Soi Fischer – CONTEMPORARY ART, DAILY: ART PRACTICE IN A FIELD OF SIMILAR IMAGES

Location: Toronto, Canada

Deadline: 12/21/2012

Duration: February 1 – 15, 2013

Elgibility: Open

Cost: Call $850 + HST (13%) Soi Fischer is now accepting applications for the February 2013 session of the Thematic Residency Program.

Descritpion: 

The Thematic Residency Program in Toronto, Canada offers artists the opportunity to work independently with the mentorship of a visiting professional artist, curator or critic working in international contemporary art. Thematic residencies explore various models including studio work, formal lectures, group discussion, peer collaboration and outdoor retreats. This direction allows individual residents to find common ground amongst each other’s disparate practices and establish new connections through communal dialogue.

CONTEMPORARY ART, DAILY: ART PRACTICE IN A FIELD OF SIMILAR IMAGES
ARTIE VIERKANT
Program Dates: February 1 – 15, 2013
Application Deadline: December 21, 2012
Price: $850 + HST

A meme, beyond its association with cats and YOLO, is a self-replicating strand of culture. It is a term for the analogy between the spread and selection of genetic information and of cultural materials, opinions, or ideas.

(1) Art, like any action, is a meme. The habits of the contemporary artist have self-replicated into an international network of white walls and effete gestures; a torrent of similar images.
(2) To understand the construction and limitations of this meme, we must step outside it.

This residency period will be spent considering these two principles. To begin with, we will spend time looking at our own practices to identify what strains of the art meme have filtered into our work, perhaps without our intent. By doing this we can reflect on what it is we hope to say, and what we do not wish to repeat. We will then look outside of the art context to other parts of culture, to try to assess how different hierarchies and non-hierarchies function–alternative forms of attribution, authorship, and value. By looking to these, or inventing our own, we may find methods by which art’s ambitions can be inserted into other territories, or methods by which we can come to fundamentally reassess our aims as authors. As a group we will come together to arrive at daily practices, discussions, or other interactions that will serve to enhance what we do with our time in and out of the studio.

Artie VIERKANT (MFA, 2011, University of Southern California, San Diego) lives and works in New York, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Artie Vierkant, Higher Pictures, New York City and Real Proper, Preteen Gallery, Mexico City; and group exhibitions Sound Works, Institute of Contemporary Art, Londonand Banal Inferno, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.

To apply please use the Online Application Form

soifischer.com/thematic_residency_program.html

ABOUT ARTSCAPE GIBRALTAR POINT

Departing from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal in downtown Toronto at the foot of Bay St. & Queens Quay, the seven-minute ferry ride takes you across Toronto Harbour to Hanlan’s Point. A five-minute bike ride brings you to our front door. Artscape Gibraltar Point is located at 443 Lakeshore Avenue on Toronto Islands.

Accommodations include fifteen private bedrooms with shared bathrooms, coin-operated laundry machines and Wi-Fi throughout the building. Residents share a communal kitchen with personal refrigerator space and dry storage. The kitchen is fully stocked with amenities including a stove, oven and microwave; generous counter space to prepare meals; dinnerware, flatware and cookware; and staples such as coffee, tea and sugar. A banquet table that seats eighteen sits at the center of the large bright room amongst couches and houseplants.

Studios are well-ventilated with high ceilings, tall windows and large walls. Tables, lamps and chairs are available. Facilities include a library, a black and white dark room, a woodworking studio, and a projector and PA system.

The building is located on acres of land that include a Blue Flag beach with an uninterrupted view of Lake Ontario, a forest, sprawling lawns and gardens filled with flowers, fruit and vegetables. Tennis courts and a baseball diamond are nearby. The Gibraltar Point Lighthouse, the oldest surviving lighthouse on the Great Lakes, is located across the street.

soifischer.com/thematic_residency_program.html