Assume Nothing: New Social Practice

Assume Nothing: New Social Practice

January 30, 2009 to May 24, 2009

This exhibition hosts 115 days of art, including sculpture, video-documentation, drawings, films, performances, actions, networks, sound works, and a theatrical performance, exploring the expanding field of socially engaged art. What unites the disparate projects in this exhibition is their ability to challenge the traditional relationship between art and society. In the 60s, art intersected the social and political landscape, addressing local issues ranging from public protest to sculptural installations that responded to a particular site. In Assume Nothing, the artists investigate human relations and their social context as their starting point. An international selection of 16 individuals and collectives includes work from across media in four distinct social economies: North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Cuba. Projects will be located at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and throughout the downtown core in Victoria.

Artists/Collectives: Mowry Baden, John G Boehme, Mark Dion, Jamie Drouin, Harrell Fletcher, Instant Coffee, Runa Islam, Nils Norman, Annie Pootoogook, Rene Francisco Rodriguez, Superflex, Jackson 2bears, Andrea Walsh, Robert Wise, Haegue Yang, and Artur Zmijewski.

Current Exhibitions - aggv.bc.ca

Different Realities

Different Realities

January 16 – May 10, 2009
Print Gallery

Different Realities presents a selection of European and American works on paper created during the 1920s and ‘30s. The period between the two world wars produced dazzling experimentation as well as entrenched conservatism in the visual arts. This exhibition juxtaposes artworks that exemplify contrasting styles, approaches, and concerns of European and American artists during the decades between the wars. But rather than focusing on the typical “representation versus abstract” divide, Different Realities concentrates on examining European and American artists’ diverging approaches to representational art.

Drawn primarily from the permanent collections of the Des Moines Art Center, the exhibition presents three recent and important acquisitions – John Steuart Curry’s lithograph, John Brown (1939); Paul Cadmus’ etching, Two Boys on a Beach #1 (1938); and Michael Disfarmer’s photograph, Hazel Faust, Age 13 (1936). American artists in the exhibition include Caroline Armington, John Taylor Arms, George Bellows, Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Louis Lozowick, Erma Lukenbill, Reginald Marsh, Persis Weaver Robertson, Everett Shinn, A.C. Webb, and Grant Wood.

The exhibition compares and contrasts Regionalist and American Scene prints, drawings, and photographs with works from a variety of contemporary European movements. European artists include Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Jeanne Mammen, Henri Matisse, Giorgio Morandi, Pablo Picasso, and Josef Sudek.

Different Realities is organized by Amy N. Worthen, curator of prints.

D M A C :: E X H I B I T I O N S