Past

Sights and Sounds: Canada

Apr. 25 – May 29, 2014

Sights and Sounds: Canada features new work by Robert Arndt, Julia Feyrer, Public Studio, and Kevin Schmidt, selected by Melanie O’Brian.

Works by the Canadian artists Robert Arndt, Julia Feyrer, Public Studio, and Kevin Schmidt call attention to individual subjectivities and put forward a way of engaging with larger constructions of identity through shared landscapes and nationality, as well as colonial, political, and cultural histories. Issues of history and place are at the core of this selection: the location of self through everyday objects; the creation of a collaborative, performative art environment; dark missionary histories; language conflicts; and the vast panoramas that characterize Canada. Landscape has long been a defining factor in Canadian identity and art—from wilderness to interior space. In addressing such questions, these four artists reach beyond national borders.

Melanie O’Brian
Curator

Melanie O’Brian (b. Toronto, 1973) is director/curator of Simon Fraser University Galleries in Vancouver. Previously she was curator at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, director/curator of Artspeak in Vancouver, and assistant curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She is the editor of;5,000 Feet Is the Best: Omer Fast (Sternberg Press, 2012)Stan Douglas: Entertainment (The Power Plant, 2011)Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism (Fillip/Artspeak, 2010); andVancouver Art & Economies(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007).

About Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video

This long-term series offers a rotating selection of vigorous film and video works by contemporary artists from around the world — with a particular emphasis on work being made outside western Europe and the United States.

Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video is a long-term presentation of new film and video works made in the sphere of the visual arts. The series offers a rotating selection of vigorous works by contemporary artists from around the world. It introduces New York audiences to the latest developments in filmmaking within the art context and underlines the Jewish Museum’s holistic and global approach to the understanding and presentation of art and culture.

Sights and Sounds takes advantage of the straightforward way film and video travel: shipped on discs or streamed online, these works provide an instant connection to new creative practices from even the most remote locations.

Twenty-five international curators have selected new film and video work from their respective regions of the world—ranging from Argentina to Vietnam, Nigeria to Romania, New Zealand to China, and many places in between. Their picks are screened for one month each in the museum’s media center, which has been turned into a miniature cinema for the occasion.

The works in Sights and Sounds touch on themes significant to both Jewish culture and universal human experience: spirituality, exile, language, conflict, family, humor, history. The series creates a broad network of artistic expression and curatorial perspectives that takes stock of what is happening in film and video art at this moment in time across the globe—with a particular emphasis on work being made outside western Europe and the United States.

Sights and Sounds will culminate with a selection of highlights from the series. One work from each country will be presented in the gallery from February 5, 2016 to June 30, 2016.

Jens Hoffmann
Deputy Director
Exhibitions and Public Programs

#sightsandsounds

Installation view of Sights and Sounds: Global Film and Video in the Goodkind Media Center. Photo by David Heald.

Exhibition highlights

Robert Arndt, still from A Line Meant in Passing, 2010, video, sound, 10 min. Artwork © Robert Arndt, provided by the artist
Julia Feyrer, still from Poodle Dog Ornamental Bar, 2009, 16mm film, transferred to video, sound, 9 min., 45 sec. Artwork © Julia Feyrer, provided by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver
Kevin Schmidt, detail of a still from A Sign in the Northwest Passage, 2012, video, sound, 12 min., 30 sec. Collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton. Artwork © Kevin Schmidt