Brew Pub #3

Photo credit: Gina Badger.

Photo credit: Gina Badger.

Friday, 03 October 2014
MOCCA (952 Queen Street West, Toronto)
7PM

Due to the nature of the event, only those over the age of 19 are permitted. Those present must be members of The Brewtality of Fact homebrew beer club ($5), and there is a $5 venue/food fee. Please contact thebrewtalityoffact@gmail.com for more information.

In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) and The Brewtality of Fact homebrew beer club, this salon will feature engagements with and conversations around the journal Brew Pub #3: Relanding from Mugwort.

Gina Badger, Aja Rose Bond, Gabriel Saloman and Eric Emery in attendance.

The STAG Library (artists Aja Rose Bond & Gabriel Saloman, Vancouver) in collaboration with artist and writer Gina Badger (Toronto) and brewmaster Eric Emery will be launching the 3rd edition of Brew Pub, a journal in the form of a beer whose contents, labelling and other printed and online material constitute the contents of the publication.

This edition explores a relationship with Artemisia vulgaris, commonly known as mugwort, an invasive species which has spread from Eurasia across Canada, flourishing in urban spaces that have been altered by human intervention such as abandoned lots, rail-yards and roadsides. Mugwort has deep roots in indigenous European medicine, relieving fatigue, promoting lucid dreams and acting as an abortifacient. Mugwort also has been used in gruit beers as a substitute for hops in traditional brewing processes.

Through the development of a beer using wild-crafted mugwort from the city of Toronto, land with which the Huron, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people have a long, historic and profound relationship, these artists consider what and how mugwort can teach those exploring the conflictual complexity of settlement. Mugwort can talk to us about taking root in place, connecting with traditions across distances and back in time, and how to cultivate these teachings in the present, renewing our relationship to place and that which grows here.

This conversation is being presented by the MOCCA as part of the exhibition TBD, curated by Su-Ying Lee. For MOCCA, a contemporary art institution, working with the journal Brew Pub engages with artistic production explicitly at a contrary scale to that which is fostered by the increasing dominance of the global contemporary art world. In opposition to a mode of production demanded by art fairs, biennials and large institutions—one which emphasizes spectacular size, broad publicity, enormous crowds and international scope—Brew Pub is small, discreet, intimate and concertedly local, both in its publicness and in its process of creation.

Brew Pub redefines publication, something that is typically understood to be comprised of a type of book or journal. What elements of a contemporary art institution can similarly be transposed, shifted or reordered to expand the definition of a contemporary art gallery?

About The Brewtality of Fact Homebrew Beer Club:

The purpose of The Brewtality of Fact is the testing, exhibition and judging of the beer made by our members.

The beer consumed at our meetings is never sold, but rather shared. In exchange, members commit to offering frank feedback on the quality of the homebrew, including its aroma, taste, appearance and palate.

To Join:

Meetings are open to all members of The Brewtality of Fact Beer Club. Memberships cost $5 and are open to anyone 19 years of age and up.

The $5 membership and additional $5 per/meeting fee (for food/venue costs) can be purchased online or at MOCCA, will be available for purchase online as of Saturday, 06 September 2014, or can be purchased at the door.

For all other inquiries, contact thebrewtalityoffact@gmail.com.

Special thanks to the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto for their ongoing support of this project.

Anne Carson’s “Variations on the Right to Remain Silent”

Lanfranco Quadrio, 2013.

Lanfranco Quadrio, 2013.

Monday, 11 August 2014
Dufferin Grove Park at the south path “cob” fire pit
7 PM
Free

In conjunction with Gabrielle Moser’s No Looking After the Internet project and Jacob Korczynski’s If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution reading group, this salon will feature excerpts from Anne Carson’s essay “Variations on the Right to Remain Silent.”

Gabrielle Moser and Jacob Korczynski in attendance.

Moser’s No Looking After the Internet project invites participants to look at a photograph (or series of photographs) they are unfamiliar with, and “read” the image out-loud together. The format emphasizes the multiplicity of meanings embedded in an image, drawing attention to the ways that social factors condition understanding. No Looking is an ongoing, collaborative project based out of Toronto’s Gallery TPW. Korczynski’s If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution reading groups depart from a spirit of open questioning and long term enquiry, taking on research thematics such as reading/feeling and appropriation/dedication. The format emphasizes the role of performance and performativity in acts of collective sense-making. The Toronto iteration of the reading group happens alongside reading groups in Amsterdam, New York, and São Paulo. What No Reading After the Internet shares with No Looking and If I Can’t Dance is an interest in how we construct understanding based on encounter.

Variations on the Right to Remain Silent” is described by publisher Slyph Editions as “an essay on the stakes involved when translation happens, ranging from Homer through Joan of Arc to Paul Celan; it includes the author’s seven translations of a poetic fragment from the Greek poet Ibykos.”

Excerpts from the essay will be read aloud and used as a provocation to perform an act of translation as a group.

Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living.

Jacob Korcyznski is an independent curator. A recent participant in the de Appel Curatorial Programme, he has curated projects for the Stedelijk Museum, SAVAC, Oakville Galleries and was a contributor to Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s Loose Bodies at Elaine MGK. His writing has appeared in Prefix Photo, C Magazine, Fillip, and The Power Plant publication Jimmy Robert: Draw the Line (in collaboration with Oliver Husain). Currently, he is a researcher for the Performance in Residence platform of If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution.

Gabrielle Moser is a writer and independent curator. She regularly contributes to Artforum.com, and her writing has appeared in venues including ARTnews, Canadian Art, Fillip, n paradoxa, and Photography & Culture. She has curated exhibitions for Access Gallery, Gallery TPW, the Leona Drive Project and Vtape. Moser is a PhD candidate in art history and visual culture at York University and a member of the Toronto Photography Seminar.

This meeting of No Reading After the Internet (Toronto) is supported by the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto.

Rasheed Araeen’s “A New Beginning: Beyond Postcolonial Cultural Theory and Identity Politics,” as selected by June Pak

Pak clip

Saturday, 09 August 2014
26 (26 Mackenzie Crescent)
3 PM
Free

As part of the exhibition June Pak @ 26, this salon will feature excerpts from Rasheed Araeen’s “A New Beginning: Beyond Postcolonial Cultural Theory and Identity Politics,” as selected by June Pak.

June Pak in attendance.

When discussing the topic of ethnicity in visual arts, visibility is often emphasized: being visibly different from others, presenting one’s difference visibly to others and representing what it means to be different visually. But what if that difference is invisible? 

Departing from these questions, which are central to Pak’s exhibition, excerpts from Rasheed Araeen’s 2000 essay “A New Beginning” will be read aloud. The founding editor of Third Text, Araeen stirs up the art establishment in this essay by questioning the institutionalization and categorization of ethnicity. His argument on art institutions’  theoretical influence on ethnic art/artists extends Pak’s fundamental query on the concept of visibility.

June Pak was born in Seoul, South Korea, and now lives in Toronto, Canada. Her work investigates the currently limited methods of understanding ethnicity in the visual arts due to the universalization and institutionalization of “ethnic work.” By utilizing assumed functions of hyphenation, as to both connect and divide two (or more) entities, she is exploring different means to articulate visualization of ethnicity that resists the prescribed ethnic subject’s positioning in the current multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. She is a PhD candidate in Studio Art at York University.

This meeting of No Reading After the Internet (Toronto) is supported by the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (as always). Special thanks to 26 for hosting this salon.