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What the research output actually is (30 WORDS)
• A solo exhibition of Carey Young at the Power Plant, Toronto, 14 March - 18 May 2009, comprising photographs, videos, works on paper, text works, and a participatory telephone work. What field of knowledge is (100 WORDS)
The first North American survey of Young’s work, the exhibition introduced a wide public to her investigations into the slippage between corporate, commercial, legal and artistic behaviour. Emphasising works that encouraged viewers to comply with institutional and commercial calls for participation, it embodied the complicities at the heart of Young’s practice. For whereas most politicised artists of the 1960s and 1970s overtly criticised mainstream institutions, Young explores her (and, by extension, our) complicity with their operations. The project augmented my research into performance and performativity, the management of affect within contemporary capitalism, and the embodied enactment of conventional behaviour that Pierre Bourdieu termed ‘habitus’. What the methodology is (100 WORDS)
The exhibition emerged through site visits by the artist. It responded both to the gallery’s physical spaces and to Toronto as a centre of media, communications and legal industries. Held in tandem with a Lawrence Weiner show at the Power Plant, it highlighted Young’s investigation of legacies of conceptual art. To develop ‘Speechcraft’, I attended Toast Masters events to secure collaborators. I worked with Laura Fried at the St Lois Museum, Missouri, to secure in-kind sponsorship and participation from Charter Communications for The Representative telephone work. Gallery talks from corporate and legal specialists introduced perspectives from relevant fields. How the work is disseminated (70 WORDS)
The exhibition took place at the Power Plant, Toronto, with Speechcraft being held in the Queens Quay Theatre at Harbourfront Centre. ‘The Representative’ telephone work was subsequently installed at the Contemporary Art Museum, St Lois, during Young’s exhibition ‘Speech Acts’. A talk with Young and me took place at Prefix ICA, Toronto, as part of their Urban Field series. Weekly gallery talks offered perspectives from lawyers, business consultants, management trainers, artists and writers. Corporate sponsorship came from Aylesworth LLP, Toronto, and in-kind sponsorship from Charter Communications. Promoted in e-flux, artnews.org, newsletter, website. Previews in Canadian Architect, Mar 13, 2009 Reviewed in Artforum, Summer 2009.
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