20 May 2010

Manif d'art 5 - The Québec City Biennial

MANIF D'ART 5—The Québec City Biennial
Catastrophe? Quelle Catastrophe!
We All Live in A Catastrophic World
May 1 - June 13, 2010
Curator: Sylvie Fortin
Québec City, Canada
www.manifdart.org

Manif d'art 5, the Québec City Biennial's fifth edition, casts the historical city as a protagonist in the exploration of catastrophe's role in contemporary life.

The catastrophic event is always distant, at something of a remove on our television screen or repressed by our psychic coping mechanisms. But catastrophe is also always here—variously present. Its battlefield is exceptionally vast, encompassing mathematics, physics, biology and their applied fields, in addition to philosophy and the arts. Simultaneously here and elsewhere, catastropheʼs dual, paradoxical nature makes it all the more politically potent.

Catastrophe is absolutely central to Western thought, where it has worked its ravage through the millennia, uniquely able to refresh its appearance to meet the needs of each new era. Each of its reinventions has just the right balance of conformity and excess to seemingly fit pre-existing narrative structures while it operates deep social, economic and political reconfigurations.

While catastrophe dominates the contemporary imaginary and mainstream media, its real work remains elusive. Its hypervisibility safeguards its foundational, requisite invisibility. Which is to say that the omnipresence of the catastrophic event ensures the invisibility of catastrophe's real work. Politically, the catastrophe is used to legitimize the enactment of states of exception. But in recent years, catastrophe has also been put to preemptive use. We no longer need a catastrophic event to be subjected to the logic of catastrophe. As such, its operational terrain has expanded to the entirety of time and space, and catastrophe has becomes the condition of contemporary life.


CURATOR

Sylvie Fortin is an independent curator, art historian, critic and editor. She became Editor-in-Chief of ART PAPERS in October 2004, spearheading the magazine's redefinition and redesign, which positioned it as a leading international contemporary art magazine. Fortin was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa, 1996-2001), Program Coordinator at la chambre blanche (Québec City, 1991-1994), and a collaborator with OBORO (Montreal, 1994-2001). Her critical essays have appeared in a variety of Canadian, American and European publications including Art Press, C Magazine, Espace, Fuse, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and Parachute. She lives in Atlanta.


ARTISTS

Manif d'art 5 features new and recent works by thirty-six artists and collectives from 13 countries:

Patrick Altman (Québec, Canada)
Salvatore Arancio (London, UK)
Bill Burns (Toronto, Canada)
Luca Buvoli (New York, USA)
Cooke-Sasseville (Québec, Canada)
Doyon/Demers (Québec, Canada)
Sarah Emerson (Atlanta, USA)
Carole Epp (Saskatoon, Canada)
Brendan Fernandes (Toronto, Canada / New York, USA)
Amélie Laurence Fortin (Québec, Canada)
Laurent Grasso (Paris, France)
Johan Grimonprez (Brussels, Belgium / New York, USA)
Milutin Gubash (Montréal, Canada)
Hadley+Maxwell (Vancouver, Canada / Berlin, Germany)
Maryam Jafri (Karachi, Pakistan/Copenhagen, Denmark/New York, USA)
Loup Gris (Québec, Canada)
Gwen MacGregor (Toronto, Canada)
Lynne Marsh (Montréal, Canada / Berlin, Germany / London, UK)
Daniel Joseph Martinez (Los Angeles, USA)
Michael Jones McKean (Richmond, USA)
Gean Moreno (Miami, USA)
Ahmet Ögüt (Istanbul,Turkey / Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Ernesto Oroza (Miami, USA)
Iván Navarro (New York, USA)
Trevor Paglen (Berkeley, USA)
Christodoulos Panayiotou (Chypre)
Gwendoline Robin (Brussels, Belgium)
Samuel Roy-Bois (Vancouver, Canada)
SUPERFLEX (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Katherine Taylor (Atlanta, USA)
Myriam Yates (Lennoxville, Canada)


VENUES

Manif d'art 5 connects a number of temporary public sites to Québec City's main
cultural institutions (Avatar, Engramme, Folie/Culture, Galerie des arts visuels de l'Université Laval, La Bande Vidéo, LA CHAMBRE BLANCHE, Le Lieu, L'Œil de Poisson, MATERIA, Musée de la civilisation de Québec, Regart and VU), creating a walkable itinerary through the city's central, historic sectors.


MANIF D'ART 5 - STARTING POINT

Place Québec - 880 Honoré-Mercier Avenue, Québec


ACCESS

The $12 pass includes an admission button and a bilingual guide. The button is required for admission to the Biennial's central exhibitions. The pocket-size guide features a curatorial introduction, a map, and useful information on the venues, the artists, and satellite projects.

General Admission: $12
Package Deal: $18 (2 buttons and 1 bilingual guide)
Student: $10
Children under 12 accompanied by a pass-holding adult: free

All rates include taxes


ABOUT MANIFESTATION INTERNATIONALE D'ART DE QUEBEC

Manifestation internationale d'art de Québec's mission is to promote investigative and experimental art by showcasing cutting-edge major trends in visual art from Québec, Canada and abroad.

Addressing a varied public, the organization establishes contexts for non-conventional production and exhibition, thereby fostering the emergence of new issues in contemporary art.


ABOUT MANIF D'ART

In keeping with its mandate, Manifestation internationale d'art de Québec is responsible for several projects, the most important of which is the Manif d'art, the Québec City biennial.

Located in the heart of the national capital, the Manif d'art is held every two years in May and June. A thematic event devoted to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary art, the biennial is distributed among various locations in the Saint-Roch quarter and rallies numerous collaborators from the cultural and artistic sectors.

Activities include:

- Artists from Québec, Canada, and abroad, featured in important exhibitions that showcase cutting edge trends in contemporary art
- Colloquiums and forums for the general public and for specialists to examine issues and trends relating to contemporary art
- Satellite activities comprising shows, presentations and theme-related activities in which varied artistic disciplines rub shoulders


MEDIA CONTACT

For additional information, images, or to request an interview, please contact:
Marie-Ã?ve Charlebois, Communications Sira ba
+1.418.524.4648 marie-eve@sira-ba.com

For general inquiries on Québec City and Manif d'art 5, please contact:
Martine Goulet and Christian Talbot, Communications Coordinators
+1.418.524.1917 communication@manifdart.org