February 4 – March 28, 2010
Project Space
Always Already, Will Gorlitz’s new work for MOCCA’s Project Space, imagines a possible future which was provoked by a recent encounter with an 18th C European allegorical painting by Johann Melchior Roos. An artwork of enormous, commanding scale, the painting presents a highly idealized view of the world where disparate varieties of animal species are gathered together without strife in a lush natural environment for a group portrait. The painting was produced in a time when human superiority and stewardship over the natural world were absolutely assumed. However, in our era of environmental crisis, this original meaning has been fundamentally lost. Always Already is a response to this shift. The installation involves several distinct groupings of paintings, modest in scale and empathetically painted, each separately depicting a variety of animal species stranded in a desolate frozen environment. The setting is unspecific yet its probability never in doubt.
Curated by David Liss Organized by MOCCA
About the Artist Guelph-based artist Will Gorlitz was born in Buenos Aires and raised in Winnipeg. He studied at both the University of Manitoba School of Art and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Gorlitz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in exhibitions including the Shanghai Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Power Plant, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Sao Paulo Bienal. He is a Professor in the Studio Art program of the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph. Will Gorlitz is represented by Michael Gibson Gallery (London, ON); Birch Libralato (Toronto); and Galerie René Blouin (Montreal).
Installation Shots
Opening Reception
Saturday February 6, 2 – 5 pm
