The Power Plant

The Power Plant is pleased to collaborate with the Canadian Art Foundation International Speaker Series and the Consulate General of France in hosting Community: Un préambule, part one of a two-part symposium investigating the ecology of an art scene. Chief innovators in contemporary art from Paris and Toronto will spend two minutes each addressing the topic of community as it is taken up in contemporary art practices, institutions and critical discourse.

The symposium recognizes that art ecologies are composed of dynamically interacting parts, including a multitude of practices, subjectivities and institutions – the communities they create, and the economies they rely upon, deviate from, or invent. Is contemporary art’s interest in community an authentic interest or a passing fascination? Who benefits from contemporary art’s interest in community? Do communities play a role in the development of an artist’s practice, institutional innovation, or in the expansion of the art market? The active engagement of the audience with the propositions put forward by the presenters about what creates and sustains a vital art ecology is encouraged to stimulate dialogue between artists, curators, gallerists, museum workers, patrons, publishers and other cultural producers and community members. Following this first session of the symposium, all participants are invited to The Power Plant for a cash bar reception and to view the current exhibition, which includes a curatorial project by artist Micah Lexier inspired by Toronto’s own art ecology.

Part two of this symposium continues at the Toronto City Hall Council Chambers (100 Queen Street West) on Saturday, 9 November at 10:30 AM . Entitled The Conversations, brief presentations from symposium participants will lead to in-depth conversations about the role of institutional innovation, curating in context, informal infrastructures, alternative economies, pedagogical impulses, the evolution of museum missions, and zones of mobility in Paris and Toronto’s art scenes.

FACILITATOR

Misha Glouberman

PARTICIPANTS

Abbas Akhavan, Artist, Toronto
Isabelle Alfonsi, Co-Director, Galerie Marcelle Alix, Paris
François Aubart, Writer, Curator and Co-Founding Editor of ∆, Paris
Diane Borsato, Artist, Toronto
Mélanie Bouteloup, Director, Bétonsalon: centre for art & research, Paris
Jessica Bradley, Director, Jessica Bradley Gallery, Toronto
Suzanne Carte and Su-Ying Lee, Co-Curators, Under New Management, Toronto
Barbara Fischer, Executive Director/Chief Curator, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto
Corinn Gerber, Director, Art Metropole, Toronto
Vincent Gonzalvez, Project Manager for Visual Arts, Institut français, Paris
Louise Hervé and Chloé Maillet, Artists, Paris
Vincent Honoré, Independent Curator and Writer, Paris
Andrew Hunter, Curator of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Guillame Leblon, Artist, and Member of castillo/corrales, Paris
Chris Lee and Maiko Tanaka, Model Minority, Gendai Gallery, Toronto
David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto
Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell, Co-Directors, Feminist Art Gallery, Toronto
Janine Marchessault, Director, Visible City Project + Archive, York University and Curator, LAND/SLIDE, Toronto
Christof Migone, Director/Curator, Blackwood Gallery and Lecturer, Visual Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, Toronto
Gaëtane Verna, Director, The Power Plant, Toronto
Mathilde Villeneuve, Co-Director, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris

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