Art Gallery of Mississauga, two exhibitions + New Projection Access space July 17 – September 7, 2008
Opening receptions; Thursday, July 17th 6 pm – 9pmA FREE SHUTTLE BUS will depart at 7 pm, Thursday, July 17th, from the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen Street West, Toronto) returning at 9 pm. To reserve seats please call Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot at (905) 896-5507 or email suzanne.carte-blanchenot@mississauga.ca
Projection Access launch with a work by Heather Keung. Heather Keung is the inaugural artist exhibiting work on the AGM’s new Projection Access space, situated in the corridor outside the Gallery, the media projection space brings art to visitors of the Mississauga Civic centre.
Inspired by repetitive daily actions and physical labour, Heather Keung's current media work investigates involuntary responses, habitual social behaviours, and the training of the mind and body.
Explorers and Dandies in an open letter to Canada Post: Frederick Hagan & Kent Monkman
Curated by Su-Ying LeeThrough Canada Post’s process of approving postage stamp imagery, and the works of artists Frederick Hagan and Kent Monkman, this exhibition asks “who has the authority to officiate over our history?” Critical examination and cheeky humour reveal the history-of-our-history, that is, how institutions determine and prescribe the standard version of history.
In tandem with the exhibition, a formal proposal has been presented to the Canada Post Stamp Advisory Committee. In the institution’s tradition of commissioning Canadian artists, Kent Monkman’s name has been put forward for consideration to design a stamp. If you wish to join the appeal, pick up a petition card at the Art Gallery of Mississauga.
A catalogue has been produced for the exhibition which includes essays by Annemarie Hagan, Mark Kingwell and Su-Ying Lee. An attempt to produce a multiple for inclusion in the publication, through Canada Post’s paid Picture Postage service was twice rejected citing Kent Monkman’s images as “inappropriate”. 
Frederick HaganExploration-Lithograph Portfolio, 1989lithograph48 x 56 cmFrederick Hagan’s (b. 1918, d. 2003) works have had the honour of being sanctioned to represent Canadian history. Issued from 1986-89, the Explorations of Canada postage stamp series was commissioned by Canada Post to honour select explorers. Although bestowed the honour of the commission, under the direction of Canada Post, Hagan’s original designs did not wholly emerge. Unable to satisfactorily realize his conceptual ambitions through the commission, Hagan was compelled to continue production on the theme of exploration. Amending the Explorations of Canada title from the stamp series to simply Exploration, the artist encompassed broader connotations through this ambitious series of lithographs. Analogously, the current practice of artist Kent Monkman regards history. However, it is an unsanctioned history which the artist constructs from the mined personal accounts of George Catlin, the traditions of 19th century landscape painting and the experiences of indigenous and two-spirited people. Central to Monkman’s current body of work are the dandies –“glamorously garbed aboriginal men” with little tribal status, as referred to in Catlin’s accounts. Monkman reconstructs the dandies’ images to consider authorship and authenticity, bringing attention to the exclusiveness of popularly prescribed history. 
Highly visible and widely disseminated, Canadian postage stamps function as communal reinforcement, enmeshing selected representations with the principle annals of Canadian history. This exhibition is furthermore an appeal to Canada Post to evolve its accounts toward inclusiveness.
Faint Heart 9,273, Kent Monkman, 2008, watercolour on paper, 12” x 9”. Collection of the artist.
Models for Public Spaces
Adrian Blackwell
Curated by Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot
Blackwell’s sculptures will sit in and outside of the gallery as infrastructures for both action and contemplation. These physical constructions act as diagrams for the strategic relations between different people in social space, opening up questions about the boundaries of the "public" in a city like Mississauga.
Models for Public Spaces presents an archive of experiments in the relation between urban space and social practices. The exhibition will survey Blackwell’s investigations, public works and collaborative structures built to produce new locations for collective action and public discourse including, How to open a car like a book, Public Water Closet, Car Pool, light net and Monster.
Previously unseen proposals dedicated for the City of Toronto such as Unofficial Entry to the Dundas Square Competition and Two-way mirror travel with Marcin Kedzior, for a sculpture on the Union Station Subway Platform further reflect the ongoing exploration into the alteration of existing spaces to encourage new ways of seeing and interacting.
Constructed to facilitate conversation between large numbers of people, Blackwell’s Model for a Public Space (speaker) will be erected in the Civic Square to open discourse around the question of what constitutes a healthy city the week of July 23rd. This circular, ramping seating structure, initially built for Toronto’s first Nuit Blanche, looks like a crater or a speaker facing upwards. Through this simple shape it is possible to sit looking inward towards one another or outward to the surrounding city. 
EVENTS:
Forum - Heritage Complex Sunday July 27, 3:00 pm
The conversational forum will be reflecting on the Art Gallery of Peel's exhibition, Heritage Complex, curated by Atanas Bozdarov and Tejpal Ajji. Speakers include,
Artist Eric Glavin and Architect Alan Tregebov.
Heritage Complex examines the built environments of cities that have recently developed adjacent to more traditionally understood urban centres.
Screening - Radiant City Tuesday August 12, 7:00 pm
Directors: Gary Burns and Jim Brown, Canada, 2007
Whether you call it sprawl or growth, the suburbs have been the dominant form of community planning in North America for fifty years. In this incisive study, Burns and Brown peer into the windows and lives of those who call suburbia home.
Adrian Blackwell is an artist and urban and architectural designer, whose work focuses on the spaces and forces of uneven development produced through processes of Post-fordist urbanization.
Blackwell has exhibited across Canada at artist run centers and public institutions including Mercer Union, The New Gallery, The Hamilton Art Gallery, The Power Plant and the Mackenzie Art Gallery, at the University of Michigan, LACE Gallery in Los Angeles, and at the 2005 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. Most recent exhibitions include Heritage Complex at the Art Gallery of Peel and Site Visits at Cambridge Galleries.
In 2005 Blackwell co-edited Unboxed: Engagements in Social Space, with Jen Budney and co-curated the exhibition Detours: Tactical Approaches to Urbanization in China with Pei Zhao. Since 1997 he has taught architecture and urban design at the University of Toronto, initiating the school’s China Global Architecture program in 2004. He has been a visiting professor at Chongqing University and at the University of Michigan’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. In 2007 Blackwell won the competition to revitalize Nathan Phillips Square in collaboration with PLANT Architect Inc, Shore Tilbe Irwin and Partners, and Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture.
For more information on publications, programming and activities at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, please call (905) 896‑5088 or view the Gallery’s website at www.artgalleryofmississauga.com
300 CITY CENTRE DRIVE, MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO, CANADA L5B3C1
TELEPHONE (905) 896-5088 FAX (905) 615-4167
WEBSITE: http://www.artgalleryofmississauga.com/
A public art gallery sponsored by the City of Mississauga, the Ontario Arts Council, The Canada Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, The Pendle Fund at the Community Foundations of Mississauga, Corporations, Private Citizens and its Membership
