Circuit Gallery

Pictured: Author Susana Reisman (right) and publisher Nadine Touma (left) receive their award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

A BIG Congratulations to Circuit Gallery artist Susana Reisman whose first book, Time Flies (Dar Onboz, 2009), is receiving important international recognition.

In December 2009, Time Flies won in the “New Publications” category at the CJ Picture Book Festival is Seoul, Korea.

Review:
A silent book with no words, using photographs of the hands and numbers of different watches to create a world where time stands still, to reconstruct another time, another place, and another perception of what is around us and what we take for granted. As time flies, this book invites us to fly with time and look at things not as we think they are but as we construct them to be, allowing every reader to interpret and tell the story as they see and would write. Every reader becomes a composer of images and a writer of signs.

In March, 2010, Time Flies received a mention in the “Opera Prima” category of the prestigious BolognaRagazzi Awards at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy.

What the Jury Said:
In Susana Reisman’s world, lines vibrate, triangles sing and numbers recall metaphysical clocks counting out the hours of eternity. Echoing Klee, Matisse and other 20th century artists, the artist aims to mesh music and painting. The result is so convincing that the pages seem to come alive. The tone, however, is always light-hearted, the medley of references and citations is always a source for enjoyment. The meticulous style provides an elegant framework for this delightful composition.

Pages 5/6 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.

Pages 13/14 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.

Pages 39/40 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.

Pages 63/64 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.

Reisman’s statement about her book:

Time Flies is a visual book that is thematically concerned with frameworks of perception and understanding—it is about seeing, reading and context. In it I want to bring awareness to these things; and draw attention to the structures that surround us, that we grow to accept as given or that are invisible.

I have chosen to use ‘time’ as the primary motif—time being an overarching structure that we live by. The clock-hands are animated in order to take us into a world of imagination, a realm where things shift and where play and experimentation abound. The numbers function as building blocks for a new world of patterns and structures where the slightest variation creates very different forms.

In doing so, I want to emphasize that such structures, systems, languages, frameworks, etc. are all constructed entities and that while necessary to communication, they are susceptible to change, to shifting views, offering new possibilities, new alternatives…

Essentially this book is metaphorically about the place of grey. It is about the place of ambiguity and complexity, neither black nor white but shades of grey.

Call for Proposals from Toronto-Based Artists and Photographers for Flip-Toronto

Deadline: July 2, 2010

Circuit Gallery, in collaboration with Art for Commuters (Toronto) and Dar Onboz (Beirut, Lebanon), is initiating Flip-City, an exciting new project that combines flip-books, media screens, and story-telling to bring to life the urban secrets, hidden histories, and present preoccupations of the cities we inhabit.

Inspired by Flip-Beirut, the successful flip-book project conceived and realized by the Lebanese publishing house Dar Onboz, Flip-Toronto is slated as the second in what we hope will become a multi-city initiative (under the umbrella title of Flip-City).

Flip-Toronto
For Flip-Toronto we are seeking proposals from Toronto-based artists to create flip books about specific Toronto neighbourhoods. Artists are asked to choose a specific neighbourhood or location in the city to portray or explore in their project. Projects can be created in any medium (drawing, painting, photography, video, film, various digital media or combination thereof) so long as the final product can be reproduced to meet the specifications of the flip-book.

The Flip-City projects are conceived to have both a physical and digital manifestation. The 12-15 commissioned projects for each city will be included in a beautiful printed flip-book set and be screened in a variety of locations (on public screens, on the web, etc.). The goal is for an eventual artistic exchange between participating cities.

Art for Commuters
We are very excited to be collaborating in this first phase of the Flip-Toronto project with Toronto’s Art for Commuters. Working with the Onestop Media Group, Art for Commuters initiates, curates and programs exhibitions, screenings and festivals throughout the year on the Onestop network of TTC subway screens. Art for Commuters will be involved in both the local selection process and will provide an exciting venue for screening the digitized / adapted versions of the flip-books. Selected projects will be screened on the Onestop TTC screens to an audience of 1.3 million daily commuters.

Flip-Book Specifications
The books are tentatively envisioned to consist of 60 pages, with each page measuring 10.5 cm x 7.5 cm (4¼” x 3″). The 12-15 flip-books will be packaged and available as a set.

Your proposal should include the following:

• a one-page project proposal explaining your choice of neighbourhood or location in Toronto. We are intentionally keeping the call thematically open—with the only stipulation being that you base your project upon an actual physical location as each flip-book project site must be able to be located on a map of the city. In addition to your chosen location or subject, please describe the final project— i.e. what media you plan to employ and its time-based trajectory (e.g. why it makes sense as a “flip-book”).

• 3-5 visuals – please submit digital images that convey something of the look and style of your proposed project (what your flip-book pages will look like). Visuals must be submitted as JPEG files and must not exceed 1200px x 1200px.
• an image list with any relevant information.
• a bio or CV including contact information.
• a link to your website. If you do not have a website you MUST also submit 5-10 images of previous work and an information sheet about this submission.

All materials must be submitted digitally. All text documents must be saved as PDF. All image files must be saved as JPG. Please adhere to the following file naming conventions:

• LASTNAME_proposal.pdf
• LASTNAME_img001.jpg
• LASTNAME_bio.pdf [etc.]

Email your proposal to: flip-city@circuitgallery.com
All proposals must be received by July 2, 2010

Flip-Toronto is curated by Claire Sykes and Susana Reisman (Circuit Gallery), Sharon Switzer (Art For Commuters), and Nadine Touma (Dar Onboz).

The Curatorial Committee will consider all proposals and respond by July 31, 2010. 

If your proposal is accepted the curator(s) will contact you to discuss the details of your project, including technical considerations for its realization (screening on the Onestop network and for print publication). Deadlines for final projects will be announced when known and are contingent upon funding.

Fees paid for selected artist projects are contingent upon funding. Funding is being sought from a range of sources.

For more Information, please contact:
Claire Sykes (Circuit Gallery)

tel. 644-477-2487

email: claire@circuitgallery.com


Dean Baldwin, Nadia Belerique, Diane Borsato, Cecilia Berkovic, FASTWÜRMS, Micah Lexier, Kelly Lycan, Annie MacDonell, and Lindsay Page

Kelly Lycan, SPECIAL, Lamps, 2009

The More is More Collection Launch

March 10, 2010, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Gallery TPW, 56 Ossington Avenue
Toronto, M6J 2Y7

Join Gallery TPW and Circuit Gallery on March 10th at an informal reception to launch The More Is More Collection – a new opportunity for collecting affordable art on-line. Take advantage of this one night only event to meet the artists and view the entire collection in person and learn more.

The More Is More Collection is a must-have selection of witty and conceptual prints by celebrated Canadian artists. Both intelligent and visually compelling The More Is More Collection is a whimsical assortment of constructed images documenting fake rocks, obsessive collections, spontaneous photographs and a cat implicated in a conceptual art crime.

All of the photographs in The More Is More Collection are exclusively available for purchase online through the Circuit Gallery website and are available as 16″ x 20″ prints at a very wallet friendly $120. Proceeds from this collection will help support Gallery TPW’s programming.

“We are really excited to be partnering with Gallery TPW and supporting their programming mission,” says Susana Reisman, Circuit Gallery co-director. “We have a solid infrastructure that can both help in raising funds for Gallery TPW and in making available, indeed accessible, some great artwork.”

According to Gary Hall, Gallery TPW Executive Director, “Artist-Run Centres have been at the forefront of democratizing art since the 1970’s. The partnership with Circuit Gallery makes sense – their system is convenient and affordable and I think it has great potential to introduce the pleasures of art collecting to a much larger segment of the population. We’re pleased to have such an impressive selection of artists participating in this new venture. Most of them had exhibitions at Gallery TPW at important stages of their careers and many of them have created unique works available only in The More is More Collection.”

View The More Is More Collection.
Simply order online and prints will be delivered directly to your door within a few days.

Artwork available includes special editions by Dean Baldwin, Nadia Belerique, Cecilia Berkovic, Diane Borsato, FASTWÜRMS, Micah Lexier, Kelly Lycan, Annie MacDonell, and Lindsay Page.

About Gallery TPW

Gallery TPW is a leading artist-run centre that presents innovative and challenging exhibitions of contemporary lens and screen-based art featuring local, national and international artists. For 30 years Gallery TPW has consistently supported professional artists and developed audiences through its gallery exhibitions, online programming, publications and special events.
For more information, visit them online at www.gallerytpw.ca.

About Circuit Gallery

Circuit Gallery specializes in high-end editions of works by emerging and established contemporary artists with an emphasis on photographic, digital and print-based works on paper. Our mission and model are simple. We want to make interesting, significant, quality, contemporary art more accessible by making it more affordable. We are able to achieve this by offering the work that we sell online and in relatively large editions.

While internationally oriented, Circuit Gallery is based in Toronto, Canada.

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Media Contact:
Gary Hall, Executive Director, Gallery TPW
Tel: 416-645-1066

Sponsor: Mill Street Brewery

Critics Choice: Salvador Alanis escribe sobre el trabajo fotográfico de Alejandro Cartagena.

Alejandro Cartagena, from the Suburbia Mexicana Project: Urban Holes

Lo que no se ve en la fotografía de Alejandro Cartagena
por Salvador Alanis

Una preocupación común en la expresión contemporánea es reflejar con un lenguaje directo lo que no se puede ver de forma inmediata. Ante la evidencia y obscenidad de los medios, al artista se le presenta la alternativa de jugar con los mismos valores de una articulación formal que pretende mostrarlo todo para referirse a lo que subyace en la imagen. Dentro de lo aparentemente cotidiano, el artista presenta un subtexto que trasciende la formalidad. Alejandro Cartagena (República Dominicana, 1977), juega con los valores formales de la fotografía documental para subvertir el discurso y señalar la discontinuidad en lo que vemos retratado. Para Cartagena, el llamado fotodocumento es una herramienta valiosa para la expresión personal, o como lo dijera el crítico de fotografía mexicano José Antonio Rodríguez, significa el trabajo de “la circunstancia externa como pulsión individual” (28).

En principio, Cartagena, quien reside en México, participa de la tradición fotográfica mexicana que toma el paisaje como objetivo principal para estructurar su discurso. Dicha tradición se ha actualizado a lo largo de las diferentes generaciones, integrando las preocupaciones correspondientes a la época. En el caso del trabajo de Cartagena, el punto de partida evidente es el reflejo de las diversas transformaciones del paisaje, las marcas que dejan los diferentes estadios de las ciudades, las cicatrices del crecimiento y actividad humanas. Por eso, en primera instancia la lectura del trabajo de Cartagena es sin lugar a dudas relacionado con la responsabilidad ambiental, el desgaste del entorno, la multiplicación casi absurda de la mancha urbana sobre terrenos naturales mancillados.

Cartagena muestra en sus series fotográficas sobre la Suburbia Mexicana diferentes manifestaciones del desarrollo de las grandes metrópolis, basándose en el crecimiento de Monterrey, la tercera ciudad más grande de México. Cartagena toma la inserción de la ciudad a partir de viviendas en serie en la periferia inhabitada; dibuja el paso de las vías rápidas sobre espacios parafuncionales; da fe de la desaparición de los ríos al abastecer de agua las ciudades. La serie que Cartagena expone en Circuit Gallery, Lost Rivers, sigue la premisa documental que denuncia el daño ecológico que la ciudad infringe a las redes fluviales; muestra de arroyos y ríos secos de una forma visualmente muy afortunada. Sin embargo, más allá de esta preocupación evidente acerca del fenómeno, el documento pone de manifiesto instancias adicionales que pueden escaparse si solamente nos atenemos a lo eminentemente anecdótico del trabajo. Las fotografías de Alejandro Cartagena se centran en el registro de la discontinuidad, a partir de poner en evidencia espacios perdidos o mecanismos de sobreposición. Lo que importa en el trabajo a la vez paisajístico y documental de Cartagena es lo que no está, el elemento faltante. La falta se da como un encuentro formal, pero también como expresiones de la violencia. La discontinuidad genera un subtexto hacia lo antifuncional, aquello de lo que solamente queda el rasgo y que al mismo tiempo nos hace ver lo que realmente está en el paisaje. El crecimiento de la ciudad pone en evidencia lo faltante, el espacio inhabitable, lo perdido.

En otra serie del artista, llamada Urban Holes, Cartagena registra lotes sin construcción, los cuales de una forma o de otra escapan al continuo de las calles. En Symbolic Layering, el artista muestra capas y huecos en pasos a desnivel. Es lo que que no está lo que importa; lo que vemos es simulación, artificialidad, forma delirante que olvida espacios significativamente más importantes. La eficacia visual del trabajo de Cartagena logra poner en el mismo plano lo que no está en la fotografía de una manera que si bien, desde una perspectiva documental podría apuntar a una cierta nostalgia, en un nivel más profundo no es la nostalgia lo que opera, sino la presencia manifiesta de lo que no se ve, con todo su poder y misterio.

Rodríguez, José Antonio. “Los procesos de la fotografía contemporánea mexicana”, Huesca Imagen. Huesca: Huesca Imagen, 2004. 12-29.

Salvador Alanis (Mexico, 1964), is a writer. He has developed his work in the literary arena, as well as in the electronic media. He has been awarded by the National Fund for the Arts in Mexico and has been an artist in residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Salvador Alanis won the Multimedia Prize at the Video and Electronic Arts Biennial of Mexico, Vidarte, in 1999. He collaborates with major newspapers and magazines in Mexico, Spain and Canada. His published works include: “Del Paralaje” (Ediciones del Equilibrista, 1997), “Reojo” (Libros del Dragón, 1998), “Tránsito” (Libros del Dragón, 1999), “Fronteras, Borders” (La mano izquierda press, 2005), “De cuerpo presente”(Artes de Mexico, 2007), and “Fragilidad de las Fronteras” (K Editores, 2009). His visual work has been shown in several art spaces in solo and group exhibitions. He lives in Toronto.

Untitled Lost River #2, from the Suburbia Mexicana Project, 2008

Untitled Lost River #6, from the Suburbia Mexicana Project, 2008