exhibitions / programs / events 1 Summer 2016 June – September 2016 all year, all free As we enter the The Power Plant’s second exhibition season of 2016, we pause to acknowledge the importance of the aLL YEAR, aLL FREE program. Thanks to the support of BMO Financial Group, the gallery is able to eliminate admission fees, enabling all visitors, young and old, to access our exhibitions. Join us again this Summer and all year long at The Power Plant, where admission is always FREE. PREsEntEd By OVERVIEW Summer 2016 at The Power Plant For our Summer 2016 Season, The is a multi-compositional project comprised of two Power Plant is pleased to present two gallery exhibitions, a billboard and a small-scale performance at Blackwood Gallery and an evening- major solo exhibitions by German length performance at Harbourfront Centre Theatre. artists Franz Erhard Walther and Ulla By scrutinizing animality, the project examines von Brandenburg, as well as a new some of the deep-seated compulsions of the performance by American artist human species. Emily Mast. During each of our exhibition seasons, The Power Plant is committed to welcoming a diverse public to engage with the artworks as well as artists, Visitors to our summer exhibitions will be invited curators and other cultural producers. Besides to disrupt the space and landscapes of the works the gallery’s ever-popular Sunday Scene series of – either as contributors to the works’ final form, or talks, audiences will have the chance to hear Ulla as active explorers in the exhibition’s display. von Brandenburg speak personally about her work In Call to Action, Franz Erhard Walther’s first major in an intimate Artist Talk. The Power Plant will solo exhibition in Canada, artworks from the 1950s host the first Public Reading in English of Franz Erhard to the present offer insight into this seminal artist’s Walther’s autobiographical drawn novel novel, radical ideas about the relationship between space, Dust of Stars. The artist will be present at the reading, object and the human body. Visitors will have the joined by other notable persons from Toronto’s opportunity to activate select artworks on display arts communities. Additionally, Walther will host one as they become a part of the sculpture. For her of our bi-monthly Power Kids art workshops for exhibition It Has a Golden Red Sun and an Elderly children and their adult companions. Last but not Green Moon, Ulla von Brandenburg developed a least, in association with our friends at Canada’s new film and a site-specific installation, which mirrors National Ballet School, gallery-goers will also be the spatial context of the Théâtre des Amandiers treated to an interactive Live Dance Performance in Nanterre, France, in which the film has been shot. within the gallery space that will result in the In an exhibition display designed by the artist, we creation of a new dance work. will also show a survey of her earlier film work. As Answer our call to action this Summer: von Brandenburg’s first solo show here in Canada, come and explore all of The Power Plant’s new the exhibition explores recurring themes in her programming this season! work such as colour, ritual, movement, stairs and textiles. Emily Mast’s performance The Cage is a Gaëtane Verna, Director Stage incorporates bodies, movement, sound and light as live sculptural material. The Cage is a Stage exhibition #TPPCalltoAction 1 Franz Erhard Walther’s first major solo exhibition in Franz Erhard Walther Canada brings together bodies of work produced Call to Action between the 1950s to the present. Call to Action offers insight into Walther’s radical ideas about the 25 June – 5 September 2016 relationship between space, object and the human Opening: 24 June 2016, 8 – 11 pm body. Presenting sculptural form, drawing and video, Walther’s influential practice emphasizes action. His CURATOR: Gaëtane Verna work sheds light on the potential of spectators to consider their body as a means to activate sculpture In partnership wIth lead dOnOR and disrupt the space of display and the landscapes in which it is presented. INTERnAtIOnAL ARTS PARTNERs He first gave this concept physical form with his 1. Werksatz (First Work Set) (1963 – 69), a work comprised of 58 objects made of fabric intended to be used alone or in a group. The sculptures support dOnORs supportEd By materialize through measured actions laid out for Robert B. Bell Brian Pel Peter Freeman, Inc. viewers to enact according to the artist’s instruc- and Diane Walker Peter M. Ross Galerie Jocelyn John Matheson Jeff Stober Wolff tions: unfolding them, standing on them, lying down inside them and pulling them around and over one’s body. With this approach, Walther’s sculptures transcend their physical and formal qualities to position the viewer’s body, and the space and time it acts within, as material form. Paired #TPPCalltoAction 3 with Walther’s 1. Werksatz are a series of videos that Franz Erhard Walther (born in Fulda, Germany, show documentation of each fabric piece being 1939, lives and works in Fulda) is one of Germany’s activated. Throughout the duration of the exhibi- seminal artists whose work has expanded the wider tion, visitors will be invited to activate various discussion of contemporary art practices. His work elements, reminding audiences that the work is has been featured in significant exhibitions meant to be physically experienced through including: Out of Actions: Between Performance their participation. and the Object (1949 – 79), Museum of Contem- Walther’s interest in the body continues in porary Art, Los Angeles (1988); documenta V, VII Formantwort (Form Answer) from the Configuration and VIII, Kassel (1972, 1982 and 1987); Spaces, Series (1989 – 90). Made of fabric and hung in the MoMA, New York (1970); and Live in Your Head: gallery, this body of work is installed with the archi- When Attitudes Become Form, Kunsthalle Bern; tecture of The Power Plant’s Fleck Clerestory in mind. Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld; and Institute of The dimensions and proportions of the hanging Contemporary Arts, London (1969). Recent forms make reference to the human body while their exhibitions of Walther’s work include Franz Erhard spatial configuration calls for a physical experience Walther: The Body Draws, Henry Art Gallery, beyond static spectatorship. Walther does not view Seattle (2015); Franz Erhard Walther, MUDAM, the physical form of Formantwort (Form Answer) as Luxembourg (2015); Franz Erhard Walther: The a completed work, but rather as objects that must be Body Decides, WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, experienced by the viewer and read by the body. In Brussels and CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain so doing, Walther relinquishes control of the work’s de Bordeaux (2014); and Franz Erhard Walther, Work realization by calling upon his respective audiences as Action, Dia Art Foundation, New York (2010 – 12). to contribute to its final form. Analogous to the Walther’s work was included in group exhibitions visitors’ movement in space, the works are constantly in Canada at a very early stage, including the changing. Schreitbahnen (Stride Paths) (1972) and Musée d‘art contemporain de Montréal (1989), the Handlungsbahnen (Action Paths) (1997 – 2003) will be Art Gallery of Hamilton (1983), as well as the Institut presented and activated throughout the exhibition d’art contemporain de Montréal and National at regular hours on a weekly basis. Doing so allows Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1977). visitors to experience the work within the four walls of the gallery as well as outside at the waterfront, 1. Franz Erhard where they will change our perception of and Walther, detail from Activations 1. Werksatz (First Work engagement with the landscape. Set), 1963 – 69. Walther’s Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet) Activations of Franz Erhard Walther’s Installation view: artworks will take place throughout Franz Erhard Walther: (1990 – 96) is comprised of 26 sculptural objects The Body Decides, the duration of the exhibition. WIELS, Brussels, 2014. made of fabric and wood that formally relate to Collection of The the letters of the alphabet. A selection of works outside the Galleries Franz Erhard Walther (south side and east side of the Foundation. Courtesy WIELS & The Franz from this series on view at The Power Plant – hung power plant): Erhard Walther on the wall or placed on the floor – have a human Saturdays & Sundays, 1 Pm Foundation. scale that evoke the possibility of action through Photo: Sven Laurent. linguistic reading. inside the Galleries: Thursdays, 6 Pm Through the presentation of Walther’s past and Fridays, 11:30 Am & 4:30 Pm more recent pieces, as well as video and drawing Saturdays & Sundays, documentation, Call to Action highlights the artist’s 11 Am, 3 Pm & 5 Pm and the viewer’s shared role in shaping material form. exhibition #TPPUllavonBrandenburg ness that allow the characters in her films and the Ulla von Brandenburg viewer to experience worlds caught between past and present, reality and illusion, the sacred and It Has a Golden Red the secular. Sun and an Elderly It Has a Golden Red Sun and an Elderly Green Moon, von Brandenburg’s first solo exhibition Green Moon in Canada, brings together five recurring themes in her work: colour, ritual, movement, stairs and 25 June – 5 September 2016 textiles. The inspiration for these themes are drawn Opening: 24 June 2016, 8 – 11 pm from the architecture of modern theatre and theorist Adolphe Appia’s stage designs; the dances gUest CURATOR: alexandra Baudelot, Co-direCtor of les laBoratoires d’auBerVilliers, franCe, direCtor of of movement theorist Rudolf von Laban and the ROSASCAPE (paris) Judson Dance Theater; the work on movement by assistant CUrator: Clara halpern, playwright Samuel Beckett and the artist Bruce rBC Curatorial fellow, THE POWER PLANT Nauman; and John Cage’s musical constructions INTERnAtIOnAL ARTS PARTNERs on randomness.