Fine Art Book Announcements News and Information That Means Business

Prefix ICA presents Prefix Photo 25 and Pascal Grandmaison

Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the release of the twenty-fifth issue of Prefix Photo magazine. Editor Scott McLeod has assembled an array of writers and artists, all of whom engage with the subjects of land and sea in their critical explorations of labour, industry, transportation, communication and trade, as follows:

Architectural historian and critic Kenneth Hayes examines photographers Louie Palu, Edward Burtynsky and Allan Sekula and their photographic observations of Sudbury, Ontario, a city uniquely identified with mining. The three artists worked independently, but all had a complex, extended engagement with the place, and with the genre of mining photography.

Artist and educator Robert Bean considers how photographic artist Scott Conarroe, in his photographic series By Sea, subtly suggests, through his careful inscription of place, the threat posed by environmental, economic, social and political crises, both past and future. Like the sea itself, Conarroe’s exquisitely luminous and ostensibly tranquil land- and seascapes contain an immanent peril.

Art historian Anja Bock discusses Pascal Grandmaison‘s photographic and video work since 2006, with emphasis on his monumental Half of the Darkness. Drawing on Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Margaret Iverson and Eric Rosenberg, the author argues that Grandmaison uses strategies of indirection (such as reversal, doubling and inversion) to call attention to the “visualization error” of the photographic and modernist viewpoint.

Other contributors include Susan Dobson, Andreas Fogarasi, Louis Helbig, J.J. Kegan McFadden, Catherine Opie, Jill Glessing, Sarah Munro, Amanda Rataj and Dot Tuer.

On the occasion of the release of the magazine, Prefix is proud to present Half of the Darkness, an exhibition by Montréal artist Pascal Grandmaison, curated by Scott McLeod. The release party for the magazine and the opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012, from 7 to 10 PM at Prefix, located at 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124, Toronto. The artist, writer and curator will be present. Admission is free. The exhibition continues until July 21st, 2012.

For additional information on the release party for issue 25, the opening reception for Half of the Darkness and other Prefix events, please visit our Facebook page or www.prefix.ca.

Prefix Photo is published by Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Inc., a registered charitable organization that fosters the appreciation and understanding of contemporary photography, media and digital arts. Prefix Photo is available by subscription and in fine bookstores and newsstands in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Prefix Photo acknowledges its Supporting Sponsor Steam Whistle Brewing and its Official Catering Sponsor à la Carte Kitchen for their assistance with the release party held for Prefix Photo 25 in Toronto.

Prefix Photo acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Prefix Photo also acknowledges the assistance of its staff, volunteers and patrons, as well as the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.

For their assistance with the exhibition Half of the Darkness, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art gratefully acknowledges the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. The work appears courtesy of the Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; gift of the artist.

Subscribe at www.prefix.ca

Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art
124–401 Richmond Street West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 3A8

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *