curatorial-talk

Reception to follow

Or Gallery
555 Hamilton Street
V6B 2R1

Or Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery, and The Canadian Embassy in Berlin co-present a public presentation with: Anja Casser, Janneke de Vries, and Dr. Martina Weinhart.

Please join us for three introductory presentations by German curators Anja Casser, Janneke de Vries and Dr. Martina Weinhart, each of whom are participating in a research trip across Canada organised by the Canadian Embassy Berlin and the Canada Council for the Arts. The focus of their trip is examining artist-run culture, and their presentations will be followed by an informal conversation with local curators Jonathan Middleton (Director/Curator, Or Gallery) and Jenifer Papararo (Curator, Contemporary Art Gallery) drawing out particularities in Canadian and German systems and envisioning new future models.

BIOS
Anja Casser is the director of the Badischer Kunstverein (Baden Art Association) in Karlsruhe, where she has curated exhibitions such as Susanne M. Winterling, Through the looking glass, Anja Kirschner & David Panos: The Last Days of Jack Sheppard, Learn to Read Art – A History of Printed Matter (co-curated by AA Bronson, 2009), Come in, friends, the house is yours!, Pop! goes the weasel (with, among others ,Steven Shearer, 2008) and Matts Leiderstam – Nachbild / After Image (2007). Casser has edited a number of catalogues and other publications, most recently Andrea Büttner – I believe every word you say (2009) and Matts Leiderstam Nachbild / After Image (2010).

Janneke de Vries is the Director of the GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Breme, where he has organized solo-exhibitions with artists such as FOS, John Stezaker, Kathrin Sonntag, Özlem Sulak, Cezary Bodzianowski, Matt Mullican, Susanne M. Winterling, Florian Hüttner and Sarah Ortmeyer as well as the international group-show Space Revised #1. Friendly Takeovers. For the group-exhibition An einem schönen Morgen des Monats Mai… (One fine morning in May…), taking place in May 2010, Gareth Moore will develop a new work. Moreover his work will be presented in a solo-exhibition which is planned to take place in 2011. In fall 2010 GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst will present the first solo show by Shannon Bool, a Canadian artist based in Berlin.

Dr. Martina Weinhart is a curator at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. In that capacity she has organized solo exhibitions by Jonathan Meese (KÉPI BLANC, NACKT, 2004), Costa Vece (La fin du monde, 2004) and Terence Koh (Captain Buddha, 2008). She has also curated various surveys and thematic exhibitions on contemporary art such as At Your Own Risk (co-curated by Markus Heinzelmann, 2003), 3’ (Schirn Kunsthalle / CGAC Santiago de Compostela / In Progress, Film Festival Locarno; co-curated by Max Hollein and Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2004), Ideal Worlds, New Romanticism in Contemporary Art (co-curated by Max Hollein, 2005), Nothing (2006), Op Art (2007) and, The Making of Art (2009). In collaboration with Boris Groys she organized Dream Factory Communism. The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era (2003) and Total Enlightenment. Moscow Conceptual Art 1960–1990 (Schirn Kunsthalle / Fundación Juan March, Madrid, 2008).