Captial, Jeff Winch, Photo
HTML Decay, Stan Krzyzanowski, Video StillEd Video Media Arts Centre presents:
‘Accidentally Perfect’
Artists:
Stan Krzyzanowski
Jeff Winch
Curator:
Sophia Zheshui Lin
September 16 – October 8, 2010
Reception: September 24, 7pm-10pm
Artist talks/workshops: September 25, 2pm-4pm
Ed Video Gallery
40 Baker Street, Guelph
Monday - Friday, 10am-5pm
www.edvideo.org
(519)836-9811
To view the online catalogue, please click:
www.ocadstan.ca/accidentallyPerfect/catalogue
When the idea to curate an exhibition called Accidentally Perfect was first formed, Stan Krzyzanowski’s name immediately came to mind. Kryzanwoski’s optimistic and sensible attitude towards his surroundings and his practice wholly embody the concepts Accidentally Perfect seeks to explore. His works are often about looking for and discovering perfections in familiar experiences. Krzyzanowski’s time-lapse video archive on his “Interval” website records hundreds of those findings, such as depictions of the Queen from her younger years to recent times by photographing the portrayals of the Queen on Canadian cents from 1941 to 2004 in order of sequence. When more digital and mechanical elements appear in Kryzanowski’s work, the new technologies do not cause him to waiver in his interests in natural behaviours, but rather strengthen and extend his curiosity to encompass the characteristics of modern technologies as well. His works use patterns and time-lapse videos as tools to remind himself of these discoveries.
The meaning of “accidentally perfect” cannot be expressed by a singular answer. One reading of this idea is to exhibit perfections that happen almost coincidentally; under this interpretation, Kryzanowski’s work is a clear match. Another interpretation of “accidentally perfect,” however, calls for a critical reading of what it means to be “perfect”. The search for this meaning prompts a wide array of questions: How do we define what it means to be “perfect”? What defines “accidental”? Can perfections exist? Jeff Winch joins the exhibition as his artwork seeks to answer such questions.
Winch is not only an artist and accomplished filmmaker, but also a local activist whose work often highlights the hypocrisies of Western ideals. His latest documentary, Bending the Rails, takes aim at a massive diesel rail expansion underway in Toronto and exposes some dirty politics (and at least one inept politician) along the way. In “accidentally perfect,” his photographs and interactive video installation raise some important questions. He asks us to look critically at the social “norms” we have come to see as ideal, and to ask ourselves, is a perfect middle-class lifestyle really perfect? Who pays the price for our affluence and desires?
Further complementing the on-site exhibition are two Canadian word-artists with two very different approaches to the concept of Accidentally Perfect. Dorianne Emmerton and Nichola (Nicki) Ward, bring their contributions to our exhibition with works inspired by the central theme of accidental perfection.
Emmerton focuses on using theme elements to create accidental narrative in a prose poetry medium. Ward, by contrast, takes a deconstructionist approach by using computer software to randomize theme elements, then using traditional techniques to transform them into rigidly structured Dadaist poems. The resulting pieces interact both with each other and with the exhibition to create new “perfect accidents”.
This world is full of wonders and doubts, matter and nothingness, facts and feelings, perceptions and reality. In Eastern philosophy, the elements of Ying and Yang help create a balanced world; consider, for example, the sun and the moon, regarded as opposites to one another, yet both are equally important to our life on earth. Kryzanowski and Winch’s works, in the exhibition Accidentally Perfect, are exactly that. Their works are complementary, yet they also create a tension that allows this exhibition to present a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the concept of “accidentally perfect”. The exhibition and the catalogue present the works of several artists, not so that one may judge which artist is favoured, but to raise discussions. The hope is that after you walk out of this exhibition, you will think critically about the easily-overlooked moments in our world, wherein may lie hidden perfections created by sheer accident.
When the idea to curate an exhibition called Accidentally Perfect was first formed, Stan Krzyzanowski’s name immediately came to mind. Kryzanwoski’s optimistic and sensible attitude towards his surroundings and his practice wholly embody the concepts Accidentally Perfect seeks to explore. His works are often about looking for and discovering perfections in familiar experiences. Krzyzanowski’s time-lapse video archive on his “Interval” website records hundreds of those findings, such as depictions of the Queen from her younger years to recent times by photographing the portrayals of the Queen on Canadian cents from 1941 to 2004 in order of sequence. When more digital and mechanical elements appear in Kryzanowski’s work, the new technologies do not cause him to waiver in his interests in natural behaviours, but rather strengthen and extend his curiosity to encompass the characteristics of modern technologies as well. His works use patterns and time-lapse videos as tools to remind himself of these discoveries.
The meaning of “accidentally perfect” cannot be expressed by a singular answer. One reading of this idea is to exhibit perfections that happen almost coincidentally; under this interpretation, Kryzanowski’s work is a clear match. Another interpretation of “accidentally perfect,” however, calls for a critical reading of what it means to be “perfect”. The search for this meaning prompts a wide array of questions: How do we define what it means to be “perfect”? What defines “accidental”? Can perfections exist? Jeff Winch joins the exhibition as his artwork seeks to answer such questions.
Winch is not only an artist and accomplished filmmaker, but also a local activist whose work often highlights the hypocrisies of Western ideals. His latest documentary, Bending the Rails, takes aim at a massive diesel rail expansion underway in Toronto and exposes some dirty politics (and at least one inept politician) along the way. In “accidentally perfect,” his photographs and interactive video installation raise some important questions. He asks us to look critically at the social “norms” we have come to see as ideal, and to ask ourselves, is a perfect middle-class lifestyle really perfect? Who pays the price for our affluence and desires?
Further complementing the on-site exhibition are two Canadian word-artists with two very different approaches to the concept of Accidentally Perfect. Dorianne Emmerton and Nichola (Nicki) Ward, bring their contributions to our exhibition with works inspired by the central theme of accidental perfection.
Emmerton focuses on using theme elements to create accidental narrative in a prose poetry medium. Ward, by contrast, takes a deconstructionist approach by using computer software to randomize theme elements, then using traditional techniques to transform them into rigidly structured Dadaist poems. The resulting pieces interact both with each other and with the exhibition to create new “perfect accidents”.
This world is full of wonders and doubts, matter and nothingness, facts and feelings, perceptions and reality. In Eastern philosophy, the elements of Ying and Yang help create a balanced world; consider, for example, the sun and the moon, regarded as opposites to one another, yet both are equally important to our life on earth. Kryzanowski and Winch’s works, in the exhibition Accidentally Perfect, are exactly that. Their works are complementary, yet they also create a tension that allows this exhibition to present a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the concept of “accidentally perfect”. The exhibition and the catalogue present the works of several artists, not so that one may judge which artist is favoured, but to raise discussions. The hope is that after you walk out of this exhibition, you will think critically about the easily-overlooked moments in our world, wherein may lie hidden perfections created by sheer accident.
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