FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 14 JANUARY, 2015 The Power Plant presents The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding in partnership with Autograph ABP. The winter exhibition takes cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s (1932 – 2014) essay “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse” as its point of departure. The Power Plant opens the exhibition with a FREE Party for all on Friday, 23 January, 2015 from 8 - 11 PM. A cash bar will be available On view through 18 May, 2015. The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding presented in partnership with Autograph ABP. Artists : Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Sven Augustijnen, Shelagh Keeley, Steve McQueen, and Zineb Sedira Curators : Gaëtane Verna and Mark Sealy MBE The Power Plant presents The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding in partnership with Autograph ABP. The winter exhibition takes cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s (1932 – 2014) essay “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse” as its point of departure, exploring how meaning is constructed, how it is systematically distorted by audience reception and how it can be detached and drained of its original intent to produce specific or slanted narratives. Hall, a Jamaican-born United Kingdom academic, devoted his life to studying both the complexities and the interweaving threads that exist between culture, power, politics, and history. He arrived in Great Britain in 1951 as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and quickly became one of the founding figures of the new left in Europe, a key architect of cultural studies, and one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals. Hall’s interdisciplinary approach drew on literary theory, linguistics, and cultural anthropology in order to analyse and articulate the relationship between history, culture, popular media, cold war politics, gender, and ethnicity. He has been credited with opening the debate on immigration and the politics of identity. With Hall’s thinking in mind, The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding presents the work of Terry Adkins, John Akomfrah, Sven Augustijnen, Shelagh Keeley, Steve McQueen, and Zineb Sedira. Their works cull from image and audio archives to reflect upon a particular socio-political event and its subsequent historicized narrative and the artists bring into play time, memory and archive in an effort to offer new readings of the past. Page 2 The Unfinished Conversation: Encoding/Decoding lays emphasis on the idea that the visual is an assimilatory process, continuously at work in the construction of culture, political, personal, and national identities. In his work , Flumen Orationis (From the Principalities) (2012), Terry Adkins paired a recording of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s (1929-1968) speech “Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” with music by Jimi Hendrix (1942 – 1970) played over found black and white photographs of hot air balloons and other dirigibles. The Unfinished Conversation (2012) by John Akomfrah explores the personal archive of Hall, weaving historical events with the cultural theorist’s biography and archived footage. Sven Augustijnen’s Spectres (2011) is a film essay recalling the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister. Shelagh Keeley’s new site–specific wall work 1983 Kisangani, Zaïre , (2015) will be in dialogue with her current installation Notes on Obsolescence (2014) by using photographs from her 1983 Northwest Central and East Africa journey. Keeley’s new work will contribute to our contemporary understanding of the turmoil that is inherent to these regions that have since been consumed in civil wars and thus rendered unrecognizable. Steve McQueen’s End Credits (2012) is dedicated to the African-American civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976). Thousands of pages from Robeson’s file compiled by the FBI over years of surveillance during the McCarthy era—once heavily censored and now publicly accessible—are displayed as documents read aloud. Zineb Sedira combines documentary film and installation in Gardiennes d’images (Image Keepers) (2010), exploring the legacy of Mohamed Kouaci’s (1922-1996) photographic work on the Algerian revolution through tales of his widow Safia Kouaci. Together the works on view suggest that multiple and alternative perspectives are integral to understanding history, as accounts of the past are too often moulded by dominant narratives. In doing so, the works on view reframe particular socio-political moments in an effort to propose new ways of understanding the world we live in. They push formal boundaries to tackle significant social issues confronting contemporary culture. PRESENTING SPONSOR: BAND and TD THEN AND NOW SUPPORT DONORS: LONTI EBERS, YVONNE & DAVID FLECK, JAMES & MARGARET FLECK, Dr. KENNETH MONTAGUE & MS. SARAH ARANHA, DIVERSITY ART FORUM Please send all requests for images and interviews to [email protected] Page 3 Artists Terry Adkins Terry Adkins (born in Washington, DC, USA, 1953-2014) lived in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. He received his MFA from the University of Kentucky and his MS from Illinois State University. Adkins exhibited extensively at venues, including Salon 94, New York (2013), Grey Art Gallery, New York (2013), La Triennale, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012), Tang Museum, Skidmore College, New York (2012), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2012), Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2012), MoMA PS1, New York (2012), New Museum, New York (2012), Amistad Gallery, Philadelphia (2010), The Cooper Union, New York (2010), American Academy in Rome, Italy (2009), University Museums, University of Delaware, Wilmington (2009), and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2008). In 2009 Adkins won the Jesse Howard, Jr./Jacob H. Lazarus Metropolitan Museum of Art Rome Prize. Adkins’ Estate is represented by Salon 94, New York. John Akomfrah John Akomfrah (born in Accra, Ghana, 1957) lives and works in London. An artist, lecturer, writer, and film director, his work is considered the most distinctive in the contemporary British art world. Akomfrah has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries including Tate Britain, London (2013), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2013), 70th Venice International Film Festival (2013), New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2013), Sharjah Biennial 11, UAE (2013), Sundance Film Festival, Utah (2013), Carroll/Fletcher, London (2012), Liverpool Biennial (2012), Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2012), ICA, London (2012), MoMA, New York (2011), Carpe Diem, Lisbon (2011), British Film Institute Gallery, London (2011), Serpentine Gallery, London (2010), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2005), and documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002). Akomfrah is represented by Carroll/Fletcher, London. Sven Augustijnen Sven Augustijnen (born in Mechelen, Belgium, 1970) lives and works in Brussels. In 2007 he participated in the documenta 12 magazine project in collaboration with A Prior magazine, and in 2011 he received the Evens Prize for Visual Arts. Augustijnen’s work has been exhibited and screened in international museums and art institutions, including MuZEE, Ostend, Belgium (2013), Cultuurcentrum Strombeek, Grimbergen, Belgium (2013), Akademie der bildenden Künste, Wenen, Austria (2013), Wexner Art Center , Columbus, OH (2013), documenta 12, Kassel, Germany (2007), MuHKA, Antwerp (2007), Biennale Estuaire Nantes, Saint Nazaire, France (2007), and Centre d'Art Contemporain, Fribourg, Switzerland (2006). Augustijnen is represented by Jan Mot Gallery, Mexico City and Brussels. Page 4 Shelagh Keeley Shelagh Keeley (born in Oakville, ON, 1954) lives and works in Toronto. She received her Honours BFA from York University, Toronto. Keeley has had extensive solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad. Her works have been presented by the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2011), Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (2011), McMaster University Museum of Art, Hamilton (2010), het Ottenhuis, Netherlands (2010), Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON (2010), Dance House, Limassol, Cyprus (2009), Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2007), RAM Foundation, Rotterdam (2006), and Brooklyn Museum, New York (2001). Keeley has also been part of a large number of international group shows, including exhibitions at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum (2014), Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto (2013), Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, India (2013), AIGA Design Center, New York (2010), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2008), and Vancouver Art Gallery (2003). Her works are featured in multiple public collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Harvard Art Museum, Boston; and Getty Museum, Santa Monica. Steve McQueen Steve McQueen (born in London, 1969) is a video artist, screenwriter, producer, and film director based in Amsterdam. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London and briefly studied at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. McQueen received the Turner Prize in 1999 and has won numerous awards for his feature-length films, including a BAFTA (2008), a Caméra d’Or (2008) and an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave (2013). In 2009, McQueen represented Britain at the 53rd Venice Biennale with Giardini (2009) and his short film Western Deep (2002) was commissioned for documenta 11 (2002). McQueen was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (2002) and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2011). He is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris and Thomas Dane Gallery, London. Zineb Sedira Zineb Sedira