29 Jun 2011

Ending Soon: On Printed Matter by David Court and Josh Thorpe

Installed on the window panes of Printed Matter, On Printed Matter is a composite text compiled and transformed from conversations with artists and architects Dan Graham, Gordon Lebredt, Mimi Zeiger, Darlene Montgomery, Myles Bennett, and Mark Jan Krayenhoff van der Leur. Turning the windows of Printed Matter into a page to be read, this work presents an invitation to consider the perceptual, functional, and ideological propositions of the space and its surroundings. Drawing attention to the fact of the window pane and its role as a threshold between spaces, the pane of the window becomes a plane on which the complex relations of looking and knowing unfold and refold along the surfaces and in cracks of architecture and language.

In their collaborative language-based work, Josh Thorpe and David Court seek to shift and add layers to the experience of the built environment, drawing attention to the multiple forces at work in public space, and relating embodied experience to discursive activity. Interviews with architects, planners, artists, critics, and others who are involved in or adjacent to the space in question form the basis of the work, which is then shaped and deployed to frame the material particularities of a site, alongside the more abstract social and ideological suggestions. Recent projects include a series of audio walks for YYZ Artists Outlet, Toronto, and a newspaper commissioned for the Toronto Sculpture Garden.

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David Court is an artist and writer based in New York. Recent and upcoming projects include exhibitions at Flux Factory, New York, and the CAFKA Biennial, Canada, as well as writings published in Art Papers, Fillip, and C Magazine.

www.davidcourt.net


Josh Thorpe is an artist, writer, and musician living in Toronto. In 2009 Art Metropole published Thorpe's book, Dan Graham Pavilions: A Guide. Upcoming projects include shows at Oakville Galleries, Campbell House, and Plug-In ICA.

www.joshthorpe.com