Or & colourschool | slide show by Tomás Giraldo Feener | NOV 2 & NOV 4
The Or Gallery and colourschool present:
XISRA: a photographic archive of recent art practices in Colombia
‹a series of slide shows by tomás giraldo feener‹
Thursday. November 2. 6pm
colourschool
BC Binning Studios, Studio 2A
University of British Columbia
6363 Stores Road
Vancouver, BC
www.colourschool.org
Saturday. November 4. 3pm
Or Gallery
103.480 Smithe Street
Vancouver, BC
www.orgallery.org
For the last two decades, public funding of the arts in Colombia has been
almost exclusively channeled into a series of national and regional art
salons that take place every two years and are based on open-calls in which
all artists are invited to submit their work to a jury who then curates each
salon and awards two grand prizes. Between October 2005 and January 2006,
Tomás Giraldo was commissioned by the Cultural Ministry in Colombia to
photographically document a series of fourteen exhibitions distributed among
the country¹s seven major regions. His main task was to create and manage an
archive of over 400 artists destined for two publications: an art catalogue
and a website.
In an independent initiative that seeks to draw attention to the digital
character of the archive and its subsequent portability, Giraldo will
present this archive as a series of slide shows, in part in reaction to the
limited possibilities of dissemination and contextualization offered by the
coffee table book format or by an online archive that offers no real
opportunity for dialogue or interaction with the public.
Using the simple format of the show of “slides” or images, Giraldo seeks to
make reference to pedagogical systems in order to propose a more critical
manner of utilizing documentary information‹in this case by extracting that
information from the institutional structure responsible for its production.
This Œsoft academicism¹ insists that the everyday keeper or handler of
material (aka the archivist) is often the most appropriate individual to
manage or represent a body of knowledge. This archive will be utilized to
discuss recent art practices in the conflicted socio-political context of
Colombia and how these practices are represented and managed by precarious
institutions governed by ambiguous and often contradictory sets of cultural
policies.
colourschool is a school within a school dedicated to the research and
exploration of five colours: black, white, brown, yellow, and red. Located
in a studio at the University of British Columbia, colourschool provides a
free and open space for critical inquiry as an alternative to institutional
participation in the knowledge economy. Inspired by the history of
experimental education, colourschool draws from the pedagogical precedents
of Black Mountain College and Joseph Beuys¹ Free International University,
taking an open and transdisciplinary approach to colour studies in the form
of lectures, screenings, colloquia, research, residencies, exhibitions, and
performances.
The Or Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for
the Arts, the BC Gaming Commission, the Province of BC through the BC Arts
Council, the City of Vancouver, and all our members and volunteers. Special
thanks to Kristina Podesva.