Oakville Galleries is pleased to announce the opening of our spring exhibitions—The Expanded Gardens of Locus Solus, a new body of work by Toronto-based artist Olia Mishchenko and group exhibition The Talking Cure, featuring recent video and performance work by six international artists. Please join Oakville Galleries to celebrate the opening of these shows on Sunday 2 March from 2:30 pm–3:30 pm at Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square, followed by a reception at Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens from3:30 pm–5:00 pm.
Image: Olia Mishchenko, The Expanded Gardens of Locus Solus (detail), 2013, courtesy of the artist and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, TorontoImage: Olia Mishchenko, The Expanded Gardens of Locus Solus (detail), 2013, courtesy of the artist and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto
Olia Mishchenko: The Expanded Gardens of Locus Solus: 2 March – 11 May 2014
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens
Over the past several years, Toronto-based artist Olia Mishchenko has produced drawings of impossible architectural constructions and urban public spaces. For her exhibition at Oakville Galleries, Mishchenko has created a new body of work that takes as its point of departure the history of Gairloch Gardens—a site that has been made and re-made many times over. In delicate pen and ink, Mishchenko's drawings depict the construction, modification and expansion of an imaginary park. While Gairloch Gardens' particular history figures prominently into these works, the artist draws on a variety of cultivated landscapes, both experienced and fictional—as well as Raymond Roussel's dazzling novel Locus Solus (1914)—to consider the ways that our natural landscapes, parks and gardens are shaped and managed.
Curated by Marnie Fleming, Curator of Contemporary Art.
Image: Jesse Jones, The Selfish Act of Community (production still), 2012, courtesy of the artistImage: Jesse Jones, The Selfish Act of Community (production still), 2012, courtesy of the artist
The Talking Cure: 2 March – 11 May 2014
Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square
For more than a century, therapy has been a part of many of our lives—no surprise given the economic, ecological and social turbulence of our age. As philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato writes, "From one financial crisis to the next, we have now entered a period of permanent crisis, which we shall call 'catastrophe.'" After the global financial crisis in 2008, many artists began examining the relationship between personal crises and social catastrophes, employing different forms of therapy as tools for reframing our perceptions of ourselves and our surroundings. The Talking Cure positions visitors as patients, analysts, or flies on the wall during the process of various psychoanalytic treatments, the exhibition provides space for hands-on audience engagement—such as in Stuart Ringholt’s group anger management workshops (details below)—and time for contemplation and introspection exploring a world in perpetual upheaval. Exhibiting artists include Marianne Flotron, Andrea Fraser, Melanie Gilligan, Jesse Jones, Stuart Ringholt, and Superflex.
The Talking Cure is generously supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, Culture Ireland, the Danish Arts Foundation and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Guest-curated by Aileen Burns & Johan Lundh.