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Opening date:
Thursday, October 13 at 7:30pm
Artist talk:
Thursday, October 13 at 6:00pm
Jo Cook and Michèle Provost bring to Gallery 101 new approaches to contemporary popular culture and socio-cultural history. The shows embody an energy of constant dynamism and activity. Both of the installations manifest the spirit of the “animateur”, who is the seminal artist, utilizing her/his skills, talents and personality to enable others to compose, design, devise, create, perform and engage with works of art of any kind. Rooted in a need for increasing the supply of artists properly equipped to work in education and community settings, the function of the “animateur” has developed into one where individual artists are able to create environments for people to enter into a creative dialogue or framework of arts-making. Through the combination of art forms such as drawing, sculpture, fictional writing or accessible popular culture, and educational settings, e.g., the classroom, library, book fair, or display areas, viewers are invited to explore freely. The activity of the animateur requires research, practical application and some sort of outcome, and is rooted in a process of educational exchange where viewers are able to bring their own skills, life experience, curiosity, passion—and also a readiness to put themselves at risk: it is the ultimate relationship of artists, education and conceptual work. –Jessie Lacayo, Curator
Raise Hands All Those
Remember when you raised your hand as a kid if you knew the answer to a question, or to be chosen to be on a team; or you might have raised your hand to show that you wanted to be included in something? Raise Hands All Those aims at channelling that enthusiasm to participate. It is inspired by Ilya Kabakov and Sophie Calle’s installations, which promoted the inclusion of displayed documentation as active components in art installations, and also produced all-encompassing environments in which the elements of music, theatre, painting, drawing and sculpture united. Raise Hands All Those uses in the same manner, an accessible, yet highly conceptual approach to the life narrative of a specific fictional character; presenting a rich retrospective of the activities Bucky Fleur has carried out in the world.
Bucky Fleur, a character created by B.C. artist Jo Cook, animates the events, displays, photographs and documentation in the exhibition. The installation comprises a series of display tables and kiosks, presenting postcards and a Mobile Mail Art Gallery. It is also accompanied by a chapbook, entitled The Autobiographies of Bucky Fleur, which will be available for visitors to take home. This chapbook includes stories about the life of Bucky Fleur, poetry and recipes. Bucky Fleur is not a pseudonym for artist Jo Cook nor a character for her to hide behind, but a character Cook is able to disappear into. Through the creation of a specific character such as Bucky, Cook is able to reflect a rich experience for this fictional person, filled with all the anxieties and comedic trials of life. Bucky is a writer and publishing artist, "born in 1949… she has exhibited works from Antwerp to Leningrad, she rarely attends her own openings and when she does, she is typically seen in a black beehive wig, large sunglasses, an Air Canada bag for a purse, shaking hands with fingernails long as kitchen knives." (Yasuko Thanh p. 4). When Bucky travelled to Paris, her father gave her a copy of her aunt’s autobiography, entitled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Since then, she became interested in the stories of art and literature and began to try every medium, from sculpture to painting, to ceramics and glass blowing. (Tammy Mcgrath, p. 21). On a trip to see the doctor, Bucky’s anxiety shows, but so does her observation for the landscape as she travels in a B.C. ferry, along the shore of Elk Lake. (Sally Ireland, p, 27)
Both the exhibition and chapbook are overwhelmingly full of images and text that interconnect. Drawings and writing merge, blurring each other, and becoming two things at once. Raise Hands All Those references linguistic approaches to the study of meaning and focuses on the margins where text and language become connected, fluid, and yet dependent on our understanding and engagement to make them come alive. In the same way, the work in the installation also incorporates sculpture, drawing, photographs and text. Cook’s installation is like walking into a book, with all the pages opened; we as the viewer become immersed in an environment that is psychologically charged and completely absorbing. The installation expands our notion of authorship and defining boundaries, with regard to both the combination of words and images and the connection between objects and their meaning. As viewers and readers we are engrossed in and conscious of the mechanics of character, plot, setting, dialogue and point of view; however, true to Cook’s nature, nothing seems to make sense at first glance. Who is Bucky Fleur, who is Jo Cook?, how many autobiographies can one person have? At the end of it all, a reflection on the self/ourselves becomes evident.
–Jessie Lacayo, Curator
Bio:
Jo Cook was born in Red Wing, Minnesota and moved to Canada in 1969. For the last 12 years she has lived on Mayne Island, B.C., a small island off the west coast of Canada. Being semi-isolated, Cook has found that one of the projects that keeps her connected to other artists is making and distributing independently produced books, pamphlets, & manifestos. She curated Self Publish or Perish for Open Space in 2004; and with Owen Plummer co-curated Cyclops' Dreams: artists' books, comix, & zines for Access Artist Run Centre in 2005. Cook has exhibited her work at eyelevel gallery and the Khyber Centre for the Arts, Halifax; Access Artist-Run Centre, and the Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver; the New Gallery, Calgary; Open Space, and the Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria; and internationally in Tokyo, Stockholm, Bern, Belfast, and Bergen, Norway. Her comics and zines can be found at Chroma Books and Lucky's Comics, both on Main Street in Vancouver.
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