An afternoon of conversations with the artists of the Affinities series
Joan Jonas, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Taisha Pagett, moderé par Cheryl Sim et Barbara Clausen Jeudi, 26 mai 2016 – 14h
This event is organised in collaboration with DHC/ART and Hexagram and will offer the opportunity to discuss the practices of the various artists participating in the Affinities event series, a project curated in conjunction with the exhibition Joan Jonas : From Away on view at DHC/ ART from the 28th of April until the 18th of September. While distinct in their own practice and aesthetics each artist shares an affinity with Jonas’ engagement and insistence’ on reading the world(s) against and with the flow of the times. Their work is reflective of a constantly evolving collective imaginary that influences and shapes the various socio-political contexts we live in. This conversation aims to address how the exploration of movement, sound and non-linear storytelling is emblematic for present and past affinities between visual arts, new media and performance-based practices. And further to explore how their installations, site specific interventions, curatorial work and performances use the exhibition as framework for situations and encounters as well as a site that produces knowledge.
Affinities: a series of performances, screenings, and conversations, is a program of events in two parts, from May 24th to the 27th and from June 20th to the 22nd. In addition to this afternoon of conversations at Hexagram, this series will present a performance lecture by Joan Jonas with Jason Moran (27.5), performances by taisha paggett (25.5), Tanya Lukin Linklater (21.6) and Simone Forti (22.6), as well as two evenings of film and video screenings at the Phi Centre (24.5 and 20.6)
Centre Phi 407, rue Saint-Pierre Espace D
Biography
Joan Jonas (b. 1936, New York, USA) is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Jonas experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968, her practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas has exhibited, screened and performed her work at museums, galleries and large scale group exhibitions throughout the world, such as: Taipei Biennal; Documenta 5,6,7,8,11, and 13; the 2008 Sydney Biennial; the 2008 Yokohama Triennial; and the 28th Sao Paolo Biennial. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at Jeu de Paume, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; HangarBicocca, Milan; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore; and the United States Pavilion for the 56th Edition of the Venice Biennial.
Tanya Lukin Linklater‘s performance collaborations, videos, photographs and installations have been exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Chile. She is compelled by the interstices of visual art and poetry, pedagogy (learning), indigenous languages, portrayals of women and children in film, and the body. In 2016, she will present performances at Remai Modern, Saskatoon, The Belkin Gallery/UBC, Vancouver, and the Art Gallery of Alberta in a two-person exhibition with Duane Linklater. Her poetry and essays have been published in C Magazine, Access Gallery, BlackFlash Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review, Taos International Journal of Poetry and Art, Drunken Boat, Ice Floe, Western Front Gallery, and McLaren Art Centre. Lukin Linklater studied at the University of Alberta (M.Ed.) and Stanford University (A.B. Honours) and is currently a graduate student in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University. She was awarded the Chalmers Professional Development Grant in 2010 and the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in Literature in 2013. She is Alutiiq from Alaska and makes her home in Northern Ontario, Canada. tanyalukinlinklater.com
Taisha Paggett is a Los Angeles-based queer Black artist whose individual and collaborative works for the stage, gallery and public space take up questions of the body, agency, and the phenomenology of race. paggett’s work seeks to de-center and reframe Western choreographic conventions and the ways in which bodies and spaces become normalized in both dance practices and the actions of daily life, by colliding them with social, political, cultural, and emotional metaphors and meanings. paggett’s work has been presented at Danspace (New York), Defibrillator (Chicago), Commonwealth & Council (Los Angeles), LACE (Los Angeles), the Whitney Museum (NYC), the Doris McCarthy Gallery (Toronto), The Studio Museum in Harlem, and is also upcoming at Diverseworks (Houston), amongst other sites. As a dancer, paggett currently works with Every House Has a Door, Meg Wolfe and with Ashley Hunt through their ongoing collaborative project, On movement, thought and politics. paggett teaches in the Dance department at UC Riverside, holds an MFA from UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures/Dance program, and was a co-instigator of the LA-based dance journal project and discursive platform, itch. taishapaggett.net.
Barbara Clausen is an independent curator and professor for performance theory and history at the art history department UQAM and a member of Hexagram. She has written extensively on the mediation and historization of performance art and curatorial practices and has since 2000 curated numerous exhibitions, symposia and performance events in Europe and North America, most recently the exhibition Joan Jonas From Away at DHC/ART in Montréal.
Cheryl Sim is Curator at DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art as well as a practicing artist and scholar. Stimulated by works across an array of forms and genres, her current subjects of interest include the conditions of diaspora, screen theory, and clothing as a marker of identity. As an artist, her video work has been screened at festivals and special events. She has also animated many panels for festivals and academic conferences in Montréal and abroad.
