OPENING TOMORROW NIGHT!

Wednesday, September 11, 6 – 9 pm

From 11 September – 1 December, AGYU and the Toronto Biennial of Art bring together Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding and Jae Jarrell, two solo exhibitions set in relation as assemblies of association.

Paris- and New York-based Caecilia Tripp creates immersive film, participatory performance, and sculptural installations that operate at the intersection of artistic and scientific inquiry. Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding culminates two years of research and residencies with AGYU, bringing together recent and commissioned works that poetically engage Martiniquan poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant’s pensée du tremblement: a universe of thought that trembles, shakes, vibrates, and stays multiple.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935, Jae Jarrell began working professionally in the early 1960s on Chicago’s South Side, creating designs that deliberately disrupted the boundaries between fashion and sculpture. By the late 60s, her work was in dialogue with the activism of the era and aligned with the Black Arts Movement and, in 1968, Jarrell, together with her husband Wadsworth, Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and Gerald Williams, founded AFRICOBRA. This exhibition features sculptures, original designs, and archival material spanning nearly fifty years of this legendary artist’s practice.

Public Programs

Interstellar Sleep: A Performance by Caecilia Tripp | 259 Lake Shore Blvd. E.
Rehearsal Performance: September 19, 12 pm*
Public Performance: September 21 & 22, 1 pm

Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art in partnership with AGYU’s exhibition of Tripp’s work, Interstellar Sleep is a choreographed 6-performer multi-sensory installation. Interstellar Sleep is conceived in collaboration with local astrophysicists, Indigenous knowledge keepers, York University’s hip hop dance troupe, and features a musical score by Toronto-based artist Mani Mazinani.

* Professional Preview Days, September 18-20; visit torontobiennial.org for accreditation.

Jae Jarrell: Artist’s Talk | Monday, September 23, 4 – 6 pm | AGYU

In partnership with the Toronto Biennial of Art Programs, AGYU presents an artist’s talk by Jae Jarrell. Jarrell speaks to methods of creating wearable artworks in relation to the affirmative, future-facing strengths and struggles of the Black art movement.

Wigwam Chi-Chemung: Decolonizing Astrophysics | Sunday, September 22, 6 – 8 pm | Ontario Place South Marina
Elder Duke Redbird in conversation with Dr. Renée Hložek

Wigwam Chi-Chemung is an art installation and Indigenous interpretive learning centre initiated by Indigenous intellectual, poet, painter, broadcaster, filmmaker, orator, and long-term AGYU collaborator and friend, Elder Duke Redbird. In conjunction with Caecilia Tripp’s exhibition, AGYU and the Toronto Biennial of Art host an intimate night of conversation between Elder Redbird and Astrophysicist Renée Hložek (Dunlap Institute, UofT) about the cosmos from a multiplicity of perspectives.

AGYU’s Student Tour Series: Jason Cyrus | Wednesday, October 9, 6 pm | AGYU

York MA candidate Jason Cyrus discusses his research interests in fashion archives and historic representations of gender and race in relation to Caecilia Tripp’s and Jae Jarrell’s exhibitions. Cyrus sees fashion as a lens through which to analyze history and culture, while allowing us to interpret, construct, and present our individual identities to the world.

Archives of Futurities | Friday, October 25, 1 pm | Art Toronto
A conversation between Emelie Chhangur, Pamila Matharu, and Rajni Perera
RBC Speaker Series, Art Toronto Main Stage

RBC presents a conversation on the concept of “Future Real Conditional,” which Black photography scholar Tina M. Campt describes as a future that hasn’t yet happened but must. The conversation explores the interstitial spaces artists seek to carve for the future; the importance of creating places of inclusion, both socially and aesthetically; and how artists influence futures they seek to inhabit—for themselves and other generations—by effecting change today.

Toronto Biennial of Art Storytelling Tours @ AGYU
Wednesdays: October 16 & November 6, 6 – 8 pm

Join Toronto-based, Gabonese-Congolese spoken-word poet and rapper Borelson for an engagement with Caecilia Tripp’s and Jae Jarrell’s exhibitions. The Toronto Biennial of Art Storytelling Program is a series of hosted conversations across Biennial sites by an intergenerational body of Storytellers who actively engage visitors in questions and perspectives raised by projects within the Biennial.

Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding, curated by Emelie Chhangur, is presented in partnership with the Toronto branch of the Cultural and Scientific Office of the French Embassy, located at the French Consulate in Toronto and produced with the support of the Institut Français, Paris, France and the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France in Canada. The presentation of Asteroid (2019) at AGYU is made possible with the financial support of Sharjah Foundation and Erna Hecey Gallery, Luxembourg.

Additional work by Caecilia Tripp is on view at 259 Lake Shore Blvd. E. as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art. Visit torontobiennial.org for details.

Jae Jarrell, curated by Candice Hopkins and Tairone Bastien, is co-presented by AGYU and the Toronto Biennial of Art. Additional work by Jarrell is on view at 259 Lake Shore Blvd. E as part of the Biennial. Visit torontobiennial.org for details.

http://AGYU.art

The AGYU is located in the Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto.
Gallery hours: Monday to Friday, 10 am – 4 pm; Wednesday, 10 am – 8 pm; Sunday, noon – 5 pm; and Saturday, closed.

AGYU promotes 2SLGBTQIAP positive spaces & experiences and is barrier free.

Everything is FREE

Directions: TTC: Ride Line 1 to York University Station: the gallery entrance faces the south exit. Driving: Enter YorkU Keele Campus via The Pond Road. Park in the Student Services garage. The closest WheelTrans stop is York University Subway Station, North Exit.

The Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) is a public, university-affiliated, non-profit contemporary art gallery supported by York University, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council.

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For more information or to request images or interviews with the artists, please contact Emelie Chhangur, Interim Director/Curator at emelie@yorku.ca.

Image: Installation view of Caecilia Tripp: Going Space and Other Worlding [detail of video installation Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 2019]. Photo: Michael Maranda, AGYU.