I always wanted to sign up for Eharmony just to see how they would profile me. I love the idea that surveys, algorithms and stats can create “compatible” matches between two people – assuming of course we want someone who is exactly like us (maybe that’s unfair – maybe there’s a box you click for “Do not pair me with people as messed up as me”). OKCupid’s stats are much funnier, but also speak volumes about our comfort level with this use of technology for romantic purposes. More importantly, OKCupid’s blog is an advice column, so they give you pointers on how to use their system to better attract potential mates. For example; As women get older they can attract 79% percent more-than-usual messages from potential mates per month if they show some cleavage in their profile photos. For younger women, the percentage of increased messages is only 24%. Men flexing their abs, on the other hand, have the reverse effect – declining with age. They still get more than usual responses from women they message, but not at the same rate.

Of course I chose the most crass of the examples I could find, but there are lots more. The recent posts about race-trending are interesting as well.

Maybe I should start a project where I sign up for a dating site, get a few dates lined up, and then send my impostor Jacqueline van de Geer in my place. I guess the  online dating scene is just a stats game.

Bruce Nauman, Fountain (1966-67/1970)

Saburo Murakami, Breaking through many paper screens (1956)

Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present (2010)

Yves Klein, Leap into the Void (1960)

Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965)

Vito Acconci, Following piece (1969)

Gina Pane, The Conditioning, first action of Self-Portrait(s) (1973)

Vito Acconci, Seed Bed (1972)

Nam June Paik, Zen for Head (1962)

Vito Acconci, Prying (1971)

Bee Man will screen in the Planet in Focus Film Festival in Toronto on Friday, October 15, 5pm @ the Royal Ontario Museum (for tickets go here). The film will open for Queen of the Sun, a documentary that looks at the bee colony collapse problem.

Robert Ireland, the Bee Man himself, will be in attendance.

However experiencing art class 101 all over again from the safe distance of home is too much for me. I was surprised in the lack of art class romances. Overall, though, I’m interested in the amount of reaction there has been to the show, and the amount of discourse about art that it has helped generate. Why is the art community so put off by the show? Why do mainstream critics love to rip into the show, even though they obviously enjoy it? This article by Tom McCormack sorts a lot of these issues out:

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/market-forces-20100810

McCormack discusses the various viewer-positions for the show including those who think art should be free of the market, those who see it as working together, and those who hate both (he uses Pierre Bourdieu for this model). I’m interested to see how people who are not really involved in the arts perceive the show, because that’s who it’s really aimed at. Whereas Project Runway succeeds in teaching the audience the very basics about fashion (at least it teaches you what to look for), can Work of Art actually explain to people how artists make art? What values and models of appreciation does it impose on the viewers? What type of art does it teach us to appreciate? What is the relationship to the market for the art made on the show? These are very Bourdieu-esque questions.

So would I watch another season? Probably.

Dudes (2008), video still

14 Aug 2010 – 17 Oct 2010

The creation and presentation of self through assumed personae is as old as theatre. Today YouTube, Facebook and other social networking sites enable individuals to create myriad versions of themselves capable of interactions with an ever-expanding on-line audience.

Jasmine Valentina offers a series of YouTube videos featuring herself in drag as Harold, a femme Woody Allen-like heterosexual male. Through comically stereotyped performance, the character challenges viewers’ expectations about masculinity and feminist identity.

Robert Lendrum investigates self-perception through an online project in which he surveyed friends, family and co-workers to gather their impressions and memories of him. The results are interpreted by a hired actor whose interactions with his perceived persona generate plenty of laughs.

Nadja Sayej, the outrageous host and gonzo art reporter of ArtStars*, operates as entertainer and critic, using costume and mainstream social networking sites to expose art world egos and rituals.

Curated by Jennifer Simaitis

Robert Lendrum, Elizabeth Milton and Sheila Poznikoff, Kika Nicolela, Melissa Pauw, and Joshua and Zachary Sandler

Curated by Arpi Kovacs and Gabrielle Moser

June 24 to July 31, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 24, 7 – 9 pm

Let’s make this uncomfortable – panel discussion
Saturday June 26, 2010, 4 – 6pm

This is uncomfortable brings together video works that explore the nuances of awkwardness in intimate interactions between artist and subject. Taking cues from a recent history of relational aesthetics, these works are the outcome of artists experimenting with people, setting up parameters for social encounters and allowing them to play out in front of the camera. These encounters are then restructured through the editing process, but rather than undermining the sincerity of such encounters, the works productively destabilize perceived utopian notions of relationality. The videos in this exhibition picture the artist’s attempts to relate and connect to their subject(s) in a way which foregrounds, rather than obscures, the social discomfort and power dynamics inherent in these interactions. Such choreographies are equally concerned with grand narratives and dramatic consequences as they are with self-reflection and moments of the quotidian. Explicitly including themselves in the frame or soundtrack of their videos, Robert Lendrum (Toronto), Elizabeth Milton and Sheila Poznikoff (Vancouver), Kika Nicolela (Brazil), Melissa Pauw (Toronto), and Joshua and Zachary Sandler (New York) draw attention to their own participation and mediation in establishing relations with others.

About the curators:  Arpi Kovacs is a writer, independent curator and recent graduate of York University’s art history master’s program. He is currently a graduate intern in the Department of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. where he is co-curating the upcoming exhibition in/visible. Gabrielle Moser is a writer, curator and PhD student studying art history and visual culture at York University in Toronto. She is the Assistant Editor of Canadian Art magazine and has curated exhibitions for Sleepwalker Projects, Vtape, Xpace and The Leona Drive Project. Her writing appears in Canadian Art, C magazine, esse, Fillip, Invisible Culture and in Gallery 44’s bookEmergence: Contemporary Photography in Canada.

Let’s make this uncomfortable – panel discussion
Saturday June 26, 2010, 4-6pm

What are the roles and responsibilities of the artist in inciting and managing social interactions between strangers? Can experiences of social interaction be translated to viewers through the medium of video? In response to the exhibition This is uncomfortable, a panel of discussants will address these questions and more as we explore ideas of discomfort, vulnerability and the emotional consequences of social interactions gone awry in lens based practices.

Panelists: Jon Davies is the Assistant Curator of Public Programs at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and critic whose writings focus on film and video based practices. Sharon Sliwinski is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario and explores photography’s connection to issues of human rights. Kika Nicolela is a participating artist in the exhibition whose work is tied to issues of vulnerability. Matthew Ryan Smithis a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Ontario whose research and writing explores autobiography and confessional practices.

Moderators Arpi Kovacs and Gabrielle Moser (co-curators of the exhibition).

Gallery TPW
56 Ossington Avenue
Toronto, ON. M6J 2Y7
p: 416.645.1066
f: 416.645.1681
w: www.gallerytpw.ca

Gallery Hours:
Tuesdays – Saturdays, 12 – 5pm

For more information, visit the Gallery TPW website here.

For this exhibition, I will be presenting four videos from the Impostor series.

Dudes (2008), video still

Bee Man was made in collaboration with Morris Lum and Drew Ferguson, with music by the Parkas.