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Goethe-Institut Gallery URBAN DECONSTRUCTIONS
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Exhibition
URBAN DECONSTRUCTIONS
March 8 – September 2006
Goethe-Institut Gallery
163 King St. W. 416 5935257
www.goethe.de/toronto
Public Opening Wednesday March 8, 5-8 pm
Panel discussion with the artists, moderated by John Bentley Mays, 7-8pm
“Toronto Project†- a deconstruction of 163 King St. W./100
University Ave. through 3d computer animation, ink jet prints, and
drawings by Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann of Germany
“Unbuilding Ways†- a building demolition as artwork by architects
Paul Raff and David Warne of Toronto
In the current exhibition at the Goethe-Institut Gallery, co-curators
John Bentley Mays and Doina Popescu (Program Coordinator, Goethe-
Institut Toronto) have brought together Canadian architects/artists
Paul Raff and David Warne and German artists Alekos Hofstetter and
Holger Lippmann in a show entitled Urban Deconstructions. In this
exhibition, several Toronto buildings are deconstructed in ways which
open up new and important perspectives on architectural and artistic
expression within time.
Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann are multidisciplinary artists
from Berlin who have long careers working in collaborative settings
and as solo creators. This exhibition marks their first joint
project. Alekos Hofstetter had a solo painting exhibition in 2004
at Luft Gallery in Toronto during the Berlin-Toronto Gallery
Exchange. At that time some of the paintings from his Urban Decline
series were shown. Art critic Kristin Rieber points out that this
body of Hofstetter’s work “deals with the quickening pace of the
obsolescence of modern architecture and the decay of urban structures
in the era of globalization,†a theme that is central to the current
show as well. She continues by stressing that the artist “does not
occupy himself with the portrayal or the interpretation of an
immediate reality, but rather the representation of a reality which
itself is already fragmented and determined by the media.†New media
artist Holger Lippmann, on the other hand, “gave up his brushes and
paints to explore other aspects of the process and philosophy of
creating an image. What results is a dematerialized painting with
light.†(David Galloway) For the present exhibition, Alekos
Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann were sent documentary photographic
images of the building housing the Goethe-Institut Toronto (163 King
St. W./100 University Ave.) by artist Eric Glavin. On the basis of
these images, Alekos and Holger worked jointly on a series of
computer animations, drawings and ink jet prints through which they
“deconstruct†the building, which they saw for the first time on
March 3, 2006, a few weeks after completing the art works.
Toronto writer and journalist John Bentley Mays curated the Canadian
works in the show. After an inspired joint discussion on the theme
of this exhibition, he decided to bring in works by Toronto
architects/artists Paul Raff and David Warne. The curators were very
excited by the difference and by the relatedness of the creative
thought processes behind the works of two teams of remarkably dynamic
and intensely visionary artists.
As John Bentley Mays has written:
“ten years ago, architects David Warne and Paul Raff undertook the
gradual, meticulously studied demolition of a century-old Ontario
cottage on a laneway in downtown Toronto. The project, entitled
Unbuilding Ways, involved peeling away the house’s skin, undoing its
bones and uncovering its histories, and dropping the whole building
through 45 degrees of arc into the ground: a lingering apocalypse, a
disappearance in which everything is made visible, laid bare.
Ten years later, the evidence of what Warne and Raff did is on
display in this exhibition of photographs, videos, remnants of
tattered fabric. The cottage on Ways Lane has ceased to exist as
architecture, yet in this show it receives a second, resurrected life
as trace. In residue and image, we can make out the graceful process
by which the cottage came to its end, the revelations of structure
and surface unfurling as the house was undone, the fugitive plays of
light and shadow across its frame during the stripping, tilting,
vanishing.
But the material assembled here - a fraction of what was created -
discloses not merely an architectural investigation, but also a
contemporary state of mind, a sensibility. It is one for which the
intense understanding of something slow and local is a path of wisdom
about larger worlds, a point of view in which the seeker declines to
devour information at the speed of mass culture, preferring instead
to learn the subtle truths that can only be grasped at the gentler
rate of the stride and stroll. The result is an art that resists
hurry, and a work that invites the viewer into a patient inquiry that
began with the house’s unbuilding, and that continues in this
exhibition.†(John Bentley Mays)
In April Urban Deconstructions will become part of the Images
Festival, during which time Marc Gloede, an experienced architectural
film curator and Gordon Matta-Clark expert, will be in Toronto to
complement this exhibition with a film series entitled Futurisms:
Urban Cinema. In May Urban Deconstructions will become a feature
exhibition at Toronto’s Contact Festival.
Over the past years the Goethe-Institut has focused its programming
on the theme of urbanism. Through the shows in the Goethe-Institut
Gallery we have been examining architectural, cultural, political and
aesthetic issues relating to metropolitan and cosmopolitan living in
today’s world. Architects Bruce Kuwabara and Axel Schultes offered us
the opportunity to discuss the significance of major architectural
landmarks such as the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and the
Bundeskanzleramt in the same city. Artists David Rokeby (Goethe-
Institut Gallery) and Harun Farocki (Present Tense Gallery, Art
Gallery of Ontario) exhibited work dealing with issues of
surveillance; Robin Collyer and Gosbert Adler exchanged cities,
bringing a fresh view to the urban setting of a “foreign†place; Vid
Ingelevics and Blake Fitzpatrick analyzed the political and artistic
afterlife of fragments of the Berlin Wall around the world; artists
as varied and complementary as Petra Karadimas, Robin Merkisch, Antje
Ehmann and Michael Awad looked at our urban industrial roots, the
invisible metamorphosis of a city and the challenge of bringing
together notions of past, present and future; and residency artists
Katja Stuke and Oliver Siever integrated into the fabric of
Toronto’s art scene, creating a new issue of their publication
entitled “Frau B?hm†and including Canadian artist Myles Collyer in
their virtual exhibition space. Two more urban themed exhibitions
are planned at the Goethe-Institut Gallery later this year.
John Bentley Mays and Doina Popescu would like to thank Paul Raff,
David Warne, Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann for their
collaboration and enthusiasm, as well as Eric Glavin, James King,
Kevin Krivel, and Jennifer Ujimoto for their assistance.
For more information, please contact
Doina Popescu
Deputy Director
Program Coordinator
Goethe-Institut Toronto
Arts1@toronto.goethe.org
416 5935257-16
----------------------------------------------------------------
Exhibition
URBAN DECONSTRUCTIONS
March 8 – September 2006
Goethe-Institut Gallery
163 King St. W. 416 5935257
www.goethe.de/toronto
Public Opening Wednesday March 8, 5-8 pm
Panel discussion with the artists, moderated by John Bentley Mays, 7-8pm
“Toronto Project†- a deconstruction of 163 King St. W./100
University Ave. through 3d computer animation, ink jet prints, and
drawings by Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann of Germany
“Unbuilding Ways†- a building demolition as artwork by architects
Paul Raff and David Warne of Toronto
In the current exhibition at the Goethe-Institut Gallery, co-curators
John Bentley Mays and Doina Popescu (Program Coordinator, Goethe-
Institut Toronto) have brought together Canadian architects/artists
Paul Raff and David Warne and German artists Alekos Hofstetter and
Holger Lippmann in a show entitled Urban Deconstructions. In this
exhibition, several Toronto buildings are deconstructed in ways which
open up new and important perspectives on architectural and artistic
expression within time.
Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann are multidisciplinary artists
from Berlin who have long careers working in collaborative settings
and as solo creators. This exhibition marks their first joint
project. Alekos Hofstetter had a solo painting exhibition in 2004
at Luft Gallery in Toronto during the Berlin-Toronto Gallery
Exchange. At that time some of the paintings from his Urban Decline
series were shown. Art critic Kristin Rieber points out that this
body of Hofstetter’s work “deals with the quickening pace of the
obsolescence of modern architecture and the decay of urban structures
in the era of globalization,†a theme that is central to the current
show as well. She continues by stressing that the artist “does not
occupy himself with the portrayal or the interpretation of an
immediate reality, but rather the representation of a reality which
itself is already fragmented and determined by the media.†New media
artist Holger Lippmann, on the other hand, “gave up his brushes and
paints to explore other aspects of the process and philosophy of
creating an image. What results is a dematerialized painting with
light.†(David Galloway) For the present exhibition, Alekos
Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann were sent documentary photographic
images of the building housing the Goethe-Institut Toronto (163 King
St. W./100 University Ave.) by artist Eric Glavin. On the basis of
these images, Alekos and Holger worked jointly on a series of
computer animations, drawings and ink jet prints through which they
“deconstruct†the building, which they saw for the first time on
March 3, 2006, a few weeks after completing the art works.
Toronto writer and journalist John Bentley Mays curated the Canadian
works in the show. After an inspired joint discussion on the theme
of this exhibition, he decided to bring in works by Toronto
architects/artists Paul Raff and David Warne. The curators were very
excited by the difference and by the relatedness of the creative
thought processes behind the works of two teams of remarkably dynamic
and intensely visionary artists.
As John Bentley Mays has written:
“ten years ago, architects David Warne and Paul Raff undertook the
gradual, meticulously studied demolition of a century-old Ontario
cottage on a laneway in downtown Toronto. The project, entitled
Unbuilding Ways, involved peeling away the house’s skin, undoing its
bones and uncovering its histories, and dropping the whole building
through 45 degrees of arc into the ground: a lingering apocalypse, a
disappearance in which everything is made visible, laid bare.
Ten years later, the evidence of what Warne and Raff did is on
display in this exhibition of photographs, videos, remnants of
tattered fabric. The cottage on Ways Lane has ceased to exist as
architecture, yet in this show it receives a second, resurrected life
as trace. In residue and image, we can make out the graceful process
by which the cottage came to its end, the revelations of structure
and surface unfurling as the house was undone, the fugitive plays of
light and shadow across its frame during the stripping, tilting,
vanishing.
But the material assembled here - a fraction of what was created -
discloses not merely an architectural investigation, but also a
contemporary state of mind, a sensibility. It is one for which the
intense understanding of something slow and local is a path of wisdom
about larger worlds, a point of view in which the seeker declines to
devour information at the speed of mass culture, preferring instead
to learn the subtle truths that can only be grasped at the gentler
rate of the stride and stroll. The result is an art that resists
hurry, and a work that invites the viewer into a patient inquiry that
began with the house’s unbuilding, and that continues in this
exhibition.†(John Bentley Mays)
In April Urban Deconstructions will become part of the Images
Festival, during which time Marc Gloede, an experienced architectural
film curator and Gordon Matta-Clark expert, will be in Toronto to
complement this exhibition with a film series entitled Futurisms:
Urban Cinema. In May Urban Deconstructions will become a feature
exhibition at Toronto’s Contact Festival.
Over the past years the Goethe-Institut has focused its programming
on the theme of urbanism. Through the shows in the Goethe-Institut
Gallery we have been examining architectural, cultural, political and
aesthetic issues relating to metropolitan and cosmopolitan living in
today’s world. Architects Bruce Kuwabara and Axel Schultes offered us
the opportunity to discuss the significance of major architectural
landmarks such as the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and the
Bundeskanzleramt in the same city. Artists David Rokeby (Goethe-
Institut Gallery) and Harun Farocki (Present Tense Gallery, Art
Gallery of Ontario) exhibited work dealing with issues of
surveillance; Robin Collyer and Gosbert Adler exchanged cities,
bringing a fresh view to the urban setting of a “foreign†place; Vid
Ingelevics and Blake Fitzpatrick analyzed the political and artistic
afterlife of fragments of the Berlin Wall around the world; artists
as varied and complementary as Petra Karadimas, Robin Merkisch, Antje
Ehmann and Michael Awad looked at our urban industrial roots, the
invisible metamorphosis of a city and the challenge of bringing
together notions of past, present and future; and residency artists
Katja Stuke and Oliver Siever integrated into the fabric of
Toronto’s art scene, creating a new issue of their publication
entitled “Frau B?hm†and including Canadian artist Myles Collyer in
their virtual exhibition space. Two more urban themed exhibitions
are planned at the Goethe-Institut Gallery later this year.
John Bentley Mays and Doina Popescu would like to thank Paul Raff,
David Warne, Alekos Hofstetter and Holger Lippmann for their
collaboration and enthusiasm, as well as Eric Glavin, James King,
Kevin Krivel, and Jennifer Ujimoto for their assistance.
For more information, please contact
Doina Popescu
Deputy Director
Program Coordinator
Goethe-Institut Toronto
Arts1@toronto.goethe.org
416 5935257-16