Vtape open during 401 Richmond Holiday Open House

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat, Lucas Michael, 2011

EMPTY HISTORY
@ 401 Richmond Holiday Party

401 Richmond Holiday Party
Thursday, December 5, 2019, 5-8pm

Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, 401 Richmond St. W., #440

Come to 401 Richmond to kick off the holiday season! Explore and shop 5 floors of artist studios, galleries, stores and more.

The current Vtape exhibition Empty History, curated by Adam Barbu, featuring work by Deirdre Logue, Lucas Michael, and Paul Wong, will be open for the evening. Please join us.

Vtape welcomes the return of Adam Barbu, (Curatorial Incubator 2015) who has curated an exhibition that questions histories of queer singularity and progress. Digging into the extensive holdings in the Vtape Critical Writing Index as well as hours of viewing, Adam arrived at a structure for his investigation that included conducting interviews with crucial voices in the LGBTQ+ community of Toronto. The resulting exhibition is an elegant exploration of what he calls the “everyday”. He writes:

“As a participant in Vtape’s Researcher is Present residency program, I have explored the ways in which artists use video to un-work the narrative conventions of queer history. Over the course of the past year, my research interests have been shaped by readings, conversations, and numerous encounters with the Vtape collection. This exhibition – Empty History – marks the culmination of the residency and includes works by Deirdre Logue, Paul Wong, and Lucas Michael.

“Empty History asks us to think through the work that representations of historical progress cannot do, as well as the ways in which such representations oftentimes erase and obscure the power of inaction, non-productivity, and worklessness. Logue, Wong, and Michael do not seek to repair the unjust and the uncertain by constructing new queer utopias. Instead, they pursue pleasure in the broken, the unchanging, and the everyday. Their works refuse resolution and finality, opening up a space of perpetually unfinished business in which action always already fails to result in change. And this is not for lack of care. The artists each negotiate an intensified lateral movement, occupying the difficult space in between meaning and disfunction, acting out and stepping back, seeking change and giving up. Within the frame of the screen, life itself is presented in a fixed state. In an embrace of that which cannot be assimilated into totalizing narratives of shared history, Empty History raises the possibility of curating “queer” beyond teleology.”

–Adam Barbu

Works in the exhibition

DEIRDRE LOGUE – Home Office, video, 2017, 03:33
LUCAS MICHAEL – Fixed Kilometer, video, 2018, 46:35
LUCAS MICHAEL – Audiences Fortunas Iuvat, sculpture, 2011
PAUL WONG – Perfect Day, video, 2007, 7:30

401 Richmond St., suite 452
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
416 351-1317
www.vtape.org
Tuesday – Friday 11am – 5pm
(only during exhibitions) Saturday 1-5pm

Vtape acknowledges the generous support of all of our funders including The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.

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Vtape is an Accessible Venue with level entrance at the EAST end of the building on Richmond St. West.