grunt gallery kicks off our 30th anniversary programming with a residency and exhibition with Vancouver-based artist Julia Feyrer entitled, Kitchen. Taking the form of an evolving installation in the main gallery space, Feyrer’s work engages with materials and documentation from the grunt archives in the production of a new, site-specific environment.
Feyrer’s starting point is the kitchen—a space that has played a central role in the gallery’s social and creative life since its beginnings in 1984. A meeting space that entertained activities, conversations, and ideas fuelled by coffee, tea, beer, and wine, it has been a venue of literal and figurative “brewing”, where creative relationships have percolated over the years. The idea of the kitchen has long been a source of inspiration for the gallery, and the physical site has evolved into the present-day media lab and an exhibition space for innovative media works.
“Process-based and meticulously—if playfully—constructed, Feyrer’s work is both densely material and intellectually airy; that is, her work challenges the viewer to engage both a tactile experience in this present moment, while simultaneously considering the transformative potential of perception, over time and through space. Feyrer’s use of materials acts as a conduit for seeing and, importantly, for experiencing an archival document.” – Vanessa Kwan, curatorial statement.
More than an exploration of archival material, her work will also engage the heart of the kitchen environment: the social. Feyrer, in collaboration with the gallery, will produce a series of events that activate the installation. Window paintings for this kitchen exhibition is provided by Vancouver-based artist and animator Tasha Brotherton. These events will be announced on an ongoing basis, and will include the closing event in mid-December.
The gallery will also be producing a series of texts over the course of the exhibition and residency. These texts, written by curator Vanessa Kwan, will be made available at the gallery and online.
Text:
Part 1 – History creeps: the grunt kitchen and Julia Feyrer
Part 2 – Recordings
Part 3 – Notes
Fridge Logic: events at the Kitchen
Half an hour after the show is over, a random viewer is staring into her refrigerator, vaguely bemused by the fact that her six-pack of beer has somehow become a two-pack of beer. Rather than work out how this might have happened, it occurs to her to wonder how in the hell the kitchen took 30 years to turn into a sculpture.
Revisit some old narratives and sketch out a possible present one, with grunt gallery, Julia Feyrer and friends.
1985 – 2015
Thursday, December 4th: Drawing 7pm
Ballets for Miniature Aerial Drones: A Research Workshop
(with Donato Mancini)
Tuesday, December 9th: Reading 7pm
(with Vivienne Bessette)
Friday, December 12th: Recording 7pm
(with Pietro Sammarco)
Friday, December 19th: Solstice Party
(bar by Magic Mystery Bartenders)
Artist Bio:
Julia Feyrer (b. 1982, Victoria, BC) is a filmmaker and artist who lives and works in Vancouver. She graduated in 2010 with a Meisterschülerin from the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany. She has recently exhibited Escape Scenes at the Western Front in Vancouver. Other recent exhibitions include (in collaboration with Tamara Henderson), Bottles Under the Influence, at Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff (2013), Alternatives and Opportunities, Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver (2012), Irregular Time Signatures, Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö (2011) and The Poodle Dog Ornamental Bar, Artspeak, Vancouver (2010). Her work has been included in the following group exhibitions The Intellection of Lady Spider House, Art Gallery of Alberta (2013), Phantasmagoria, Presentation House (2012), Children’s Films, Contemporary Art Gallery, Bielefelder Kunstverein, & International Project Space (2011 2013). Julia is also the co-editor of the audiozine Spoox (www.spooxaudiozine.org) and author of a series of artist books from Perro Verlag press.