Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Geometry of Knowing

Part 1: SFU Gallery, Burnaby, January 15 – February 28, 2015
Part 2: Audain Gallery, Vancouver, January 15 – February 28, 2015
Part 3: SFU Gallery, Burnaby, March 21 – May 15, 2015
Part 4: Audain Gallery, Vancouver, March 19 – March 28, 2015

Geometry of Knowing is a group exhibition that investigates approaches to the acquisition of knowledge in the full mind-body-spirit sense of intelligence. Organized in four parts and presented across two galleries located in a post-secondary pedagogical institution, the objective of the project is to investigate the way in which artists engage tactics of fieldwork, embodiment and materiality in a manner that reveals or instigates a process of knowing. In this moment of increasing standardization and specialization regarding how people learn, art is a space for innovative thinking and experimentation outside given frameworks.

Many works in the exhibition engage hybrid forms of fieldwork, borrowing methodologies and tools from anthropology, hunting, marine navigation, chemistry, herbology and horticulture. For example, Kika Thorne’s new sculptural work, The Question of a Hunch, extends her ongoing interests in geometry, the visible spectrum and magnetism as a field upon which to project questions regarding chemical composition and its political ramifications.

Knowing through embodiment calls into play the geometry of sense perception, communication and collaboration between artists and physical enactments. For example, Carole Itter’s 1979 photographic series, Euclid, documents artist/musician Al Neil tracing Euclidean geometric theorems in the sand at Cates Park in North Vancouver. These images were projected as part of a collaborative live performance with Al Neil on piano, used on Neil’s Fog and Boot album cover, as well as existing as photographic works in their own right.

Manipulating materials, forms and images is a fundamental aspect of artistic production and transfigures how we experience, interpret and know the world. Camille Henrot’s 2011 video, The Strife of Love in a Dream, for example, composes a visual atlas of strategies to conquer anxiety and fear through mythology, medicine, religion, art, ritual and tourism.

At SFU Galleries, we understand the university as a site of knowledge production, dissemination and acquisition. Its architecture is spatial and social, formalizing communal inquiry, contemplation, critique and invention. Situated in this architecture, the exhibition imagines the open geometry of the gallery as a context to re-examine how the visual and material languages of contemporary art generate experiential, emotional, physical, environmental and intuitive intelligence. The exhibition Geometry of Knowing explores emerging and reclaimed forms of knowledge as tools to frame how artists consider ways of witnessing, being with, querying and generating.

The exhibition includes work by over thirty Canadian and international artists across the first three parts, including works from the SFU Art Collection. The fourth component is constituted as an SFU School for Contemporary Arts visual arts course in which students respond to the exhibition’s theme through archival research.

Part 1: Derya Akay, Eli Bornowsky, Neil Campbell, Julia Feyrer, Lawren Harris, Roy Kiyooka, Michael Morris, Gordon Smith, Frank Stella, Takao Tanabe. Part 2: Josef Albers, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Michael Drebert, Jimmie Durham, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Sandra Hanson, Camille Henrot, Dawn Johnston, Brian Jungen, David MacWilliam, N.E. Thing Co., Kara Uzelman, Brent Wadden. Part 3: Josef Albers, B.C. Binning, Lee Bontecou, Brian Fisher, Carole Itter, Devon Knowles, Evan Lee, Bruce Nauman, Hannah Rickards, Kika Thorne, Brent Wadden. Part 4: (Curated by 3rd year students in FPA 361 with faculty member Sabine Bitter) Amanda Arcuri, John Baldessari, Alison Bremner, Vanessa Brown, Chris Chapman, Sarah Davidson, Irina Giri, Jessica Gnyp, Alex Grünenfelder, Aleezay Hashmi, Danyal Imani, James K-M, Carolina Krawczyk, Jaymie Johnson, Janna Kumi, Adriana Lademann, Anchi Lin, Lucida Lab Collaborative, Sandy Margaret, T.J. Mclachlan, Bronwyn A Mcmillin, Jennifer O'Keeffe - Almond, Shelley Penfold, Terra Poirier, Emilio Rojas, Oscar A Lira Sanchez, Erin Siddall, Christian Vistan and Viki Wu.

Curated by Amy Kazymerchyk and Melanie O’Brian. Supported by a Project Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Events

Opening Reception and event with Jeneen Frei Njootli and Kara Uzelman
Wednesday, January 14, 2015, 7pm
Audain Gallery

Jeneen Frei Njootli will perform with handmade instruments crafted from female vadzaih (caribou) that embrace and disrupt the hybridity of the Athabascan fiddle in Vuntut Gwitchin culture. In an environment specially prepared by artist Jacob Gleeson (Tent Shop), Kara Uzelman will provide hospitality with brews that she grew and wildcrafted in Saskatchewan following research into traditions of medicinal fermentation and psychotropic experimentation at the University of Regina.  

Curators Tour of Part 2 with Amy Kazymerchyk and Melanie O’Brian
Saturday, January 31, 2015, 1pm
Audain Gallery

Part of the downtown Vancouver gallery tour with the Satellite Gallery and Contemporary Art Gallery.

2pm: Satellite Gallery, 560 Seymour Street, 2nd floor. Join a tour of Mainstreeters: Taking Advantage, 1972-1982 led by curators Allison Collins and Michael Turner.

3pm: Contemporary Art Gallery, 555 Nelson Street. Join a tour of the current exhibitions by Grace Schwindt and Krista Belle Stewart led by CAG curator of learning and public programs, Shaun Dacey and CAG Director Nigel Prince.

Event with Derya Akay and Julia Feyrer
Sunday, February 15, 2015, 12pm
SFU Gallery

Walking, talking, sowing, drinking and waiting... will explore cycles of spatial, social and horticultural cultivation with Derya Akay and Julia Feyrer in relationship to their works in the exhibition. Explore, navigate, narrate, observe, move, chat, experience, loop, mull, sprinkle. Rain or shine.

Tour of Part 2 with Denise Ryner
Friday, February 27, 2015, 5pm
Audain Gallery

Please join us for a free tour of Geometry of Knowing Part 2, lead by SFU Galleries' Curatorial Assistant, Denise Ryner.

Opening Reception: YOU ARE HERE
Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 7pm                      
Audain Gallery

Geometry of Knowing Part 4: YOU ARE HERE is a collaborative curatorial effort by students and faculty from the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU, as part of the class FPA 361. Specifically, YOU ARE HERE aims to bridge theory and practice by locating interpretations of knowledge production in the context of a pedagogical institution. Geometry of Knowing Part 4 synthesizes materials from a selection of archival sources and works submitted through an open call.

Participating artists include Amanda Arcuri, John Baldessari, Alison Bremner, Vanessa Brown, Chris Chapman, Sarah Davidson, Irina Giri, Jessica Gnyp, Alex Grünenfelder, Aleezay Hashmi, Danyal Imani, James K-M, Carolina Krawczyk, Jaymie Johnson, Janna Kumi, Adriana Lademann, Anchi Lin, Lucida Lab Collaborative, Sandy Margaret, T.J. Mclachlan, Bronwyn A Mcmillin, Jennifer O'Keeffe - Almond, Shelley Penfold, Terra Poirier, Emilio Rojas, Oscar A Lira Sanchez, Erin Siddall, Christian Vistan and Viki Wu.

3rd year students in FPA 361: Chris Chapman, Margaux Cheung, Pearl Choy, Eileen Hsu, Kevin Jinn, Victoria Kon, Carolina Krawczyk, Jacky Lo, Siena Locher–Lo, Alexis Lum, Chris Mark, Oscar Sanchez, Ada Sakowicz, Neo Tang, Lauren Tsuyuki, Megan Wedge, Viki Wu, Sid Wu

Geometry of Knowing Part 4: YOU ARE HERE is curated by SFU Visual Art BFA students, and runs March 19 to 28, 2015.

Public Tour: Geometry of Knowing Part 4: YOU ARE HERE
Saturday, March 21, 2015, 1pm

Please join us for a public tour of Geometry of Knowing Part 4: YOU ARE HERE lead by SFU SCA students.

Event with Kika Thorne, Steven Dodge, Am Johal and Vance Williams
Saturday, March 21, 2015, 12pm
SFU Gallery    

Artist Kika Thorne's new work, The Question of a Hunch in Part 3, engages geometry, the visible spectrum, and magnetism as a field upon which to project questions of chemical composition and its political ramifications. In relationship to her work, Thorne will lead a panel discussion with the question: how can carbon be separated from oxygen? Thorne will be joined by physicist Steven Dodge, writer and activist Am Johal, and chemist Vance Williams to discuss breaking down the form of carbon dioxide from the bonds and forces that make it a stable molecule to the collective will to stop producing it.

Tour of Part 3 with Devon Knowles and Carole Itter
Saturday, May 9, 2015, Time 12pm
SFU Gallery

Please join us for a free tour of Geometry of Knowing Part 3, lead by artists Devon Knowles and Carol Itter.  

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