Exhibition

24 April - 30 May 2009

Reception

24 April, Friday 7-10PM

Artist Talk with DGC~CGA

25 April, Saturday 3PM

PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts is pleased to present an exhibition featuring the work of two art collectives — The Icelandic Love Corporation [ILC] from Reykjavik, and The Discriminating Gentlemen’s Club ~ Le Club des Gentilshommes Avertis (DGC~CGA ) from Montreal — in association with Núna (now), a festival celebrating the contemporary artistic and cultural connection between Iceland and Canada,  now in its 3rd year.

Organized by J.J. Kegan McFadden + Freya Björg Olafson, this exhibition brings together lens-based [video and photo] performance pieces that explore constructions of gender, class, and tradition vis-à-vis cultural stereotypes, colonialism, and the slippages of memory and/or mimicry in our contemporary political and global climates.

In their video/photo series, Dynasty [2007] ILC offers a hypothetical, though highly plausible, reaction to the end of electricity due to global warming. They ask the question: What does the modern high-class housewife do when electricity is gone? In response, the ILC take on the roles of three such women, who have escaped from their safe town houses to enjoy the last moments on one of the Earth’s remaining snowcaps. Dressed in their warmest furs, they fish, hunt birds for food, sit by the fire and sing, crochet, and contemplate. Their phones do not work; their laptops are long gone. This is a luxury and a privilege, since most other places are sweltering hot.

In comparison, the DGC offer their hilarious video spoof of an English foxhunt. Dressed in long johns rather than proper breeches, and riding a Styrofoam cut-out of a horse rather than the real thing, this crew follows a taxidermy fox being pulled across a frozen pond. The faux bravado climaxes with a jubilant feast once the creature is ‘shot. ‘

These over-the-top performances of seemingly ridiculous, passé acts of high-society ask the audience to reconsider contemporary traditions and whether, in the instance of climate change or the future of endangered species [animal or human], they maintain relevance.

As part of its commitment to critical discourse,  PLATFORM has commissioned PhD candidate, Laurie K. Bertram,  to write an interpretive essay to accompany this exhibition. Bertram reads the work of these two collectives through a historical lens of the Icelandic Independence Movement and subsequent development of the Fjallkona [a fictional mountain woman-turned-symbolic princess].

Please join us for the opening reception Friday, the 24th of April beginning at 7PM. Refreshments will be served.

For more information about this exhibition, please contact the Centre directly:
PLATFORM | 121-100 Arthur Street | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3B 1H3 | 204.942.8183 | www.platformgallery.org

For more information on other events happening throughout the Núna (now) Festival, log on to: www.nunanow.com

Bios:

The Icelandic Love Corporation [Jóní Jónsdóttir, Eirún Sigurdardóttir, and Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir; aka: The ILC] are a dynamic Icelandic performance art trio, who have received considerable attention in recent years in their ambitious pursuit to spread their message of ‘Love conquers all. The future is beautiful.’ Performing in diverse locations –spaces ranging from live television broadcasts to barren locations in the interior of Iceland, the ILC are committed to reaching a wide audience. Demonstrating intimacy and surprise they demand reaction in their uninhibited display of extravagance and beauty. Their work is bittersweet, flirting with amateurism and developing affection with their audience. Existing outside the parameters of critical discourse and art history, their work finds more in common with tragic fairytales and everyday pop songs. <www.ilc.is>

The Discriminating Gentleman’s Club ~ Le Club des Gentilshommes Avertis (DGC~CGA) is a private order in the form of an artist collective. The club’s presence is manifest in two distinct ways. The first is a public façade constituted of varied social events, the planting of public gardens, kite flying, film making, sculptural ephemera and the like. The second is a closed aesthetic inversion of the club’s public customs performed to a select audience and regulated by legally binding non-disclosure agreements. The DGC~CGA holds three honorary chapters in Melbourne (Australia), Birmingham (UK) and The Hague (the Netherlands). < www.dgc-cga.org>

Laurie K. Bertram is an intermittent Winnipegger and a history PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation explores the development of Icelandic Canadian culture in the twentieth century via alternate terrains of ethnic expression, including material culture, food, ghost stories, and knitting patterns.

PLATFORM wishes to thank Manitoba Arts Council, Winnipeg Arts Council, and The Winnipeg Foundation for their continued support; as well as Núna [now], The Manitoba Museum, and The Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at The University of Winnipeg for their sponsorship and assistance with this exhibition.