#mfastudioartprogram

Thursday, March 17, 2016, 6pm

Le jeudi 17 mars à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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Surabhi Ghosh works with drawing, installation, and textiles, inspired by ongoing research into patterning, materiality, and cultural narratives. Recent exhibitions have been at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR, Ditch Projects in Springfield, OR, Culture Room in Brooklyn, and Manifold in Chicago. She received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the University of Georgia. She has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Oregon. She is currently Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Fibres & Material Practices at Concordia University.

STATEMENT: My work considers the liminal power of the decorative: the visual phenomena that permeate the edges of the spaces we inhabit. Constantly observed but frequently disregarded as a visual subject, ornamentation hides in plain sight. 

What is the communicative function of ornamental patterning in (private) daily life and (public) cultural spaces? Where is it positioned in systems of belief, value, and political power? When inspected, this marginalized information—or rather the marginalization of this information—acts in the creation of place identity, traces shifts in cultural identity, and reveals competing narratives.

My work maps points of intersection between abstraction, minimalism, and ornamentation while expanding on a speculative understanding of these and other imbricated histories. Repositioning ubiquitous and universal motifs—circles, dots, hexagons, and stripes—I build complex compositions through accumulative mark-making. I attempt to construct patterns incrementally; my handmade geometry will never result in a “true” pattern.

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Inspirée par des recherches en cours sur la création de motifs, la matérialité et les récits culturels, l’œuvre de Surabhi Ghosh fait appel au dessin, aux installations et aux textiles. L’artiste a récemment exposé en Orégon, soit au Museum of Contemporary Craft de Portland et à l’espace Ditch Projects de Springfield, ainsi qu’aux galeries Culture Room de Brooklyn et Manifold de Chicago. Titulaire d’une maîtrise ès beaux-arts de l’Académie des arts de Cranbrook et d’un baccalauréat ès beaux-arts de l’Université de la Géorgie, elle a enseigné à l’École de l’Institut d’art de Chicago et à l’Université de l’Orégon. Elle est actuellement professeure adjointe et coordonnatrice du programme de fibres et pratiques matérielles de l’Université Concordia.

« Mon travail considère la puissance liminale du décoratif, c’est-à-dire le phénomène visuel qui imprègne les limites des espaces que nous occupons. Constamment observée, mais fréquemment négligée en tant que sujet visuel, l’ornementation se cache tout en étant bien en vue.

Thursday, January 28, 2016, 6pm

Le jeudi 28 janvier à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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CICA is proud to partner with the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, the department of Art History, and the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema to present Kamal Aljafari.

Please note: There will be a screening of "Recollection" by Kamal Aljafari on January 27th presented by the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art at the MBAM, followed by a Q&A by independent curator Nasrin Himada. Event information here.

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“Kamal Aljafari is the chronicler of the inchronicable, visionary of the faded out.  Somewhere between the early Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí ("Un Chien Andalou") and the late Mani Kaul’s entire magnificent oeuvre, in his new film, "Recollection," Kamal Aljafari has tapped on a disquieting vision of the ruins and debris in material and memorial, pushing as he does his previous work forward by leaps and bounds.  The significance of this work is manifold, achieving two contradictory tasks in particular:  dismounting the omniscient camera and staging the relic.  By allowing the memory to stage and announce itself, an enduring philosophical task made essential as early as in Walter Benjamin’s prophetic turn to relics and ruins in his theory of allegory, Aljafari wonders: who is watching, who is watching the watcher, and by what authority:  The damning question:  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?:  is here staged with astonishing confidence and ease, with the threadbare power of a visionary artist taking the instrumentality of his own art to task.  The result is uncanny:  You feel you have been there:  but where, when, how, and now what?”  

– Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, New York

The films by Kamal Aljafari include The Roof (2006), Port of Memory (2009) and Recollection (2015). He was featured artist at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in 2009 in New York, as well as Benjamin White Whitney Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Center for Film Studies, Harvard University in 2009 and 2010.  Between 2011 and 2013, he acted as the head of the film directing program at the German Film And Television Academy DFFB Berlin. In 2013 he received the art medal of the state Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

The someone-filming is returning to Jaffa, as he might to any catastrophized place. He knows some places; perhaps even some people. Perhaps everything. He is myself, my grandfather who was on his way to Beirut and returned because there was a storm; a photographer, a composite of every figure in the margins. Memory itself, filming; the memory of all the background it rescues from the screen.

http://kamalaljafari.com/

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Auteur de films tels que The Roof (2006), Port of Memory (2009) et Recollection (2015), l’artiste Kamal Aljafari a été l’invité d’honneur du Robert Flaherty Film Seminar de New York en 2009. Boursier Benjamin White Whitney et fellow du Radcliffe-Harvard Film Study Center en 2009 et 2010, il a également dirigé le programme de mise en scène de la Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) de 2011 à 2013. Il a en outre reçu la médaille des arts de l’État brésilien du Rio Grande do Sul en 2013.

« Celui qui filme revient à Jaffa, comme il le ferait dans tout lieu de catastrophe. Il connaît certains endroits, peut-être même certaines personnes… Peut-être tout. C’est moi, c’est mon grand-père qui s’en allait à Beyrouth et a rebroussé chemin en raison d’une tempête, c’est un photographe, c’est un composé de toutes les figures en marge. C’est la mémoire même qui filme, la mémoire de tout l’arrière-plan qu’elle sauve de l’écran. »

Thursday, November 12, 2015, 6pm

Le jeudi 12 novembre à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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Rebecca Belmore (Anishnaabe) is a member of the Lac Seul First Nation, currently living and working in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Belmore represented Canada at the Venice Biennale (2005), she was recently winner of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2013). She won the prestigious Hnatshyn Visual Arts Award in 2009. The Ontario College of Art and Design University has awarded her an honorary doctorate (2005). Belmore is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and winner of the VIVA Award (2004).

Belmore has participated in both national and international exhibitions, her solo shows include KWE, Justina M. Barnike Gallery, University of Toronto (20140; Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, Vancouver Art Gallery (2008). She has had two solo touring exhibitions: The Named and the Unnamed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, 2002) and 33 Pieces, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga (2001). Her group exhibitions include; Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Art Museum (New York, 2007); the Sydney Biennial (Australia, 2006); Intertidal: Vancouver Arts and Artists at the Museum for Contemporary Art (Antwerp, Belgium, 2005-06); Tirana Biennial (Albania, 2005); Houseguests at the Art Gallery of Ontario (2001); Longing and Belonging: From the Faraway Nearby at SITE Sante Fe (New Mexico, 1995); Land, Spirit, Power at the National Gallery of Canada (1992); and Creation or Death: We will Win at the Havana Biennial (Cuba, 1991).

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Membre de la Première Nation de Lac Seul, Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe) vit et travaille actuellement à Montréal. Elle a représenté le Canada lors de la Biennale de Venise (2005) et a récemment remporté le Prix du Gouverneur général en arts visuels et en arts médiatiques (2013). Lauréate du prestigieux Prix de la Fondation Hnatyshyn pour les arts visuels (2009), elle est également récipiendaire d’un doctorat honorifique de l’Université de l’École d’art et de design de l’Ontario (2005). Elle est membre de l’Académie royale des arts du Canada et gagnante du prix VIVA (2004).

~  THE 2015 MIRIAM ROLAND LECTURE  ~  

Thursday, October 29, 2015, 6pm

Le jeudi 29 octobre à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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STATEMENT My work expresses a desire of communication, and is a bridge establishing a dialogue among private and public, personal and collective. The viewer that shares the intimate space of my art also participates of many of these experiences and memoirs that match a shared environment in contemporary globalized life.

BIO Sandra Ramos lives and works between Havana & Miami . She is one of the Cuba’s best-known contemporary artists from the 90’s Generation.

Through a compelling visual dialogue, Ramos has gained an international reputation by expressing her personal relationship to Cuba’s political and social realities. In her work she uses a wide range of materials and techniques such as Print, Painting, Video and Installation. We can find in her art references to familiar characters from literature, history, and folklore, that she uses wisely to make critical statements related to the context of her life & artwork.

Ramos studied at the prestigious San Alejandro Art Academy and in The Institute of Art, both in Havana. She has exhibited extensively for over twenty years at venues which include Venice Biennial; Havana Biennial; Museo Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba; American University Museum, Washington; Bronx Museum, NY; Museo Del Palacio de Bellas Artes. México DF; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska; Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, CT; Ringling Museum, Tampa, FL; Fuchu Museum, Tokio, Japan. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The Ludwig Collection, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany, among many others worldwide.

Thursday, September 17, 2015, 6pm

Le jeudi 17 septembre à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts York Amphitheatre EV Building 1.615 1515 St Catherine West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1515 St. Catherine Ouest, Montréal

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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Nikhil Chopra is an artist based in Goa, whose durational performative works blur the boundaries between theatre and painting, performance and drawing.

His performances began in 2010 with a series of Memory Drawings, where he inhabited the persona of a turn of the century figure, Yog Raj Chitrakar, assuming different aspects, changing between masculine and feminine identities, and moving between closed and public spaces in response to the different locales and their histories. Among more recent performances have been: inside out (San Gimignano, 2012, 99 hours), in which he and lived and worked within the Arco dei Becci exhibition space and assumed the guise of different personae in his wanderings through the town and countryside; Blackening II (Berlin, 2013, 5 hours) in which, naked, and eyes covered with duct tape, he made drawings on the walls with charcoal and white chalk, in the presence of the unseen audience; Coal on Cotton at the Manchester International Festival (2013, 65 hours) displaying a large charcoal panorama executed in successive personae as farmer, textile worker and industrial magnate; La Perle Noire, at the 12th Havana Biennial (2015) where, locked inside a cage for three days, he painted what was in view, then hacksawed his way free.

The Montreal iteration of La Perle Noire is a 57-hour drawing performance in a gazebo in Jarry Park, to be followed by an installation of these drawings at the FOFA gallery. The series La Perle Noire explores questions of identity and difference, exoticism and the everyday, and the multiple valences of place.

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Aujourd’hui installé à Goa, Nikhil Chopra privilégie l’œuvre-spectacle continue. Dans ses créations, il emprunte aussi bien au théâtre qu’à la peinture, au dessin qu’à l’art action.

Il inaugure le cycle de ses performances en 2010 avec la série Memory Drawings (« dessins de mémoire »), où il campe un personnage issu de la belle époque, Yog Raj Chitrakar. Suivant les lieux et leur histoire, il revêt divers aspects, il mêle rôles masculins et féminins, il se déplace d’espaces publics en endroits clos... En 2012, il présente à San Gimignano l’œuvre inside out(« à l’envers ») : pendant 99 heures, il vit et travaille dans une salle d’exposition de l’Arco dei Becci. Selon qu’il se balade en ville ou dans la campagne environnante, il modifie son apparence. Un an plus tard, à Berlin, il propose Blackening II (« noircissement II »). Cinq heures durant, nu et aveuglé par un bandeau de ruban adhésif entoilé, il dessine au fusain et à la craie sur les murs, et ce, devant un auditoire qu’il ne peut distinguer, mais qu’il pressent. La même année, il imagine Coal on Cotton (« charbon sur coton ») au festival international de Manchester : personnifiant un fermier, un ouvrier du textile puis un magnat de l’industrie, il exécute en 65 heures un vaste panorama au fusain. En 2015, lors de la XIIe Biennale de La Havane, il crée La Perle Noire. Enfermé dans une cage, il peint ce qu’il a sous les yeux. Au bout de trois jours, il emploie une scie à métaux pour recouvrer sa liberté.  

Thursday, March 19, 2015, 6pm

Le jeudi 19 mars à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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For his upcoming CICA lecture, artist Ed Pien will be discussing the work-in-progress titled Present: Past-Future.

The work contemplates the notion of time and unfolds over time.  Through the process of interviewing and conversing with elders living in the St. Agustine, located in the outskirts of Havana, ideas ranging from memory, hope, regrets, faith, trust, to meanings of past, present and future are foregrounded. It is hoped that these elders will participate in an ongoing dialogue with me well beyond the actual presentation date of this work, next May.  By spending time together over the course of many visits, familiarity and trust become vital elements in these invaluable exchanges; allowing our work to continually expand and deepen.

Over time, do narratives stay consistent and what happens when memory falters?

STATEMENT I research the convergence of history, beliefs and mythology from different cultures in an attempt to make more engaging and critical art.  My intention is to celebrate curiosity, wonder and enchantment, as well as diverse ways of being in the world. In my drawing-based works, images of strange and hybridized figures defy quick or simple reading, and have recently become more dense and complex. The use of installation allows me to combine powerful elements of drawing, video and sound to achieve seductive and evocative environments. Through my art, I aim to open up spaces for critical enquires and facilitates engaged perceptual experiences to take place. Ultimately my work celebrates the tangible and intangible, the real and the imagined as well as the potential for transformation.

Thursday, January 29, 2015, 6pm

Le jeudi 29 janvier à 18h00

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca 

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public.Seating is first come, first serve.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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I address myself to the viewer’s intuition, to their intimate selves, and imagination. My reasons for putting images together the way I do stem from my experience as an artist, from the unspoken. My formal choices are intuitive; when I group images together it’s like writing. I work on the spaces between the images as much as on the images themselves. I’ve never defined myself as a documentary photographer because I’m just as interested in the fictions within the images as in the reality from which they spring. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that there is a descriptive side to my images that makes them undeniable reflections of their geographic and cultural space and time. I’m happy that my work is positioned in this way, as an integral part of the Quebec society from which it emerged, and that it expresses and represents this society. 

Raymonde April was born in Moncton and grew up in Rivière-du-Loup. She lives and works in Montreal, where she has taught photography at Concordia University since 1985. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Canada and abroad at venues including the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery (Montreal), the Musée d’art de Joliette, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ottawa), Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse (France) and the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City. Her recent solo shows include Raymonde April: La maison où j’ai grandi at the Musée du Bas Saint-Laurent (Rivière-du-Loup, 2013) and Équivalences, part of the FOCUS Photography Festival in Mumbai (2013). Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections. She was the recipient of the Prix du Québec Paul-Emile Borduas in 2003 and in 2010 was named Officer of the Order of Canada. 

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Je m'adresse à l'intuition des spectateurs, à leur intimité et à leur imagination. Les raisons qui me font associer les images entre elles relèvent de l'expérience artistique, du non-dit ; mes choix formels sont intuitifs; lorsque je groupe les images, cela s’apparente à l’écriture. Je travaille l’espace entre les images autant que les images elles-mêmes. Je ne me suis jamais définie comme une photographe documentaire, car je m’intéresse tout autant aux fictions contenues dans les images qu’à la réalité qui leur donne naissance; cependant je reconnais à mes images un côté descriptif qui fait d’elles des reflets indéniables de leur espace-temps géographique et culturel. Je suis heureuse que mon travail soit ainsi situé, inscrit même, dans la société québécoise dont il est issu; qu’il l’exprime et la représente.

Raymonde April est née à Moncton et a grandi à Rivière-du-Loup. Elle vit et travaille à Montréal où elle enseigne la photographie à l’Université Concordia depuis 1985. Son travail a fait l’objet de nombreuses expositions au Canada et à l’étranger, notamment à la Galerie Leonard et Bina Ellen (Montréal), au Musée d’art de Joliette, au Musée canadien de la photographie contemporaine (Ottawa), au Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, au Musée des beaux-arts de Mulhouse (France) et au Centro Nacional de las Artes de Mexico (Mexique). Parmi ses expositions individuelles récentes, mentionnons Raymonde April : La maison où j’ai grandi au Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent (Rivière-du-Loup, 2013) et Équivalences lors du FOCUS Festival à Mumbai (2013). Ses œuvres font partie de nombreuses collections privées et publiques. Récipiendaire du Prix du Québec Paul-Emile Borduas en 2003, elle reçoit en 2010 le titre d’Officier de l'Ordre du Canada. 

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April, Raymonde. — «J’aurais dû naître à Rivière-du-Loup».— «Raymonde April : La maison où j’ai grandi».— Rivière-du-Loup : Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, 2013.— P. 21- 22.— Also in English : p. 52-53 http://www.raymondeapril.com/pdf/artiste/2013/April_J_aurais_du_naitre_EN.pdf

Concordia University Fine Arts VA Building 114 1395 René Lévesque Blvd West, Montreal L’université de Concordia, 1395 René Lévesque Ouest, Montréal

http://goo.gl/maps/L9uSV

www.finearts.concordia.ca 

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public.Seating is first come, first serve.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m. The lectures will be held in English.

Tous les événements du programme Conversation in Contemporary Art sont gratuits et ouverts au public. Les sièges sont assignés selon le principe du premier arrivé, premier servi. Les portes ouvrent à 17h30. Les conférences se dérouleront en anglais.

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Born in 1974 in Saint-Joseph-de-Kamouraska, Diane Morin lives and works in Montréal. She studied in Rivière-du-Loup and then at Université Laval, graduating from Concordia University in Montréal with a master's degree in open media in 2003. She has been creating installations using kinetic art and new media since 1998. She works with light, sound, drawings and robotics to make in situ installations in which kinetic, sound and light events take place. She uses different procedures and apparatuses to make these events apparent and to preserve traces of them: photograms, video recordings, sound amplification, projected shadows.

Her work has been seen in solo and group shows in Finland, Norway, Montréal and elsewhere in Canada. In addition, she has carried out artistic residencies under the SUMU artists in residency program at the Arte artists' association in Turku, Finland (2011), the independent study program at the Konsthögskolan Valand in Göteborg, Sweden (2009-10), and in the Finnish Artists Studio Foundation in Espoo, Finland (2008). In 2012 her work was exhibited in the 6th edition of the Manif d'Art, organized around the topic Machine. At CIRCA in 2013 she developed the automatic projection apparatus Imbrication (machine à réduire le temps), a "shadow theatre" in which she explored space, the object and time. In June 2013, at the CLARK gallery, she presented Le grand calculateur I (apprendre à compter), a kinetic installation based on a system of mechanical relays and binary calculation used in computer technology. This work received a special mention as part of VIDA 15.0, Art and Artificial Life International Awards.

In 2010, Morin received the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award in Media Arts. She is the recipient of the first MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award given in collaboration with the RBC Foundation.

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