Recent News

• Solo European show by Leah James
  
  Fellow Leah James will have a solo show at ARTAe Galerie in Leipzig Germany in April of 2008.
• Book length study of our work
  
  YYZ Books of Toronto will publish a book on our research, tentatively set for late 2008. It will include extensive documentation of our work, reprints of our publications and critical essays by invited writers.
• Leah James in Berlin
  
  Fellow Leah James spent the month of December 2007 working with painter Nicola Staeglich in Berlin.

• Jan Verwoert in Sheffield
  
  Research undertaken by Jan Verwoert during his fellowship in Toronto in 2007 contributed to a major piece written for Art Sheffield 08 and republished in dot dot dot #14. A copy can be found on this site on the Historical Research page. 
• Robert Linsley in New York
  
  Robert Linsley was included in the show "Regroup" at the Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York from Dec. 15th. 2007 to Jan. 13th. 2008
• New work by Jenny Phelps
  
  Jenny Phelps' show at Whittier College's Greenleaf Gallery opened on November 15th. 2007 and closed on Jan. 31st. this year. Images can be found on this site under the Exhibitions heading.

• Alexis Harding in Kitchener
  
  British artist Alexis Harding joined us in Kitchener for a month, from Nov. 19th. to Dec. 19th. 2007. He held a studio exhibition of the work he made here. He will be represented by Georgia Scherman Projects of Toronto.
• UAAC
  
  On Nov. 4th. 2007, Robert Linsley gave a talk at the annual UAAC conference, held this year at the University of Waterloo. He spoke about the work of artist fellows Mike Murphy, Sasha Pierce and Leah James.

• Scholar visits from Geneva
  
  From November 22nd to November 26th we were joined by distinguished scholar Dario Gamboni, of the University of Geneva. Gamboni is the author of Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art (2004). He participated in a seminar attended by Sasha Pierce, Leah James and Mike Murphy, all current or former studio fellows, artist Scott Lyall of Toronto and curator Charles Reeve of the Ontario College of Art and Design, and visitors Wojciech Olejnik and Andreas Neufert from Berlin.
• Robert Linsley on Art and Systems Theory
  
  On Oct 27th. 2007, Robert Linsley gave a talk at a conference on art and systems theory at the Whitechapel Art gallery in London England. The event was sponsored by London Metropolitan University and the conference website is at www.systemsart.org.
• Sasha Pierce at Loop
  
  October 13 to November 4th Sasha Pierce will be showing at Loop Gallery in Toronto.

• Pours at Nuit Blanche
  
  Michael Murphy showed his new poured ink paintings at the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto during Nuit Blanche, Sept. 29th. 2007

• Systems Theory and the Abstract Void
  
  

  One of topics that defines the limits of our research is systems theory. We have identified two major systems theories relevant to our work: the static or diagrammatic theory of Niklas Luhmann, and the dynamic theory of emergent properties developed at the Santa Fe Institute. These theories are relevant to the problems of how to distinguish art from other man made things and from nature. The latter question was very fruitfully taken up by Jenny Phelps, an artist from Los Angeles who completed her fellowship in the spring of 2007.

  In May of 2007 we conducted a seminar with three invited scholars who work with systems theory.

  Francis Halsall is one of the first scholars in the field of modern art to take up Luhmann's ideas, and we were very happy to have had him come to Toronto to discuss his ideas with us. Jess Atwood Gibson is completing a dissertation under David Joselit on Group Zero. She discussed an important projection piece made in homage to the work of Lucio Fontana, and shown at the Documenta in 1964. This work touches the boundary between the object and its representation. Mette Gieskes, an art historian at the Radboud Universiteit at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, discussed several artists who were interested in the dialectic between limits and potentiality and in capturing real space and information on a two-dimensional surface, including Hantai, Morellet, Boetti and LeWitt. Richard Shiff, who has visited us before, was an auditor. We value him for his combination of theoretical intelligence and principled focus on the concrete particulars of art.

  The discussion included Fellows Michael Murphy, Sasha Pierce, Jennifer Phelps, Scott Lyall and Leah James. Nicola Stäglich, a young Berlin painter, also took part.