EXHIBITION: Close to You @ The Textile Museum of Canada (June 4 – October 12, reception: June 4))

Ai Kijima, Burn it Up, 2006.

I am reposting this listing with the news that Allyson Mitchell and Michèle Provost, two of the artists exhibiting in Close to You, will meet in the galleries to discuss the exhibition with each other and the audience.

Conversations in the Gallery
Wednesday July 9, 6:30 pm

Members $10, Non-members $12, Full-time students Pay-What-You-Can.
Tickets may be purchased at the TMC's front desk. Please arrive early, seating is limited.


Close to You
Contemporary Textiles, Intimacy and Popular Culture
June 4 – October 12, 2008
Curated by Sarah Quinton
Opening reception: Wednesday June 4, 6:30 – 8:00 pm. Remarks at 6:45 pm.
Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Ave.Toronto, ON

Close to You examines the use of idioms and images from popular culture in the work of five artists from Canada and the United States . Using craft as the medium Ai Kijima, Scott Kildall, Allyson Mitchell, Mark Newport and Michèle Provost explore mass media messages about popular myth, comic book heroics and contemporary social and sexual customs. They critique these mass-mediated ideals, scripted gender roles and mass production through mechanically reproduced images or music, or by inserting themselves into humourous and revealing scenarios.

The artists in Close to You have chosen to work in textiles because of their intimate and evocative qualities as well as their status (high versus low) within the larger sphere of contemporary art. Never far from the surface, the debate over low and high culture is a thread found in nearly every piece in the exhibition.

With life-sized knitted superhero costumes, a 9ft sexy Sasquatch and panoramic views of a fragmented pop culture fantasyland where Thomas the Tank and Led Zeppelin share the same psychic space, the artists in Close to You present a labour-intensive examination of the world mass media has created around us. Smart and cheeky this exhibition also features a salon style installation of meticulously embroidered lyrics from 44 rock and roll favourites and a racy homage to Warhol. This conceptually clever exhibition runs to October 12 at the Textile Museum of Canada. An illustrated catalogue co-produced with Dalhousie Art Gallery , Halifax , is available.