Grizzly Proof
Artworks inspired by Peter Lynch’s cult-classic film Project Grizzly
Cinematheque Ontario and Flux Factory in conjunction with TSV present
at Trinity Square Video Gallery
Opening: Thursday, June 19, 2008, 5 – 8pm
Exhibition: June 20 – July 12, 2008
Master Class with Peter Lynch: June 28, 2008, 12-5pm
Cinematheque Ontario Director Spotlight:
Weird Science: The Idiosyncratic Archaeology of Peter Lynch
June 20 – 28, 2008
Artists:
Dominique Blais (France), Paul Burn (USA), Lisa Dillin (USA), Marcel Dzama (Canada), Chris Hackett (USA) & Eleanor Lovinsky (Canada), Aya Kakeda (Japan), Katerina Lanfranco (Canada), Fabienne Lasserre (Canada), Motomichi (Japan), Frank Olive and Rudy Shepherd (USA), Douglas Paulson (USA), Bruno Persat (France), and Hiroshi Shafer (Japan).
Our story begins with Troy Hurtubise who was attacked by a grizzly bear in the Rocky Mountains. Troy survived and decided to one day return to the Rockies, this time fully prepared with an impenetrable suit of armour. Director Peter Lynch documented his quest in the film Project Grizzly (1996), which has since become a cult-classic, inspiring an episode of The Simpsons and gaining fans that include other notable directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Matthew Barney. In the film, Troy has his friends “test” his suit in various violent ways (ramming trucks, flying logs, etc.) and then heads to the heart of Grizzly country for an adventure that ends, unceremoniously, in failure.
In 2007, Flux Factory, an art collective in New York City, invited artists from around the world to create their own response to Troy’s body of work and life’s ambition. Following the success of the exhibition in New York, curators Chen Tamir (Canada/Israel) and Jean Barbaris (France/USA) bring the exhibition to Toronto to be presented in conjunction with Cinematheque Ontario’s week-long Director Spotlight Weird Science: The Idiosyncratic Archaeology of Peter Lynch. For more information about the Director Spotlight, visit cinemathequeontario.ca or call 416-968-FILM.
The curators asked artists to take on the age-old theme of human-versus-nature, the conflicting desire to both commune with nature and control it. Project Grizzly addresses one man’s obsession with invincibility, documenting a dream at the heart of the human experience. The exhibition includes Troy’s original suit, viewing stations to watch the film, and artwork in the form of a Foosball table, a sleeping bag, hairy blobs, and so much more.
Master Class with Peter Lynch
$25 member / $30 non-member
Enrollment is limited to 10 participants
Registration Now Open. Call 416-593-1332 to book.
Join Peter Lynch, “Canada’s most talented feature documentarian” (Peter Wintonick, POV Magazine), for a Master Class at Trinity Square Video in which Lynch will discuss his approach to crafting character driven documentaries. Tackling the aesthetic, ethical and personal questions facing documentary makers who turn their lenses on eccentric characters, he will share some of the challenges he has encountered throughout his career.
Bios:
Toronto-based Director Peter Lynch’s first dramatic short Arrowhead received a Genie Award in 1994. In 1996, Lynch made the wildly successful Project Grizzly, one of the most acclaimed Canadian documentaries of all time, and referenced the next year on The Simpsons. This was followed by The Herd which Lynch co-wrote and directed, which was a festival hit worldwide. In 2001, Cyberman, a portrait of Steve Mann played to critical acclaim at over fifty international film festivals and was listed as one of the top ten feature films of 2002 by Film Comment. Lynch comes out of an interdisciplinary background in the arts and is responsible for staging many seminal multimedia cultural events in Toronto and around the world, notably Kitchen Sync and Video Culture International (1983-1987), a landmark video new media festival, works with Brian Eno, Bill Viola and a major installation work with Nam June Paik. He is a self-proclaimed amateur archeologist, an avid collector of contemporary art, a soccer freak, a foodie, and extensive traveler.
Chen Tamir is a Canadian-Israeli curator and art critic based in New York. Stutter and Twitch, an exhibition she curated about stasis in time-based works, is currently on view at the Barnicke Gallery. She has recently graduated with an M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Her writing can be found in C Magazine, Ciel Variable, and several monographs.
Jean Barberis, a native of France, came to New York in 2000 to learn a few things and has never left. He is a well-travelled young man and a jack of all trades. Barberis is co-founder of Flux Factory's gallery space and arts collective. As a curator, his interests are wide and his curiosity unbound. He likes to engage artists in the curatorial process, and to foster collaborations and encourage the production of ambitious new works.
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