Coming soon to a wall near you
For the next nine days, Concordia is playing host to a singular creative exercise: 27 students will be reproducing wall drawings by Sol LeWitt, a pioneer of minimalism and conceptual art.
The event marks the launch of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FOFA) Gallery’s 2013-14 programming year, along with the opening of the main exhibition La Rentrée and the arrival of Anthony Sansotta, artist and long-time assistant to Sol LeWitt.
LeWitt (1928-2007) was a dedicated teacher. By encouraging students to recreate his wall drawings under instruction, he hoped to allow them to focus on their own originality, and to learn to separate the idea of a work of art from its production. LeWitt’s concept of idea and production is similar to that of choreography and performance — the steps may be the same, but every dancer’s interpretation of a Swan Lake solo is different.
From September 3 to 12, Concordia student artists will produce four wall drawings under Sansotta’s guidance.
The drawings are deceptively simple geometric structures. Wall drawings #394 and #1099 will be created at the FOFA Gallery; wall drawings #123A
and #103 will be produced on the second floor of the Visual Arts Building. The sites are open to the public throughout the production period.
In a concurrent exhibition called La Rentrée, the FOFA Gallery is featuring the work of three Concordia artists.
Gallery director jake moore could not be more excited by how La Rentrée came together. “TheRentrée of 2013 is a thrilling example of the polyphonic nature of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia,” she says.
“In addition to facilitating the production of several Sol LeWitt drawings, we are producing a major new site work of form and colour by Kyla Chevrier [BFA 08], showing poetic video from [studio arts student] Alexandra Côté and hosting the sculptural office implements of MFA candidate Candice Davies. The scope of the programming is almost as broad as that of the faculty, and equal in its depth of practice and outreach.”
Chevrier’s All Betting and Cashing, which will be displayed in the main gallery, is a large-scale installation that explores physical and psychological boundaries by constructing two planes in one space. Visitors may note that elements of her work parallel those of the LeWitt drawings.
Côté’s J’vas t’attendre is a 20-minute video set up in the black box area of the gallery. It examines the longing implicit within a distance relationship.
Davis’s Supply, which is also on view in the main gallery, showcases replicated office equipment with a twist. It draws attention to an object’s meaning by engaging the viewer in unexpected ways. Davis’s pieces echo the conceptual movement LeWitt helped to forge.
COMBINE (November 4 to December 6), the annual Fine Arts undergraduate student exhibition, will conclude the fall programming.
The FOFA Gallery will also host a series of related events throughout fall, including the Systems and Iterations panel discussion on October 5, a LeWitt-on-film screening series on October 12, and the Deskilling/Reskilling symposium in November.
