Person/ne

GRIFFIN ART PROJECTS, North Vancouver BC - To Sep 2
by Michael Turner
Now in its fifth year of private collection-based exhibitions, artist and curatorial residencies, and imaginative public programs, Griffin Art Projects (GAP) has established itself as a generous participant in Vancouver’s ever-diversifying cultural ecology. With the recent hire of former Mendel Gallery chief curator Lisa Baldissera as its director, GAP has taken a further step toward connecting with the wider world of contemporary art production. For her first exhibition, Baldissera has focused on that most nebulous of subjects: personhood.
Drawing equally on the philosophical investigations of Hannah Arendt and, in Baldissera’s words, “the contemporary challenges to personhood effected by forces like social media, surveillance technologies, the influence of Big Data and the reputation economy,” the exhibition provides a ground in which to consider alternative systems born not from marketing think-tanks and personal branding machinery but through self-refl exive artist practices, what Arendt refers to as “sites of agency.”
The exhibition features loaned works by Sonny Assu, Stephen Balkenhol, Christian Boltanski, Sophie Calle, Leon Coupey, Stan Douglas, Duane Linklater, Yevgeniy Fiks, Sima Khourami, Shawn Hunt, Emily Jacir, Mahdyar Jamshidi, Zoe Kreye, Steve McQueen, Ann Newdigate, Ricarda Roggan, Norman Tait, Stephen Waddell, Ai Wei Wei, Lam Wong and Sisleg Xhafa. It also includes a robust series of talks by artists, curators and collectors, as well as open studios, reading circles and off-site walks. For those disposed to tea, Lam will reprise his pre-opening tea ceremony (The Space Between Objects, Wu/Mu) with additional ceremonies on June 15 (The Stillness Between Movements) and August 10 (The Silence Between Sounds). For more info on the GAP’s public program, visit its website.
griffinartprojects.ca