The Power Plant

One, and Two, and More Than Two presents a survey of significant work by Toronto-based artist Micah Lexier. United by his interests in temporal and graphic systems of organization and measurement, this exhibition brings together an important selection of recent work that reflects the artist’s diverse and dynamic practice. Whether working individually (One), in a collaborative process (Two), or encompassing more than one hundred different artists (More than Two), Lexier’s work evinces witty and playful reflections on the creative processes of making and presenting art.

At the level of One, this exhibition features personal projects such as Self-Portrait as a Wall Text (1998/2013), a seminal self-descriptive artwork that Lexier originally produced at the age of thirty-seven. Lexier pairs this with an updated version made specifically for The Power Plant, where both works are presented for the first time. Likewise, Working as a Drawing displays a selection of 470 working documents culled from the last thirty-two years of his own artmaking. Additionally, Lexier presents a new video installation entitled This One, That One, which explores the concepts of collecting and ordering seen that run throughout the exhibition.

Our north gallery is devoted to Two, Lexier’s collaborations with writers, including: Two Equal Texts (1998/2007), a complex anagram work made with poet Christian Bök; I Am The Coin (2010), in which Lexier custom minted twenty-thousand coins with a text by novelist Derek McCormack; and 1334 Words for 1334 Students (2008), a project Lexier made with writer Colm Tóibín who wrote a short story as many words long as there were students in Mississauga’s Cawthra Park Secondary School.

At his most ambitious, however, is Lexier’s More Than Two (Let It Make Itself), a curatorial project that displays over 200 new and recently created artworks and objects by 101 artists/duos/collectives in and around Toronto. Encompassing artists at varying stages of their careers, Lexier presents his take on the wide-ranging, multi-generational portrait of a robust Toronto art community. In seeking to celebrate this expansive community, Lexier brings to The Power Plant an incisive look at the networks of creative production that surround it. “The thirty vitrines that constitute the exhibition”, he states, “house my personal take on some of the wonderful, inventive, like-minded objects that I encountered during my research.” More Than Two is in constant dialogue with Lexier's whole exhibition, enabling audiences to see and experience the artist’s multi-faceted practice. One, and Two, and More Than Two is a vibrant portrait of not only an artist but of his practice as well as his diverse community.

Fall 2013 Program Guide