SEPTEMBER 5 – DECEMBER 29, 2013
Beginning in the 1970s and throughout his four-decade career, Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg has explored the increasingly insidious ways in which technologies have infiltrated our lives—through our culture, our bodies, our minds and our souls, transforming what it means to be human. For David Cronenberg: Transformation, six artists with clear affinities for Cronenberg’s films have been invited to respond to a specific theme in his work: the yearning in human beings to witness the next stage of human evolution. The artists range in primary practice, but their work reflects the enormous impact of Cronenberg on visual- arts language, and is a testament to the director’s own ongoing engagement with visual art.
There are various strategies that the artists invoke through Cronenberg’s cinema to interrogate contemporary culture. Some works within the exhibition reference specific films, scenes and scripts; others explore Cronenberg’s ideas less directly, projecting a distinctive Cronenbergian spirit or sensibility. All six artists enthusiastically proclaim to be inspired and influenced by David Cronenberg. As the concept of transformation has been at the core of Cronenberg’s films, so it is that his work has, in turn, had a transformative effect on these artists and many more of their generation.
Candice Breitz/ James Coupe/ Marcel Dzama/ Jeremy Shaw/ Jamie Shovlin/ Laurel Woodcock
Organized by MOCCA and TIFF
Curated by David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA, and Noah Cowan, Artistic Director, TIFF Bell Lightbox
Installation
Video
Banner Image: Marcel Dzama, Une danse des bouffons (or A jester’s dance), 2013. Single channel video installation with original soundtrack. Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner Gallery, New York/London.
Image Gallery: Tom Arban Photography
Opening Reception
Wednesday September 4, 8 pm
Programming
Artist Talks Saturday September 7, 3:30 pm In Conversation with David Liss: Candice Breitz and Jamie Shovlin
Sponsors
Government of Ontario
Canada Council for the Arts
Hal Jackman Foundation
