25 September 2004 - 27 September 2004
Mercer Union in Shanghai, China, presents:
Daniel Barrow, A Miracle
Kevin Schmidt, Long Beach Led Zep
Allison Hrabluik, Lofoten Islands, Norway, and Niagara Street, Toronto
Kevin Schmidt, Long Beach Led Zep @ the International Video Screening in Fuxing Park
International Meeting Between Autonomous Cultural Centers Stemming from Citizen and Artistic Initiatives
September 25th – 27th 2004 at BizArt Art Center, Shanghai
A BizArt and Artfactories project
With the co-operation and support of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)
In association with the In-Between Conference, Seoul, Korea
Daniel Barrow is a Winnipeg-based media artist, working in performance, video and installation. He has exhibited widely in Canada and abroad. Recently, Barrow has exhibited at Three Walls Gallery (Chicago), DAZIBAO (Montreal), and the Images Festival (Toronto). Since 1993, Barrow has used an overhead projector to relay ideas and short narratives. Specifically, he creates and adapts comic book narratives to a “manual” form of animation by projecting, layering and manipulating drawings on mylar transparencies. Barrow variously refers to this practice as “graphic performance, live illustration, or manual animation.” Barrow’s forthcoming performance, Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry will once again use an overhead projector in this way, to trace and develop the internal dialogue of a melancholic, cartoon character.
Kevin Schmidt grew up in the Vancouver suburbs, and completed a BFA at Emily Carr in 1997. He remains based in Vancouver. His emerging practice is concerned with the reclamation of transcendent possibility in a culture where “all that is solid melts into air.” Small waves, cold water, his first solo show at Access Gallery in 2003, examined this theme within the context of surf culture on Vancouver Island. In 2002, his DVD Long Beach Led Zep debuted in Vancouver. Long Beach Led Zep continues to show across Canada, internationally, and has been purchased by the National Gallery of Canada. He is currently working on artworks that combine landscape and special effects.
Long Beach Led Zep is an eight-minute video, looped for installation purposes, in which I stand on Vancouver Island’s Long Beach and play Led Zeppelin’s 1971 “Stairway to Heaven” in its entirety. I play the song on an electric guitar through a Marshall amplifier powered by a gasoline generator. The work combines landscape with overwrought rock sentimentality. Somehow both become beautiful, despite the clichéd nature of each component.
Allison Hrabluik is from Calgary, Alberta and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions and film festivals across Canada and internationally, including Catriona Jeffries Gallery (Vancouver, BC), Downtown Artspace (Adelaide, Australia), Market Gallery (Glasgow, Scotland), EK Arts Centre (East Kilbride, Scotland), Stride Gallery (Calgary, AB), Eastern Edge Gallery (St. John’s, NL) and Latitude 53 (Edmonton, AB). Allison’s videos have recently been screened for Artboat as part of Art Chicago through Threewalls Gallery (Chicago, IL), and as All Set: Two Model Videos by Allison Hrabluik on CBC Radio 3. She has recently made multiple works with Tutu magazine (Glasgow), Patti magazine (Vancouver), Art Metropole (Toronto), Artcity (Calgary), and independently as The Lost Hamster Commission.