Vancouver-based artist Hyung-Min Yoon presents a series of images that draws from an obscure collection of marginal religious illustrations by Albrecht Dürer. Originally used to surround religious texts, Hyung-Min Yoon reimagines their placement and purpose by framing them around contemporary political jokes of various cultures in their original languages.

This challenging combination strikes a balance between different historical and contemporary modes of ideology; the popular and the religious; and the individual and the state.

The Book of Jests is both the exhibition title and the name of the book that Hyung-Min Yoon has produced to house 25 contemporary jokes. Visit grunt gallery to view a selection of prints from the book, a newly created video that documents the book from cover to cover in our Media Lab, and to see the hand-sewn The Book of Jests protected by vitrine.

The opening reception for this exhibition will take place on Thursday September 11th, 7pm –10pm. The opening is associated with SWARM, an annual festival of artist-run centres. The exhibition runs from Sept 11– Oct 11, 2014.

Be sure to attend the artist talk on Saturday, September 27th, 12:30pm –1:30pm at grunt gallery, an event that’s a part of BC Culture Days.

The Book of Jests from Hyung-Min Yoon on Vimeo.

Artist Bio:

Born in Seoul, Hyung-Min Yoon studied at the Korean National University of Arts, Seoul (BFA) and Chelsea College of Art & Design, London (MFA). Her works seek to develop the idea of ‘aesthetic translation’ to uncover meaning in the ambiguities and contradictions that lie undetected in an era of globalization. Yoon’s current interest is in the role that printing technologies have had in the dissemination of ideas through time. Her works have been exhibited internationally in Korea, UK, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. She is currently artist in residence at Gyeongi Creation Centre, Korea.
http://www.yoonhyungmin.com

Essay:

The Book of Jests | Essay by Lorna Brown

Press Clippings:

 Artist reframes old master for modern age

| The Source
http://thelasource.com/en/2014/08/25/artist-reframes-old-master-for-modern-age/

Yoon adds that in her work, she tries to match Dürer’s illustrations to the jokes she compiles. Although the religious drawings and political jokes may seem incompatible, Yoon says that the drawings in this piece are portrayed humorously and compliment her work.

“Dürer is an amazing artist who’s really playful with his drawing so it looks quite light and not that serious. It occurred to me that it’s would be a perfect match,” says Yoon.

Hyung Min Yoon: From Page to Screen

| Canadian Art
http://canadianart.ca/reviews/2014/09/16/hyung-min-yoon/

With that in mind, what does it mean to produce or consume a CD, a DVD or a glue-and-paper book when the music, pictures and literature they contain are now more commonly produced and consumed through one’s phone? Is it both a political and an aesthetic act to continue with these apparently obsolete forms, as it was in the 1980s when the digitization and increased corporatization of the music industry resulted in multi-track tape decks showing up at thrift stores, where they were purchased and put to use by musicians associated with the North American “lo-fi” indie movement? Are we now at a similar place with the hard-copy book?

CLOSING RECEPTION CANCELLED.

Our closing reception is cancelled because Artist Rodrique Jean is unable to make it to this event. You are welcome to attend the Queer Arts Festival screening on Tues Aug 5 at the Roundhouse. The exhibition at grunt gallery will run until this Saturday.

Off-site screening: Aug 5, 2014, 7:30 PM, Roundhouse Performance Centre
Creative Contributors: Tarah Hogue, curator; Rachel Iwaasa, Queer Arts Festival; Dazibao (Montreal, QC).

The installation L’État des lieux (The State of the Moment) and film screening of L’État du monde (The State of the World) is co-presented by grunt gallery, Queer Arts Festival and Dazibao.

Initiated by filmmaker Rodrigue Jean, Épopée is a collection of short films written and made in collaboration with male drug addicts and sex trade workers in Montreal. Set in the district known to residents as “the box,” an area bounded by the streets St. Denis, De Lorimier, Viger and Sherbrooke, the project was initiated following the shooting of the film Men for Sale (2008), when participants expressed the desire to create fictional works in addition to the documentary.

The project started with writing workshops that transformed into a website (epopee.me) with short films written and acted out by the participants. Made up of stories – 9 Fictions and 13 Trajets – written and filmed in collaboration with male sex workers, Épopée uses cinema (writing, shooting, editing and screening) as a gesture and an instrument of freedom and community. These films are not portraits, whether real or fictional, of their protagonists; instead they combine to paint a highly emotional and political portrait of our first world, its structure and the segregation on which it is based.

L’État des lieux (The State of the Moment) will be installed as an alternating projection at grunt gallery over the course of July 21-Aug 9, 2014. Attend the closing reception at grunt gallery on August 6. Rodrigue Jean, Épopée Collective founder, and Serge-Olivier Rondeau, member of the Épopée Collective, will be present at this event. Special thank you to Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec (CALQ) for providing the artists with a travel grant.

Visit the Queer Arts Festival website to purchase tickets for the off-site screening of L’État du monde (The State of the World) happening at the Roundhouse Community centre on Aug 5.

About Épopée:

Épopée is a Montréal-based cinema action group, which carries out projects addressing present-day situations. The group disseminates its work through public talks and discussions, web distribution and art gallery installations. Since 2005, Épopée has focused on persons subjected to exclusion by the State and violence by its police. The group has created film projects in collaboration with sex workers and drug users, students and militants during and after the 2012 Québec Student Strike, and lately with Indigenous groups in the Brazilian Amazon.

The group’s works have recently been shown at Dazibao (Québec, CA, 2012), the Festival du nouveau cinéma (Montréal, CA, 2012), the Visions du réel film festival (Nyon, CH, 2013), Interference Archive (New York, US, 2013), and the Manif d’Art 7 (Quebec, CA, 2014). L’État du monde won a special mention in the Best Canadian Feature category at the Rencontres internationales du documentaire (Montréal, CA, 2013). Épopée has also brought its work to universities and collectives in Europe, the US, Canada and Québec.

www.epopee.me

Queer Arts Festival:

The Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver is an annual artist-run showcase of queer arts, culture and history. It celebrates the unique creative expressions of visual and performing artists who identify as part of the queer communities. QAF features a curated visual arts show, a community art show, and 3 dynamic weeks of cutting-edge performances and workshops from all artistic disciplines, including music, dance, theatre, literary and media arts.

http://queerartsfestival.com/

Visit grunt gallery over the month of June to witness Valerie Salez’ Play, Fall, Rest, Dance, an installation that continously changes based on the creative output by children with disabilities. grunt gallery is proud to partner with KickStart Disability Arts and Culture to bring Salez’ project to Vancouver following a successful residency that occurred at Open Space (Victoria, BC) last year.

Artist Valerie Salez creates an environment that encourages artistic freedom, exploration and installation-making over the course of several weeks. Children participate in art-making sessions that reimagine the space through the use of various materials, some of which are repurposed from Salez’ past projects, and through performance, movement, sound and play.

The artist works with children with disabilities to emphasize the state of making and being, the pursuit of uninhibitied creative exploration that is void of rules, structures and concepts of ‘right or wrong’ and ‘perfection vs. mistakes’. Children are enabled with artistic autonomy and the artist thoughtfully guides them to explore their creative processes.

Visitors are invited to stop by the gallery throughout the month of June to see how the installation is reimagined, rebuilt and reconsidered during the month. The gallery is open to the public throughout the month of June.

Due to the nature of this project, there will be a closing reception on Thursday June 26, 7-10pm. The project will run from June 2-July 5.

Read the blog:

https://grunt.ca/play-fall-rest-dance-blog/

Press Clippings:

The Source: The artistry of play: installation showcases children’s art http://thelasource.com/en/2014/06/09/the-artistry-of-play-installation-showcases-childrens-art/

Article:

Crafting an experience of Art-making: Valerie Salez’ Play, Fall, Rest, Dance written by Anastasia Scherders

Artist Bio:

Since 2003, Valerie Salez has been engaged in a multi-disciplinary art practice that includes performance, video, photography, sculptural installation, and collage. Her work has been both collaborative and solo. Often relying on provisional materials, it can be framed as arte povera and/or situationist in nature. For four years, Salez engaged in snow-shoveling performances/interventions at residencies across Canada. Video and photo documentation of these performances have been exhibited at university art galleries and artist-run centers in Canada, including the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. Other collaborations include large outdoor sculptural installations with elements of performance. As well, Salez has produced a number of solo installations using collected objects and textiles that have been installed in various galleries across Canada. Interspersed throughout the aforementioned practices she produced large-scale collage works that have been purchased by private collectors and art banks. Valerie Salez grew up in the Yukon and currently dwells in Victoria, B.C.
http://www.wooloo.org/valeriesalez

grunt gallery gratefully acknowledges Arts-Based Community Development funding from the British Columbia Arts Council for making this project possible.

(Vancouver, BC) – grunt gallery and Gallery Gachet are proud to co-present 10 years of State of Emergency (État d’Urgence), a multidisciplinary visual exhibition based on a retrospective of works from 1998-2013 during État d’Urgence (State of Emergency) and Fin Novembre (End of November).

The annual event État d’Urgence (State of Emergency) began in 1998 in downtown Montreal and was created by ATSA, a not-for-profit organization founded by artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy. It was originally conceived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The event itself is a 24-hour, 5-day refugee camp in support of people living homeless and under conditions of poverty. The event was created as a public intervention in the city and includes the provision of food, clothing and shelter as well as the production of hundreds of art works from multidisciplinary backgrounds. État d’Urgence was so successful that it has returned on an annual basis and now, 16 years later, goes by the name Fin Novembre.

The exhibition has been presented in numerous venues in Montreal, as well as cities across the province of Quebec. It is now touring Canada with exhibition dates planned in Fredricton, Calgary and Winnipeg, arriving in Vancouver to be co-exhibited at both grunt gallery and Gallery Gachet.

At grunt gallery, ATSA presents a selection of 30 ATSA art works and archives produced throughout the years of the event from 1997 to 2013, including the montage U pour Urgence presented at the Canadian Architecture Centre, Deposit, Last resort, Under surveillance, The Brasero and a collection of video capsules by Santiago Bertolino, Steve Patry, Henrique Vera Villanueva and Luc Sénécal. This selection shows the evolution of the event and all the political and social difficulties and challenges the artists experienced.

At Gallery Gachet, the 10 years of State of Emergency exhibition features artwork by over 20 artists—local, national and international—who made original contributions to État d’Urgence during the event’s run between 1998 and 2010. Included in these works are collaborative illustrations, sound track and photo projects; paintings on unconventional media; drawings, a survival handbook; miniature cardboard architecture and more.

Join us on Friday April 11 at Gallery Gachet (5:30-7:30) and at grunt gallery (7:30-9:30) for the opening receptions of 10 years of State of Emergency (État d’Urgence). Join us on Saturday April 12th (2-3pm) for the artist talk. These exhibitions run until Saturday May 17^th, 2014.

Gallery Gachet (gachet.org), 88 East Cordova Street, 
Vancouver, BC V6A1K3

Media Contact: Lee Williams programming@gachet.org 604.687.2468

grunt gallery (grunt.ca) 116-350 East 2^nd Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T4R8
Media Contact: Karlene Harvey karlene@grunt.ca | 604.875.9516

ATSA wishes to thank the Conseil des Arts de Montréal en tournée for producing and staging the first exhibition and tour in Montreal, as well as the Conseil des art et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts for the Canada-wide tour.

Gallery Gachet and grunt gallery would like to thank the following funders:
Vancouver Coastal Health, Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver.

Who is ATSA?

ATSA is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 by artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy. The pair creates transdisciplinary works and events for the public realm that take the form of interventions, installations, performance art and realistic stagings. Their actions are born of a desire to raise public awareness of various social, environmental and heritage issues that are crucial and that need to be addressed. They aim to sway both the public and the media—in short, to motivate as many citizens as possible to take an active role in improving society.

ATSA is recipient of the 2013 Honourable mention for the Mayor’s Democracy Price, the 2011 Giverny Capital price, the 2010 Pratt & Whitney Canada Nature de l’Art Prize awarded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Citoyen de la Culture 2008 award handed out by Les Arts et la Ville and of the Artistes pour la Paix 2008 award.

ATSA is also proud to have been the spokesperson of Artists in the Art of the City Mouvement (2013),  5^ème Sommet citoyen de Montréal (2009), 22^ème Exposition inter-collégiale d’arts plastiques du Réseau Inter-collégial des Activités Socioculturelle du Québec (RIASQ 2010), and of Journées Québécoises de la Solidarité Internationale (2011). ATSA is a member of the board of RAIQ.

http://www.atsa.qc.ca/en/

Produce, Consume transforms grunt gallery’s media lab into a multifaceted playground of website artworks and displays. Visit grunt gallery for this special weeklong exhibition that invites the public to access and explore new tools for sharing, seeing, and becoming.

Matt Troy, grunt’s Media Lab artist-in-residence, has invited artists and teams around the globe to participate and facilitate interactive art websites. The exhibition includes the premiere of three commissioned artworks by Vancouver-based artists Patrick Daggitt, Dan Leonard, and Sammy Chien. Five international artworks will be screened by Kim Asendorf (Germany), Michael Borris (France), Joseph Yølk Chiocchi (United States of America), Chris Collins (United States of America) and James Hicks (United Kingdom).

These nine art sites include a tool to create something: a file, jpeg, mp3, gif, or text. Each file explores a component of human sensory interaction: sound and audio; touch and feeling; seeing and being seen; commerce and language. User engagement with these tools creates a file that is catalogued and immortalized forever online.

The role of the traditional ‘artist’ is subverted as the artists act as faciltators, programmers or playground supervisors within this online landscape. The audience is encouraged to explore these digitally created tools, producing new works by interaction and participation.

Join us at grunt gallery on Friday March 28 (7-10pm) for the opening reception of Produce, Consume. This exhibition runs until Saturday April 5th.

grunt gallery gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council’s Project Grants to Media Arts Organizations, Groups and Collectives for making this exhibition possible. grunt gallery would also like to thank their operating funders: Audain Foundation, City of Vancouver, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

Join grunt gallery on February 20th for the opening reception of one man’s junk by Toronto-based artist, Laura Moore.

New technology drives the manufacturing of new electronic products. But during this pursuit of the new and improved, what happens with the obsolete?

Laura Moore hand-carves blocks of limestone into outdated electronic devices. Contradicting the indispensability that most discarded electronics face, these tributes monument how once-valuable objects become undesired commodities.

Moore began one man’s junk during an artist in residence program at the Thames Art Gallery. The artist states an ongoing interest in creating tensions between the permanent versus disposable and the interactive versus the inert. The limestone sculptures includes a computer monitor, printer and hard-drive tower measured to a 1:1 scale; stacked onto a wooden pallet.

“Stone, the material of my work, moves me in principal because it is familiar and I find its resistance stimulating. It is the monuments and sculptures that tell our history, it shapes our continents while intriguingly remaining mutable.” – Laura Moore, Artist Statement

(http://www.lauramoore.ca)

one man’s junk questions what happens when an object shifts from a prized possession to a nonentity, and asks you to find value amongst junk, waste and the discarded.

grunt gallery is pleased to announce that this will be Moore’s first exhibition in Vancouver, British Columbia. The artist will be in attendance for the opening reception.

Artist Bio:

Laura Moore has an MFA from York University, a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Diploma of Art from Fanshawe College.

Currently, Laura’s 2010 series Kernel Memory is installed at the St. Catharines City Hall Sculpture Garden; this work is on exhibit until September 2016. In June 2014, components of Laura’s new series one man’s junk will be installed as part of the Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener and Area Biennial (CAFKA) and in the group exhibition Material World at the Indianapolis Art Center in Indiana, USA.
In the past, Laura has exhibited her work at; Station Gallery (Whitby ON), Ontario Science Centre, Oeno Sculpture Garden (Bloomfield ON), Thames Art Gallery (Chatham ON), Siena Art Institute (Siena Italy), Shoshana Wayne Gallery (Santa Monica CA USA), Leaside Sculpture Trail (Uxbridge ON), Peak Gallery (Toronto ON), Stride Gallery (Calgary AB), Cambridge Galleries, Glenhyrst Gallery of Brant (Brantford ON) and Anna Leonowens Gallery (Halifax NS).

Exhibition Essay:

one man’s junk: Digital Monument by Luke Siemens

Interview:

Abandoned Machines by Genevieve Michaels

Thank you to the following funders:

Thank you to grunt’s operating funders:

The Audain Foundation
The City of Vancouver
British Columbia Arts Council
Canada Council for the Arts

Beirut artist, Rabih Mroué, returns to Vancouver with a video installation exhibition entitled, Nothing To Lose.

This exhibition questions what we know and what we have read, the tumultuous relationship between fact, fiction and construed narratives. Mroué’s practice explores the media’s ability to reinterpret and misinterpret, and the subjective impact this has on the public.

His performances are both conceptually and politically bold, using the backdrop of Lebanon to construct works that speak to everyone. When inquired about past projects Mroué states, “My works deal with issues that have been swept under the table in the current political climate of Lebanon.” His practice emerges from a generation of artists in Beirut that came of age during the civil war (1977-1990); works often address the aftermath, using photography and video to deconstruct and reconstruct its devastating consequences.

Presented with grunt gallery and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Join us for the opening reception of Nothing to Lose on Friday, January 10^th (7pm–10pm). The exhibition is at grunt gallery from Jan 10 – Feb 8, 2014.

grunt gallery is also pleased to announce that there will be a workshop by Rabih Mroué on Art & Politics on Saturday, January 11th from 12noon-4pm at grunt gallery. This workshop is intended for performance artists, theatre actors and those involved with the performing arts. Admission to this workshop is $20 (student rate TBA), please email glenn(at)grunt.ca to sign up. This workshop has limited space available so be sure to sign up soon!

PuSh events with Rabih Mroué:

Rabih Mroué is no stranger to the city of Vancouver. Mroué provided an artist talk at PuSh Festival in 2012 and returns as a 2014 PuSh artist-in-residence. PuSh Festival is hosting a breakfast series event with Mroué on January 17 (http://pushfestival.ca/2014/shows/rabih-mroue/) and will be presenting “The Pixelated Revolution” at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts from January 15 –18 (http://pushfestival.ca/2014/shows/pixelated-revolution). Be sure to buy tickets to these events before they sell out!

http://pushfestival.ca

Press Clippings:

Tate Modern: On Three Posters 2004

Georgia Straight: Rabih Mroué’s Nothing to Lose digs into war-making and picture-taking

The Vancouver Sun: PuSh Festival preview: Rabih Mroué

The Commentary: Pod cast interview with Rabih Mroué

The Vancouver Sun: Rabih Mroué: finding the humanity in a suicide bomber

The La Source: Multidisciplinary artist captures the political and the personal

grunt gallery: Interview article by Gizem Sözen & Eylül İşce

Publications:

Image(s), mon amour Fabrications: Rabih Mroué

Artist Bio:

Rabih Mroué was born in Beirut and lives between Beirut and Berlin. He is an actor, director, playwright, visual artist, and contributing editor in the Lebanese quarterly Kalamon and TDR (New York).

He is also a co-founder and board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC). He is a fellow at The International Research Center: “Interweaving Performance Cultures”/Freie Universität- Berlin, 2013/2014.

In addition to his main work in theatre, Mroué’s recent exhibitions include: CA2M, Madrid 2013, Museé de la Dance (2013), dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012), Templhof, Berlin – Hebbel theater, the world UnFair exhibition (2012), Lunds konsthall, Lund (12 March – 8 May 2011); Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), London (23 March – 14 May 2011) and Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (22 May – 31 July 2011); and Tranzitdisplay, Prague (10 June – 14 August 2011), BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (21 May – 1 August 2010), Performa 09, New York (2009); 11th International Istanbul Biennale (2009); Tarjama/Translation, Queens Museum of Art, New York (2009); Soft Manipulation – Who is afraid of the new now?, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2009); Sharjah Biennale (2009); Medium Religion, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (2008); and Les Inquiets. 5 artistes sous la pression de la guerre, Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris (2008). In 2010, he was awarded an Artist Grant for Theater/Performance Arts from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts 2010, New York and the Spalding Gray Award 2011 and Prince Clause Award, 2011.