Lili Reynaud-Dewar, My Epidemic (Teaching Bjarne Melgaard’s Class). Installation view, Audain Gallery, 2015. Photo: Blaine Campbell.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar: My Epidemic (Teaching Bjarne Melgaard's Class)
October 22 - December 12, 2015
Audain Gallery
Lili Reynaud-Dewar uses a range of mediums such as textiles, sculpture, text, performance and video to create environments in which she examines how gestures of vulnerability and concealment catalyze both exploitation and empowerment. Her practice considers the historical, social and economic construction of the institutions she produces in, and her works expose how these spaces privately and publicly codify bodies and experiences. Reynaud-Dewar works towards mutability, circulation and synthesis through performing her own personal history alongside the legacies of transgressive cultural figures of the twentieth century, such as Cosey Fanni Tutti, Josephine Baker and Guillaume Dustan.
My Epidemic is an iteration of artworks, texts, seminars and exhibitions in which she quotes and edits numerous texts influenced by AIDS and its impact on bodies and culture. This body of work performs the virality of artistic, intellectual and social life, by circulating between discourses of epidemiology, collective action, artistic production and identity formation.
My Epidemic (Teaching Bjarne Melgaard's Class) follows the project My Epidemic (small modest bad blood opera) that Reynaud-Dewar produced for "All the World's Futures" 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. The project featured a libretto produced with Macon, and a public reading with her students from the Haute École d'art et design. During the Biennale she also released her book My Epidemic (texts on my work and the work of other artists), which was designed in collaboration with Ramaya Tegegne.
In both the exhibition and the SCA seminar she will host in the Audain Gallery, Reynaud-Dewar will perform Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard's seminar "Beyond Death: Viral Discontents and Contemporary Notions about AIDS". The seminar was held during the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 for post-graduate students at the Università IUAV di Venezia. Seminar participants responded to Melgaard's syllabus with texts and artworks that contributed to his exhibition for the Norweigan pavilion, Baton Sinister.
Reynaud-Dewar will teach Melgaard's syllabus, which was published in the catalogue for Baton Sinister, and will work with undergraduate SCA students through his selected texts and films. In collaboration with Tegegne, seminar participants will edit, transpose and collage excerpts from the texts, to produce posters that convey their individual and collective reading of the works. The seminar takes place on Fridays and Saturdays in October. Once the exhibition opens on October 21, gallery visitors will encounter the performance and seminar in process. The exhibition also features a video produced by BookTV, an initiative by Beckbooks in Geneva.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar (1975) is a French artist who lives and works in Grenoble. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at the New Museum, New York; Index, Stockholm; Outpost, Norwich, England; and Kunsthalle Basel, and participated in the 12th Lyon Biennial, the 2012 La Triennale, and the 5th Berlin Biennial. Since 2010 she has held a professorship at Haute école d'art et design in Geneva.
Reynaud-Dewar is a 2015 Audain Visual Artist in Residence, which is co-presented by SFU Galleries and SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. Her residency and exhibition are supported by the Institut français and the Consulat Général de France à Vancouver.
Curated by Amy Kazymerchyk.
Events
Opening Reception and Artist's Talk
Wednesday, October 21, 7 - 10pm
Audain Gallery
SCA Seminar: My Epidemic (Teaching Bjarne Melgaard's Class)
Friday and Saturday, October 9 - 10; 16 - 17; 23 - 24; 30 - 31
Ramaya Tegegne joins the seminar October 23 - 24.
Audain Gallery
Lili Reynaud-Dewar's SCA seminar FPA 269/369 will be held in the Audain Gallery as an element of the exhibition. The seminar can be witnessed during gallery hours.
Ramaya Tegegne Performance
You don't always have to be you to be yourself: Version#17: Annie Sprinkle
Friday, October 23, 9pm
MODEL Projects, 147 Main Street
Ramaya Tegegne lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland. She currently co-runs the contemporary art space Forde and the bookshop Oraibi Books with Beckbooks. She has recently presented her work at Marbriers 4, Geneva; Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna; Sunview Lunchoenette, New York; Berlin; Maladie d’Amour, Grenoble; and Curtat Tunnel, Lausanne. Her latest artist’s book, Menage a trois, has just been published by Fri Art Fribourg on the occasion of her solo exhibition there.
Exhibition Tour with Amy Kazymerchyk, Lili Reynaud-Dewar and SCA students
Saturday, October 31, 1pm
Audain Gallery
Join us for a tour of the exhibition led by curator Amy Kazymerchyk with the artist and seminar students. Afterward, walk with us to the Or Gallery for a 2PM tour of Myfanwy Macleod’s exhibition The Private Life of the Rabbit, led by curator Jonathan Middleton, then continue to Contemporary Art Gallery for a 3PM tour of Ryan Gander’s exhibition Make every show like it's your last led by curator Shaun Dacey.
Support Material
Photos
Images from SCA Seminar: My Epidemic (Teaching Bjarne Melgaard's Class)
Video
Opening Reception and Artist's Talk with Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Amy Kazymerchyk and Judy Radule.
Wednesday, October 21, 7 - 10PM
Audain Gallery
Interview with Lili Reynaud-Dewar on ICI CB / Yukon
