Red Bull 381 Projects presents a major exhibition of four Canadian artists whose work is deeply ingrained in the cultures, lifestyles, thought processes, and at times bizarre and eccentric outgrowths of music enthusiasm: Dave Dyment, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Alana Riley and Tony Romano.
The exhibition draws its title from Dyment’s video Pop Quiz, which features a stream of questions culled from the artist’s extensive record collection. Cheeky and provocative, the question might initially come across as a jab at the viewer, but in the context of the work of these four artists it reveals layers of meaning that address music’s cultural, emotional and transformative qualities. While most viewers would feel compelled to defend their investment in music, a careful consideration of the show’s title begs further questions: What does it mean to “care for” music? Does music care for us? Is it possible to care too much? Combined, these works reveal a web of associations ranging from fandom, cult obsession, nostalgia, existential rumination and the archival impulse.
For Pop Quiz, Dave Dyment mined his entire record collection, cataloguing the questions posed in countless song lyrics and presenting them sequentially. Ranging from the banal to the absurd, each question is given uniform type treatment and visual arrangement, playing out in a seemingly endless succession.
For this exhibition, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay presents the latest incarnation of his ongoing work, (Jimmy Somerville Project), in which he pays homage to Glaswegian pop icon Jimmy Somerville through a series of performance, textile and print works. The project consists of a series of gestures that honour Somerville’s lasting creative, social and political legacy.
Johnny Young vs. William Judge With Constant Reference to Dorothy Retallack is a combination of the artist’s two existing works: Johnny Young/William Judge and Judas vs. Judas (both 2007). His work features two tomato plants, individually isolated in sound-proofed cabinets and subjected to the iconic heavy metal band Judas Priest’s Stained Class album—one with the album played forwards, the other in reverse—Romano has substituted this sound source with that of the Johnny Young/William Judge record. In both cases, the effects on the plants conform to the logic of Dorothy Retallack’s plant and music experiments.
Alana Riley’s 2-channel video work is a form of video portraiture that takes as its premise the love song as a window into the subjects she documents. For this work, Riley approached employees and local merchants in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, asking each person to perform their favourite love song before the camera.
About Red Bull 381 Projects
Red Bull 381 Projects is a platform to engage and gather creative minds to collaborate and broaden passions within the worlds of art and design. Chosen by an independent curatorial board, artists will be invited to utilize the environment as a space, atelier and ultimately a forum to showcase their work.
Red Bull 381 Projects is housed within the Red Bull Toronto office, the same space that played host to the Red Bull Music Academy in 2007. The Academy acts as a creative hub for the emerging music maker, complementing their new sounds with art borne from and shaped by the rich mix of cultures, lifestyles and ideas that is Toronto. 381 Projects strives to continue that legacy.
www.redbull381projects.com
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