March 17 – April 26, 2009

Meeting Point

Works by Laura Belém, Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, General Idea, Anitra Hamilton, Mike Hansen, Chris Hanson and Hendrika Sonnenberg, Cinthia Marcelle and Marilá Dardot, Cinthia Marcelle and Tago Mata Machado & Rivane Neuenschwander
Curated by Earl Miller

Co-presented with the Kenderdine Art Gallery, University of Saskatchewan

Meeting point features internationally recognized contemporary artists whose works construct or metaphorically imply a range of social relationships between two people - intimacy, disagreement, love, friendship and competition, to name a few. This art encourages direct social interrelation, subjective experiences and ensuing narratives that are sometimes personal and always point to real life.

From Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s Fucked Up Lover (2001), in which conversations about compilation tapes are remarkably revealing of couples’ relationships, to Laura Belém’s Diplomatic Talks (2009), where paired heads of coins from different countries set up an imagined dialogue that may either be diplomatic or intimate, the works in Meeting Point represent a reconstructive, hopeful experimentation by artists frustrated by art of all kinds remaining discrete from social contexts.

In this way, Meeting Point offers an optimistic angle for current artistic debate. The exhibition brings together major works by Canadian and international artists who has previously shown in the Venice, Lyon, Havana, and São Paulo biennials. In addition, their work has been exhibited at the Carnegie International, ICA London, the Barbican, and the Palais de Tokyo. Despite such exposure, many of these works will be new to Canadian audiences, particularly those of the included artists from Brazil.