小乙 文編 - 林佳賢 . 黃顗穎 文案 - 林佳賢 行銷企劃 - 黃顗穎 JJ40/02-2627-7758

Book title – RIVER KUO Publisher – JOHNNY JAN Publish - JJ40 International corp. ISBN - 978-957-41-7141-5 Language – Chinese / English / Japanese Where to buy – Eslite bookstore (TAIWAN) Pricing - $1500.-(NT)

Author – RIVER KUO Producer/designer – Xiao-yi Lin Editor – AD Lin / Christine Huang Copywriter – AD Lin Marketing – Christine Huang Contact - JJ40 International corp. Tel / 886-2-2627-7758

20100924 Taipei Taiwan

Prism Index #2 - Multimedia Art Package

PRISM index #2 features 60 artists in film, writing, poetry, music, art, and comics. The compilation includes an 88 page book printed offset, a 95 minute DVD of award-winning short films, an 80 minute CD of unreleased and rare music, and a mini-comic, all in a handmade, silkscreened cover.

PRISM index is a limited edition, handmade, silkscreened, mixed-media book that compiles the work of a wide spectrum of artists into one place. The name serves as an acronym for print, images, sounds, and movies.

THIS IS THE SECOND ISSUE OF PRISM INDEX. 60 BRAND NEW CONTRIBUTORS!

The goal of this publication is to create a collage of current art/culture scenes from throughout the US and the world. As a network for artists, this project seeks to establish a platform for multi-media sharing through the tactile, aural, and visual experience of print, images, sounds (CD), and movies (DVD) and to extend and elaborate those expressions through its online presence. PRISM index intended to create something that could not be thrown away, skimmed through, replicated, or forgotten.

Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies. Packaged in archival sleeves.

Luke Ramsey Talks at Pictoplasma Festival

Luke Ramsey discusses the concepts and process of his commercial illustrations and personal art at the Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin.

Luke Ramsey is an illustrator and fine artist from Canada. He is founding member of Islands Fold, an artist residency located on Pender Island off Vancouver. His work is distinct through a continuous flow of pen on paper, which he digitally colours to strong tableaux. Human characters are set in landscapes and natural settings, mountains stare motionless and simple shapes build up to intricate agglomerations. Luke has collaborated with over 80 different artists to date and has exhibited widely in North America and Europe.

Here’s a 10 minute edit of Luke’s presentation at the Pictoplasma Berlin Festival, 2010.

Jason McLean & Peter Thompson Artist Book

Texas on the Thames is a new artist zine by Jason McLean and Peter Thompson.

Anteism is currently printing a new zine and thought we would share some video of the covers flying off the press. The book will be a two colour print of collaborative drawings by the two London, Ontario artists. These should be available online in our shop in the next week, or grab a copy from the artists themselves.

Here's the first colour coming off the press. A dark burgundy for the front and back cover.

The second colour .

James Kirkpatrick Interview: LondonFUSE

A studio visit with James discussing his art, music and stick-on earrings.

Checkout the artists website and art books "Before the End" and "Brain Trust"

"Brujos" an Artist Book by Erik Volet

Brujos | Artist Book / Zine

A selection of ink drawings by Erik Volet

The Brujos zine is a selection of drawings taken from a dozen of Volet's sketchbooks. The images in this artist book have been selected from various periods but have a cohesive styling. Loose themes of family & abstract magical landscapes.

- 32 B&W Pages - 13.5cm x 20cm ( 5.25″x 7.75″ ) - Screen Printed Half Page Cover - Numbered Edition of 100

More Info & Purchase

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Author Dean Garlick Reads The Fish on Youtube

Dean Garlick - Video reading of his book - The Fish

Author Dean Garlick has begun a video reading series from his debut book "The Fish". The book will be read (in it's entirety) in sections by the author and posted to youtube. Listen to further readings here . The Fish is available for purchase through the Anteism Shop.

Before the End a new book by James Kirkpatrick

James Kirkpatrick's art, sounds, music and wildflowers.

James Kirkpatrick ( aka Thesis Sahib ) has released a beautiful new book called "Before the End". The new 60 page hardcover art book comes with a 16 song digital download card and a color 7" record of Thesis Sahib's music. Once finished downloading the album the download card can be planted to grow wildflowers!

You can purchase the book Before the End and listen to some sample tracks here. Checkout Kirkpatrick's previous art book Brain Trust.

Troy Lovegates Limited Edtion Linoprint Book

Anteism is proud to release "Stolen Land" a folio book of beautiful linoprints by artist OTHER / Troy Lovegates

The book is best explained by the artist himself.

" 2 years ago I received a grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts to create a book of linoleum prints about the rusty old freight train yards of Canada, the inhabitants, the vacancy, the vagrancy, the silence…..

Finally I present to you ”Stolen Land” by Troy Lovegates a.k.a Other, which comprises 100 limited edition handmade books.

Each book contains 14 hand-carved linoleum prints about trains that have been hand-printed on 100% cotton archival paper (Arches or Somerset). The book is bound with 13”x13” archival envelopes and within each envelope is a loose print. It is a collector’s edition so you may either hang the print or, of course, keep it within the book.

The linoleum from which the paper prints were made in a reductive manner: meaning that when a new layer of the linoleum is cut it is actually carved out of the previous layer. Therefore it is impossible to make further prints of these images since the linoleum was destroyed as the prints were created.

Although there are 14 pages (prints) in each book, there were 20 different prints made for this project. For 7 of the images, less than 100 prints were made. In fact some images are quite rare with 14 to 39 prints made, depending on how many of the images came out with my wooden spoon. Each book will contain 3 images (prints) of which fewer than 100 prints were successfully made.

The book itself is bound in many different colours and each of the end pages has different images of trains on them as well as stamps of my drawings on the envelopes and other treats."

For more info about the book please contact us.  | Purchase "Stolen Land"

The 2010 New York Art Book Fair in 4 Mins.

Anteism recently wrapped up our exhibition at the New York Art Book Fair at the PS1 MoMA. We were so impressed with the sheer number of exhibitors, the beautiful works on display and the great venue we wanted to share it in this short video clip.

I highly recommend visiting the event, we're already looking forward to next year. Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for making it possible for us and a number of other artists and publishers to be involved in the show.

Anteism @ The New York Art Book Fair 2010

Art book & zine publishers exhibition at the MoMA PS1

Anteism has a table @ the New York Art Book Fair hosted by the MoMA PS1 . Come by our booth and check out some of our new titles.  November 5–7 at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. Free and open to the public, the Fair hosts over 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and publishers from twenty countries, offering the best in contemporary art book publishing.

Parchemin - Exhibition of Works on Paper

Troy Lovegates curates exhibition @ Yves Laroche Par Chemin is an exhibition of works on paper to mark the occasion of artist OTHER aka Troy Lovegates release of his new artist book published by ANTEISM.

Over his years of traveling and making art, OTHER has crossed paths and collaborated with many artists from around the world. Below are some photos of the exhibition and book launch.

Anteism & Islands Fold @ Diagonal Zine Fair

Here's a few snapshots of a great little zine fair we did in Vancouver called Diagonal. Anteism split a table with the one and only Luke Ramsey of Islands Fold.

Snoop a Luke'

Checkout some of the other contributors in the show.

darling http://www.darlingmademedoit.com

smoke signals http://www.smokesignalsarts.com

partrick cruz http://www.patrickcruz.tumblr.com

owen plummer

blood of the young zine http://witchinghour.tumblr.com

t. reilly hodgson http://www.flickr.com

hamburger eyes http://www.hamburgereyes.com/

island folds http://www.islandsfold.com

solder & sons

wizard gang http://www.thewizardgang.com

no where fast collective http://nowherefastcollective.com

black bile http://www.blackbile13.blogspot.com/

OCW magazine http://www.ocwmagazine.com

perro verlag http://www.perroverlag.com

hack saw literary arts magazine http://www.hacksawzine.blogspot.com

poetry is dead http://poetryisdead.ca/

sad magazine http://www.sadmag.ca

mongrel zine http://www.mongrelzine.ca

maya beaudry http://www.mayabeaudry.blogspot.com

bob scott http://www.bobscottartwork.ca

association of very good ideas http://associationofverygoodideas.blogspot.com

rain zine

alex aleco

sarah hudson

erin kraan http://www.erinkraan.com

r. thomas white & chris lennox-assen

adam huggins & mohsen yazdani

taryn hubbard http://tarynhubbard.com

jason sunder http://www.jasonisgrate.blogspot.com

melanie coles

colin upton

jesua

Par Chemin Art Exhibition & Other Book Launch

Yves Laroche Galerie d’art and Pop Montreal are proud to present

PAR CHEMIN and PUBLISHED/SELF-PUBLISHED

Sept. 30th to Oct. 3rd 2010 Vernissage : Thursday Sept. 30th 2010 ,6pm-9pm

In association with Art Pop, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art is proud to present a remarkable 2010 line up during Montreal’s renown POP Montreal. Inaugurating two newly established multi-media spaces, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art will be hosting two major events during this year’s edition of the music festival.

Espace 1 will feature Par Chemin, a group exhibition of works on paper. Curating the exhibition is multi-disciplinary artist Other, who will be launching his newest book   “Other – The artwork of Troy Lovegates” published by Anteism.

In Espace 2, Pica Magazine and Palimpsest Magazine will be presenting Published/Self-Published, a collection of contemporary fanzines and other publications.  Pica Magazine selected local and international artists, bloggers and designers who  will each be presenting their own series of original zines, in innovative mediums and subjects. Simultaneously, Palimpsest Magazine will showcase a multi-disciplinary book fair featuring imported publications, all available for purchase.  Furniture exclusively designed by Mikaël Baillairgé will set the mood for a contemporary platform of objectified information.

Additionally, TRUSSTclub and 1976.tv will open a multimedia installation inspired by  the Dark Night of the Soul project (Danger Mouse, David Lynch) curated by Jean-Luc Della Montagna.

Continuing to mark new ground for the local creative community, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art and Espace 1 & 2 welcome all to the opening of Par Chemin as well as Published/Self-Published on Thursday, September 30th 2010 from 6pm to 9 pm.

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www.yveslaroche.com www.popmontreal.com/art www.anteism.com www.flickr.com/photos/other/ www.picamag.com www.cargocollective.com/palimpsest/

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Yves Laroche Galerie d’art et Pop Montréal sont heureux de présenter PAR CHEMIN et PUBLIÉ/AUTOPUBLIÉ Du 30 Sept. au 3 Oct. 2010 Vernissage : Jeudi le 30 Septembre 2010 , 18h-21h

En collaboration avec Art Pop, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art est heureuse de présenter une programmation 2010 remarquable dans le cadre du traditionnel festival POP Montréal. Pour inaugurer deux nouveaux espaces multimédias, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art sera l’hôte de deux événements majeurs dans le cadre de l’édition annuelle du festival de musique.

Espace 1 présentera Par Chemin, une exposition collective d’œuvres sur papier. Le commissaire de l’exposition n’est nul autre que l’artiste multidisciplinaire Other, qui lancera son tout nouveau livre intitulé "Other – The artwork of Troy Lovegates", publié par Anteism.

Dans l’Espace 2, Pica magazine présentera Publié/Autopublié, une collection de publication en série par des designers graphiques et artistes innovant de façon indépendante en matière d'imprimé. Pour compléter, le magazine Palimpsest vous conviera à une foire de livres multidisciplinaires dans laquelle on y retrouvera diverses publications internationales qui seront également en vente. Un mobilier signé Mikaël Baillairgé supportera ces propositions contemporaines pour l'objectivation de l'information.

De plus, Trusst Club et 1976.tv présenteront une installation multimédia inspirée par le projet Dark Night of the Soul (Danger Mouse, David Lynch) signée Jean-Luc Della Montagna.

Toujours aussi dévoués à soutenir de nouvelles avenues au sein de la communauté artistique locale, Yves Laroche Galerie d’art et Espace 1 et 2 vous invitent au vernissage des expositions Par Chemin et Publié/Autopublié, le jeudi 30 septembre 2010, de 18h à 21h.

Hildebrand - Peepshow & Long Drop Book Launch

Dil Hildebrand : Peepshow & Long Drop Book Launch

9 septembre - 16 octobre 2010 /  9 September - 16 October 2010

Opening: Thursday, September 9th from 5:00 - 7:00 pm (the artist will be in attendance) Vernissage : le jeudi 9 septembre de 17h00 à 19h00 (en présence de l'artiste)

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Peepshow

"This is a process of seeing which invites the spectator to become an 'optical producer' as well as spectator - creating a theater for contemplation upon the act of seeing and the mechanics of representation.  This interactive drama plays out what is essential to all radical pictorial art, not the formulation of frozen iconic emblems that 'illustrate' ideas, but the active recognition...in the mind's eye during the contemplation of pictorial art of our own comparative experiences of the visual complexity of everyday life."

- Ian Wallace, from Corner of the Studio (1993) and El Taller (1993):  A Description and Reflection Upon Two Recent Works

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present Peepshow, the latest solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Dil Hildebrand. For this, his third solo exhibition at the gallery, Hildebrand meditates on the theme of the artist's studio.  What results in Peepshow is a further negotiation of the opposing forces of space and surface within painting.  In characteristic fashion, a host of references converge in these new works; film, theatre, historical painting and documentary photography are all consciously evoked and explored here, revealing their influence throughout the exhibition.

Peepshow is, in one sense, a hall of funny mirrors, distorting the artist's studio and absurdly reflecting it as an alter ego of the gallery.  Deep and seductive, this new suite of paintings beckons all to come inside to the world inhabited by the now-absent artist, inviting them to consider their own relation to its artistic production.  Hildebrand gives us a veil of colour through which to peer into this private setting, and thereby renders us into dormant observers standing at the threshold.  While a theme of "transparent surface" is apparent in the paintings, this device seems rather to demonstrate how impervious the canvases truly are; from behind curtains of florid colour the paintings lure yet refuse to reflect.  In all, Peepshow may be regarded as a contemplation of the aesthetic, technical and hierarchical relations that exist between painting, drawing and photography.  By reversing the photographic image into the background, it is as though figure and ground have been inverted.  In this drama, the fore-grounded paint is no longer cast in its familiar role as ground but is thrown forward into a role playing itself, as a figure upon the stage.

In a new series of charcoal drawings, Hildebrand takes a different view of the studio.  Cast in dramatic lighting and framed in letterbox, these delicate drawings are quiet peeks into dark places within the workspace, as though gleaned from an imagined film noir. While appearing to be drawn from photographs, they are in fact drawn from life and lit from the artist's imagination.  One suspects just how filmic the imagination has become, considering the fidelity to photographic appearance that is evident in this work.

Dil Hildebrand was born in 1974 in Winnipeg, Canada. He obtained his MFA at Concordia University, Montreal in 2008. In 2006 he won the RBC Canadian Painting Competition and has since participated in many exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States and abroad.  In October 2010 he will exhibit new work at the 4th Beijing International Art Biennale 2010 in Beijing, China.  Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at YYZ Artists' Outlet, Toronto, in Fall 2011.  He lives and works in Montreal.

The artist would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and Le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

All works being presented will be available for viewing on our web site during the vernissage (Thursday, September 9th at 5:00 pm)

BOOK LAUNCH

Saturday, September 25 at 2:30 pm (as part of Les journées de la culture)

Long Drop: The Paintings of Dil Hildebrand featuring essays by Louise Déry and Richard Rhodes, and an interview by Christine Redfern

Join us at the gallery for the Montreal launch of the new artist's monograph Long Drop: The Paintings of Dil Hildebrand published by Anteism Publishing and distibuted by the RCAAQ. Featuring a roundtable discussion with Hildebrand and Harley Smart (Anteism) on the challenges of publishing an artist's monograph.

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Peepshow

« Ceci est un processus du regard qui invite le regardeur à devenir ''producteur optique'' aussi bien que spectateur, créant de la sorte un théâtre de contemplation pour l'acte de regarder et la mécanique de la représentation. Ce drame interactif met en scène ce qui est essentiel à tout art pictural radical; non pas la formulation d'emblèmes iconiques statiques qui ''illustrent'' des idées, mais plutôt la reconnaissance active... au yeux de l'esprit, durant la contemplation de l'art pictural, de nos propres expériences comparatives de la complexité visuelle de la vie quotidienne. »

- Ian Wallace, Corner of the Studio (1993) and El Taller (1993):A Description and Reflection Upon Two Recent Works

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain (PFOAC) a le plaisir de présenter Peepshow, la plus récente exposition personnelle de peintures et de dessins de Dil Hildebrand. Pour sa troisième exposition personnelle à la galerie PFOAC, Hildebrand a choisi de méditer sur le thème de l'atelier d'artiste. Il en résulte un dialogue entre les forces opposées d'espace et de surface propres à la peinture. Typiques de l'approche de cet artiste, une variété de références convergent dans ces nouvelles œuvres : le cinéma, le théâtre, la peinture d'histoire et la photographie documentaire y sont tous sciemment évoqués et explorés, révélant leurs influences respectives dans l'ensemble de l'exposition.

Peepshow est une sorte de labyrinthe de miroirs, déformant l'atelier de l'artiste et le reflétant, de manière absurde, en tant qu'alter ego de la galerie. Séduisante et profonde, cette nouvelle suite de peintures nous invite à pénétrer dans l'univers d'un artiste désormais absent, nous invite à songer à notre propre relation à la production artistique qui y est présentée. Hildebrand nous offre un voile de couleur au travers duquel nous contemplons ce décor intime; nous devenons des observateurs passifs se tenant au seuil... d'un monde. Bien que les peintures révèlent aisément la « transparence » de leurs surfaces, ce thème, ou ce dispositif, semble plutôt démontrer la véritable imperméabilité des toiles; derrière leurs rideaux de couleurs flamboyantes, les peintures attisent, mais refusent de refléter. En somme, Peepshow peut être envisagée comme une contemplation des relations esthétiques, techniques et hiérarchiques existant entre la peinture, le dessin et la photographie. L'assignation de l'image photographique à l'arrière-plan crée une impression d'inversion de la figure et du fond. Dans ce drame pictural, la peinture d'avant-plan ne joue plus son rôle familier de fond, mais est propulsée en avant-scène, où elle incarne son propre rôle, en tant que figure scénique.

Dans une nouvelle série de dessins au fusain, Hildebrand adopte une approche différente pour sonder l'espace-atelier. Bénéficiant d'un éclairage dramatique et cadrés en mode LetterBox, ces dessins délicats sont des aperçus tranquilles de coins obscurs d'un espace de travail, un peu comme s'ils avaient été glanés d'un film noir imaginaire. Bien que donnant l'impression d'avoir été créés à partir de photographies, ils ont en fait été réalisés d'après nature et sont éclairés par l'imaginaire de l'artiste. L'on envisage d'ailleurs sans peine à quel point cet imaginaire est devenu filmique, vu la fidélité « photographique » des œuvres.

Dil Hildebrand est né en 1974 à Winnipeg, Canada. Il est titulaire, depuis 2008, d'une maîtrise en beaux-arts de l'Université Concordia, Montréal. En 2006, il a remporté le prix du Concours de peintures canadiennes RBC, et a depuis participé à plusieurs expositions au Canada, aux Etats-Unis et à l'étranger. En Octobre 2010, il présentera des œuvres inédites à la 4e Biennale internationale d'art de Pékin, en Chine. Son travail sera également présenté à l'occasion d'une exposition personnelle à YYZ Artists' Outlet, à Toronto, à l'automne 2011. Dil Hildebrand vit et travaille à Montréal.

L'artiste souhaite remercier le Conseil des Arts du Canada et le Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

L'ensemble des oeuvres présentées seront disponibles sur notre site web lors du vernissage (le jeudi 9 septembre à 17h00).

LANCEMENT DE MONOGRAPHIE

le samedi 25 septembre à 14h30 (dans le cadre des Journées de la culture)

Long Drop : Les peintures de Dil Hildebrand avec des textes de Louise Déry et Richard Rhodes, et une entrevue de Christine Redfern

Joignez-nous à la galerie pour le lancement montréalais de la nouvelle monographie Long Drop : Les peintures de Dil Hildebrand publiée par Anteism Publishing distribuée par le RCAAQ. Il y aura un pannel de discussion avec Hildebrand et Harley Smart (Anteism) sur les défis de produire une monographie.

Limited Edition:Other/Troy Lovegates Book On Sale.

Limited Edition: "Other" / Troy Lovegates Artist Book

Only 30 copies available for sale in our online book shop

Visit our shop for more info and purchase a copy.