Two exhibits open at AGYU tonight

There is not one, but two exhibit openings tonight at the Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) – Oliver Husain’s Hovering Proxies in the front gallery and Brendan Fernandes’ Relay League will be in the vitrines.

The dual openings will take place from 6 to 9pm at the AGYU, Accolade East Building, Keele campus.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Husain currently lives and works in Toronto. In 2008, he was a featured filmmaker at the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. In fall 2009, his film Mount Shasta screened at film festivals in London, Seoul and Bangalore. His new film performance, Purfled Promises, was presented in Berlin.

Right: Oliver Husain, Hovering Proxies (installation detail), 2010. Courtesy of the Art Gallery of York University.

Brendan Fernandes (BFA Spec. Hons. ’02) was born in Kenya of Indian heritage and immigrated to Canada in the 1990s. He has exhibited internationally, including at the Third Guangzhou Triennial in Guangzhou, China, in 2008 and in the Western New York Biennial at The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in 2007.

The Artists Book of the Moment competition entries will also be on display in the lobby of the AGYU. Gallery goers can also listen in on the latest installation of the Audio Out project with Gwen MacGregor and Lewis Nicholson’s collaborative work New Time.

For more information on the openings, visit the AGYU Web site.

Other happenings include the AGYU Performance Bus with musical host Mantler, making that familiar trip out there to the AGYU for the exhibit openings a bit stranger. The bus departs from the Ontario College of Art & Design, 100 McCaul St. in Toronto, tonight at 6pm sharp.

Then rest up Friday because there will be two offsite events happening Saturday, Jan. 23. The first will be the opening of Test Site, an exhibition of works by York fine art graduate and doctoral students in visual arts & culture at the Durham Art Gallery, 251 George St. E., Durham, from 2 to 4pm. The exhibit is organized by the AGYU’s assistant curator Suzanne Carte-Blanchenot.

For more information, visit the Durham Art Gallery’s Web site.

Then, at CineCycle, there will be a screening of Mike Hoolboom’s Public Lighting, a film about the media’s obsession with biography which was named best experimental film at the 2004 Santa Cruz Film Festival. Hoolboom is considered one of the finest experimental filmmakers of his generation and a leader in the Canadian avant-garde film community.

The event is organized and presented by Pleasure Dome. CineCycle is in the old coach house down the lane behind 129 Spadina Ave, Toronto. Doors open at 7pm for the 8pm screening at which point the AGYU is relaunching Projecting Questions? Mike Hoolboom’s Invisible Man between the art gallery and the movie theatre, an AGYU publication designed by Lisa Kiss of Toronto-based company Lisa Kiss Design with textual contributions from Philip Monk, AGYU director/curator, Mike Hoolboom and others.

The AGYU’s hours are Monday to Friday, from 10am to 4pm, Wednesday, from 10am to 8 pm and Sunday, from noon to 5 pm. Admission to everything is free.