Toronto Craft Alert

WINTER AT THE POWER PLANT CELEBRATES CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN ART AND OPENS WITH AN 81st BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR MICHAEL SNOW:

• ‘Recent Snow: Projected Works by Michael Snow’ opens Thursday, 10 December
• ‘Nothing to Declare: Current Sculpture from Canada’ opens Thursday, 10 December
• Special Events – FORUM: Making Do and Getting By

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RECENT SNOW: PROJECTED WORKS BY MICHAEL SNOW
11 December, 2009 – 7 March, 2010, with an opening party on
Thursday, 10 December, 8 – 11 PM

‘Recent Snow: Projected Works by Michael Snow’ is the first hometown survey of the legendary Canadian artist’s screen-based work of the past decade. A pioneer particularly in avant-garde film, Snow has broken ground in a vast array of media from photography and public sculpture to improvisational music and bookworks. The exhibition attests to the ongoing relevance of Snow’s playful and experimental moving-image practice, and the influence that it continues to exert internationally. ‘Recent Snow’ presents seven works never before exhibited in a Toronto public gallery, including the premiere of two new pieces. It marks Snow’s return to The Power Plant fifteen years after the epic retrospective ‘The Michael Snow Project’ (1994) was co-organized with the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The product of a restless intelligence and a sharp wit, Snow’s work deftly juggles and juxtaposes the sensorial and the cerebral. Snow’s video projections manipulate the space between the moments of recording and of reception, the surface of the world and the surface of the screen to stage the dynamic play between a video camera and material reality. Snow uses the camera as an instrument capable of shaping and altering what it is pointed toward: in his hands, realism becomes far from realistic and the familiar takes us by surprise.

Michael Snow (born in Toronto, 1928) has exhibited internationally for over five decades. Snow will be in attendance at the opening party, when the artist celebrates his 81st birthday – please join us in the celebration!
This exhibition is curated by Gregory Burke, Director of The Power Plant

Presenting Sponsor: Rogers Communications
Support Sponsor: The Drake Hotel

NOTHING TO DECLARE: CURRENT SCULPTURE FROM CANADA
11 December, 2009 – 7 March, 2010, with an opening party on
Thursday, 10 December, 8 – 11 PM

‘Nothing to Declare: Current Sculpture from Canada’ highlights the renewed interest of contemporary Canadian artists – emerging, mid-career and senior – in objects and materials.  Participating artists include: Valérie Blass (Montréal); James Carl (Toronto); Liz Magor (Vancouver); Luanne Martineau (Victoria); Tricia Middleton (Montréal); Gareth Moore (Vancouver); Michael Murphy (Toronto); Kerri Reid (Toronto); Brendan Tang (Kamloops); Kara Uzelman (Vancouver/Berlin); and Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky (Vancouver).  Taking place in conjunction with ‘Recent Snow,’ this exhibition also continues The Power Plant’s twenty-two-year tradition of presenting Canada’s most engaging and influential artists in an international context.

Abandoning sculpture’s traditional job of memorializing the great and the good, the artworks in this exhibition instead revel in humble materials and everyday processes.  Resisting abstract and overarching statements, meanings and metaphors result from intensive experimentation and improvisation. The work explores sculpture’s status and function, its history and future.

Please join us for the opening party, when many of the featured artists will be in attendance.
This exhibition is curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs

Presenting Sponsor: The Royal Bank of Canada

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The Power Plant has a great weekend of OPENING EVENTS:

FORUM – OPENING WEEKEND / Making Do and Getting By
Saturday, 12 December / 6 PM / $4 Members, $6 Non-Members

Participating artists in ‘Nothing to Declare’ share their perspectives on the status, history, and future of objects, materials and sculpture: Tricia Middleton, Kerri Reid, Brendan Tang, and Kara Uzelman.  Chaired by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs and curator of ‘Nothing to Declare.’

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Don’t miss our entire winter season of public programming:

LIVE – Gareth Moore
Tuesday, 19 January / 7 PM / FREE Members, $6 Non-Members
Members’ Appreciation Skating Party
8 – 10 PM

Working in the tradition of the journeyman apprentice and the itinerant artist/storyteller, Vancouver artist Gareth Moore builds narratives around objects that he gathers on his travels.  His fusion of performance, storytelling and sculptural practice has started to gain international attention.  For ‘Nothing to Declare,’ Moore has made a work that entails creating objects that visitors have proposed via a suggestion box installed in the gallery.  For this special LIVE event, he presents a ‘sculptural story’ that makes eccentric connections between artifacts, fictions and encounters.

After the LIVE event, gallery Members are invited to bring their friends and family for a night of outdoor skating fun on The Natrel Rink, hosted by The Power Plant.

SUNDAY SCENE
13 December, 2009–7 March, 2010 / 2 PM / FREE with gallery admission
Our popular Sunday Scene series returns this winter. Every Sunday, speakers from the world of art and beyond offer their responses to the current exhibitions. Looking ahead:

13 December / Melanie Egan
20 December / Michael Zryd
27 December / R. Bruce Elder
3 January / Lenka Kubelova & Macy Siu
10 January / Christopher Regimbal
17 January / Nicholas Brown

For information on these events and the rest of The Power Plant’s public programming for winter 2009 – 2010, visit our website.

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Institutional Donor: Nancy McCain & Bill Morneau
Primary Education Sponsor: CIBC Wood Gundy
Corporate Leaders: Bloomberg, Morneau Sobeco, BMO Financial Group, Rogers
Government Funding: Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council

GALLERY ADMISSION:
FREE Members
$6 Adults
$3 Students / Seniors
FREE Wednesday 5 – 8 PM

GALLERY HOURS:
Tuesday to Sunday / 12–6 PM
Wednesday / 12–8 PM
Open Holiday Mondays

HOLIDAY HOURS:
December 24 | 12-3 PM
December 25 | CLOSED
December 26 | CLOSED
December 31 | 12-3 PM
January 1 | CLOSED

Image Credit: Michael Snow, The Corner of Braque and Picasso Streets, 2009.  Video installation at àngels barcelona, courtesy the gallery.

Media Contact: Robin Boyko, 416.973.4927, rboyko@harbourfrontcentre.com

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, ON Canada M5J 2G8
416.973.4949 // thepowerplant@harbourfrontcentre.com
www.thepowerplant.org