exhbition: agyu (oliver husain/brendan fernandes)

AGYU: out there & centre stage.



AGYU is HOT this season!

We’re playing out there centre stage; performing as usual and featuring a whole new cast of characters, who will light up the dark days of winter:

Oliver Husain: Hovering Proxies
21 January – 14 March 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 21, 6 – 9 pm

…You are surrounded by the late summer in Tandun's garden in downtown Jakarta where two dogs, Ziggy and Uma, scuffle on the dry grass. Ziggy, the husky, is a bit crazy from the heat. Elegant wrought iron furniture balancing on thin legs, withered vines, broken flowerpots: this is the set for a tropical drama. You are part of the action: invited to step behind the flapping curtain where you might find yourself in the position of an understudy, waiting for the star's fatal slip... As always, the really exciting part happens backstage. Or rather, the really exciting part is that one step through the curtain, that thin in-between space, that slice of a moment…

Brendan Fernandes: Relay League
21 January – 6 June 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 21, 6 – 9 pm

…Flashing from the wings, Relay League signals sympathetically to the AGYU’s current exhibitions and, staged as a choreographed light performance. As well, it spills out there onto the York University campus acting as a primitive communications device.
· · · — — — · · · Relay League is a chain of forwarding optical telegraphs used to convey messages of distress or celebration. · — — — · · · Pulsing within the AGYU VITRINES, SOS messages are sent and received. — — — — — Morse code patterns pulse softly and slowly. Neon African mask vibrates more rapidly. The flashes of this optical trance are less scientific than supernatural, less advertising seduction than Voodoo probe. A searchlight maneuvering through an unidentified space adds to the mystery …

A text by Kenneth Montague accompanies the exhibition, published in another coded format as a free take away item at the AGYU.

Get on The Performance Bus with Mantler!

Make the familiar trip out there stranger on the one and only Performance Bus with Toronto performer Mantler (a.k.a. Chris Cummings). Mantler’s Tour Bus is your free ticket to Oliver Husain’s and Brendan Fernandes’ opening night and your serious comic relief for the evening! Part tour guide and part musician, this “childman” is all entertainer! You don’t want to miss this performance! The free AGYU Performance Bus departs OCAD (100 McCaul St.) on Thursday, January 21 at 6 pm sharp and returns downtown at 9 pm.

Alex Wolfson and Bojana Stancic: And so, the animal looked back…
28 January – 14 March 2010
Opening Performances:
Thursday, January 28, 7:30 pm [opening night!] & Friday, January 29, 7:30 pm
Closing Performances:
Thursday, March 11, 7: 30 pm & Friday, March 12, 7:30 pm

[Seating is Limited, please call 416.736.5169 to reserve free tickets. Thursday tickets are reserved for individuals on the free performance bus departing from OCAD at 6 pm sharp. There is no bus for the Friday performances.]

Writer/Director: Alex Wolfson/ Set Designer and Visual Concept: Bojana Stancic/Costume Designer: Vanessa Fischer /Sound Designer: Matt Smith Actors: Amy Bowles, Lindsey Clark, Vanessa Dunn, Nika Mistruzzi, Liz Peterson, Evan Webber

…One day Max begins to speak. Then to write. The primatologists are unsure of what to do with this new development. Soon Max begins to compose a long essay on the subject of the separation between man and animal, chimpanzee and animal, man and chimpanzee. Word leaks out to the world at large about Max. People become frenzied. Strange things begin to occur as the world starts slowly to fall apart. Pairs of animals, both human and otherwise, begin to congregate around the laboratory. Finally it becomes clear, Max’s essay is the last words to be spoken before a new flood, a new apocalypse, but unlike the deluge that occurred before the first play, this flood does not simply destroy, it also reconfigures new identities, new shared subjectivities. The play ends not with a prescription of what must come but simply with an understanding that things must change, and what will come is a mystery to them all…

And so, the animal looked back... is a unique venture of the AGYU into the world of experimental theatre, a theatre that has its roots equally in the art world and queer performance. The AGYU has commissioned two new plays under the overall title of And so, the animal looked back..., the performance of which open and conclude an installation that will retain props, performance elements, and projections from the first play.

WITH AN OFF-OFF BROADWAY PRODUCTION!

The Glimmering Grotto: Seven plays over seven days
February 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 8:30 pm
AGYU @ The Department, 1389 Dundas Street West (Toronto)

The Glimmering Grotto is an outcrop week of performances by Oliver Husain, Bojana Stancic, and Alex Wolfson whereby the artists work through a system of limitations with each performance set-up like a game of round robin: three solos, three duos, one group. Each non-performing artist sets limitations upon the two performing. And as for the limitations…there are no limitations on the limitations! The Glimmering Grotto is both a place and an idea. A location and a game. A limitation and an opening...

AND AN ENCORE!

Audio Out
Conducting the Audio Out series from 6 January – 24 February will be Gwen MacGregor and Lewis Nicholson in the production of New Time, a 24-hour sound loop building on recordings of sea clocks made by John Harrison between 1735 and 1759 for reliable global ocean navigation.

The following work, Outside Our Doors, will be under the musical direction of Janice Gurney from 25 February – 7 April. This recording meditates on The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, with translated readings in numerous languages outside the door of the speakers’ homes to the outside of ours.

Foreign Agent
Our new online Foreign Agent series continues with a trip to Colombia as our cultural attaché Astrid Bastin weathered the rain to take you into countless artist studios. She brings you the latest from Bogotá in her feature report exhausting all that the city has to offer from food to cultural institutions, with a special insider’s look at the ArtBo fair.

Look for our upcoming report from Mexico as Rodrigo Hernandez-Gomez sets the stage for a cultural getaway in Puerto Vallarta. http://theagyuisoutthere.org/everywhere/


The Art Gallery of York University is a university-affiliated public non-profit contemporary art gallery supported by York University, The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and our membership.

The AGYU is located in the Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele Street Toronto. Gallery hours are: Monday to Friday, 10 am–4 pm; Wednesday, 10am–8 pm; Sunday from noon–5 pm; and closed Saturday. Admission to everything is free.

Out There. AGYU. Where the ordinary is always extraordinary.
www.theAGYUisOutThere.org

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Do you have questions or require further information or images? Please contact Emelie Chhangur, Assistant Director/ Curator, AGYU, +1.416.736.5169 or emelie@yorku.ca
Image: Vlackie O