For six Monday afternoons this winter artists are invited to come to the Artists’ Soup Kitchen for a FREE HOT LUNCH. Each week is hosted by different artists who will bring their creative practices to the Soup Kitchen.

A new menu each week!
Monday, January 9: Ulysses Castellanos
Monday, January 16: Helen Reed and Hannah Jickling
Monday, January 23: Tobaron Waxman
Monday, January 30: Naty Tremblay
Monday, February 6: Annie Onyi Cheung
Monday, February 13: Swintak

Artists’ Soup Kitchen Mondays ONLY
Series runs Jan 9 to Feb 13, from 12-3pm
The Raging Spoon Cafe
761 Queen Street West, Toronto
Wheelchair accessible space

Volunteer at the Soup Kitchen!
Contact: StarvingArtistSoupKitchen@gmail.com
Info: jessdobkin.com

The Starving Artists Collective
(Catherine Clarke, Jess Dobkin and Stephanie Springgay)

Made possible with support from the Toronto Arts Council and SSHRC

2 of my videos are now on view at art+drinks, a moving images space by John Oswald.

_scape with 6 and 7 and Untitled [black+grey] will be on view occasionally from now through to the end of the year. Oswald switches up the selection on view on a near-nightly-basis, choosing from work by Michael Snow, David Rokeby, John Oswald, Renée Lear, Bettina Hoffmann, Laurel MacDonald, Max Dean, Mani Mazinani, Annie Onyi Cheung, and Mark Reale.

About art+drinks – A storefront location in Toronto on Dundas West (at the intersection of Palmerston) is a comfortable viewing lounge/observia connected to a bar/café which is connected to a locavore deli; a new place to eat and drink and talk, and especially to watch images unfold.

open Tuesday – Saturday from sunset to 11pm
800 Dundas Street West, Toronto   ON   M6J 1V1
phone: 647-665-8585

A Piece of a City is a neighbourhood-based curatorial initiative commissioned for Toronto’s Art of the Danforth Festival (May 2012). The project brings together a group of emerging and established artists to envision a series of site-specific installations and performances that address the interlocking themes of locality, community & contemporary art practice.

Over the course of 6 months, project curators and artists will work within the Danforth East community to conceive, research, document, and finally build a series of contemporary art projects for the festival. This website will serve as our show & tell space. All projects will be documented here from the ground up.

About the AOD Festival:

Art of the Danforth is a month-long multidisciplinary arts festival held along Danforth Ave East between Greenwood Ave and Woodbine Ave in Toronto, Ontario. This year’s festival will host three distinct curatorial zones, each zone produced by a commissioned curatorial collective.

A Piece of a City Project is curated by east-end artists, Annie Onyi Cheung, John Loerchner & Laura Mendes and will run from Coxwell Ave to West Lynn Ave in Zone 2 of the festival.

*Depending on size & scale, artists will be given a budget to conceive their projects.

*Toronto east-end artists and applicants from the neighbourhood are strongly encouraged to apply.

Visit www.apieceofacity.com for more submission guidelines and more details.

How Far Is Near

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, 2011
October 1, 2011, 6:59 pm to sunrise

I will be installing a version of The Kiss indoors at Hart House as part of their Nuit Blanche exhibition. Please come and see the work in the East Common Room at Hart House, relax on soft rugs, sneak some kisses, and snuggle by the fire place between your jaunts from zone to zone.

A perennial crowd favorite, the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery is once again proud to present a slate of programming for the City of Toronto’s annual all night contemporary art festival, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. This year’s highlights include a newly commissioned Farmers Market 2050, a new bar-chitectural installation by Dean Baldwin, a film screening by Joyce Wieland and Hollis Frampton, and a video installation by Annie Onyi Cheung, among others. We are also excited to announce that we are expanding out of Hart House and moving into Marshall McLuhan’s famous Coach House Institute with a multimedia installation by Amsterdam-based Mark Boulos.

Sincerest thanks to all performers: Adam, Alexander, Alise, Annie, Asad, Caitlin, Carl, Claire, David, Deanna, Emma, Erin, Joanna, Jonathan, Jon, Kim, Lannie, Laura, Leanne, Lora, Marla, Matthew, Meg, Mimi, Natalie, Nayeon, Paul, Rick, Risa, Russel, Shannon, Tharmila, Van, Vika, and Will

Untitled [ black + grey], edition 1/10 was donated to Canadian Art Foundation and auctioned during their annual gala fundraiser, held on September 21 at The Carlu in Toronto.

Untitled [ black + grey ] is now published as a limited edition of 10! More details and images can be found here.

Edition 1/10 was recently donated to Canadian Art Foundation for their annual fundraiser gala and auction. Numbers 5 through 10 of 10 are available.

Special thanks to Sandra Liu who designed and produced this edition with me.

I made a video [ elastic body / elastischen Körper ] that will be exhibited at A trans Pavilion (Berlin), a contribution to Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico‘s collaborative exhibition inviting video calls + responses from artists in Berlin.

Backtrack / A serendipi(ci)ty #04

Through a shared interest in the art and language of mapping Canadian artists Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico turn the A trans Pavilion into a LAB environment. The serendipity of these chance encounters with the public, will provide the data needed for the artists to create an installation that will be a collective portrait of the city based on where and when people travel

Collaborators in this endeavour are: Annie Onyi Cheung, Shannon Cooney, Dan Hudson, David Kripppendorff, Mareike Lee, Sonya Schoenberger and Christof Zwiener, Maria Sewcz, and Molly Sigalet.

LOCATION³
Gallery Hop 2011 Toronto
Gala Dinner & Auction September 21
Tours & Talks September 24

This September, the Canadian Art Foundation—celebrating its 20th anniversary as Canada’s ultimate portal for the exposure of visual arts—invites art lovers to join our annual Gallery Hop. Under the theme of Location³, this two-part event celebrates the best and brightest on the Canadian art scene. On Wednesday, September 21, the Gallery Hop Gala Dinner and Auction will take place at the Carlu. Saturday, September 24, Gallery Hop Day, features a panel, gallery tours and a magazine launch, all of which are free.

I’m excited to share that my work is included in this year’s auction (Lot 12)!

Untitled [black+grey], 2011
Single channel video, 4:22 minutes, looped, Edition 1/10
Includes one Blu-ray DVD and one standard NTSC DVD

Find out more at the Canadian Art Foundation website.

Preview all of the art work up for auction at the Location³ Gallery Hop 2011 Toronto website. Other artists include Owen Kydd, Micah Lexier, Wanda Koop, An Te Liu, and Roula Partheniou.

Opening event:

August 19 | 9pm – 1am
Gallery hours:
August 20-21 | 11am – 5pm

In Memory is the final installment of The (Re)Collection Project, a three-part art series that investigates how people remember the PAST, experience the PRESENT and think about the FUTURE.

“It isn’t so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember,
as the number of things I can remember that aren’t so.”

– Mark Twain

“In Memory: Something that happens after then, and before now” is an exhibition that examines the instability of remembering.

What is memory? A mental note. Something that changes and degrades over time. A vague recollection. Something palpable. A taste. A smell. A lie?

Over the period of six weeks, pairs of artists are asked to take on the challenge of working together to create a collaborative art installation that uses “remembering” as part of the creative process, and memory (or memories) as material.  Artists are encouraged to examine the relationships between memory, documentation and truth, and to explore ways of re-imagining or reinterpreting the past.

Artists will be creating installations for specific spaces inside 717 Queen Street East, an old decommissioned funeral parlour.

Artists:
Adam Stenhouse & Vanessa Arnold
Annie Onyi Cheung & Risa Kusumoto
Annie Tse & Van L. Ching
Bishara Mohamed & Marino Imperio
Celine Marks & Lindsay Small
Chris Willes & Julia Male
Deborah Peterson & Huss Elassal
Denise Ing & Kathryn Ward
Gram Shmalz & Brian Sasaski
Jessica Thalmann & Noelle Wharton-Ayer
Kyra Green & Jasmyn Fyffe
Laura Mendes & John Loerchner
Maggie Flynn & Maggy Flynn
Nurielle Stern & Nancy Jo Cullen
Vasa Gatiance & Alex Shaw

I am curating In Memory with Labspace Studio Co-Directors, Laura Mendes & John Loerchner.

I will be working with Laura Mendes and John Loerchner (co-directors of Labspace Studio) to curate Zone 2 for Art of the Danforth, an annual month-long art festival, upcoming in May 2012.We will be launching an open call for submissions this fall, asking artists (particularly those based in Toronto-East neighbourhoods) to propose installation, performance, and/or sculpture projects that can engage the community, and will change, evolve, move, or grow, over the month-long festival. Watch for the upcoming call for submissions!

Art of the Danforth is dedicated to bringing arts & cultural activities to Toronto’s Danforth East community.