weewerk 02
a small show of uncertainty

Friday 13 December 2002
8 pm doors (PWYC)
9 pm music (note early set time)

Exhibition also open
Saturday 14 December
1-4 pm

"I hate the fine arts. I hate and am disgusted by the fine arts, because, um, the fine arts are always made with artifice."
         (from The Fine Arts, by Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby)

The best artists we know struggle constantly with the question of how to make stuff -- not just materially, but more fundamentally in terms of how and why to continue producing. On Friday 13 December, weewerk makes public some of these internal debates - and emphasizes its potential as a laboratory - with a show of work-in-progress by Eliza Griffiths, a new video by Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, and music by Bob Wiseman and the Damn Ugly Children.

Eliza Griffiths has been celebrated for her edgy depictions in paint of psycho-socio-sexual relationships. Griffiths is a close colleague with whom we have had an ongoing discussion about method and finish. We dared her to show some work in progress as a sort of disruption of her process, and - demonstrating her intellectual generosity -- she has taken up our challenge.

Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby are best known for videos drolly observing social phenomena and humorously communicating doubts about how to exist in a screwed-up world. The Fine Arts is a recent video work about the perils of making images and narratives.

In another experimental arrangement, versatile musicmeister Bob Wiseman's latest band plays junkyard crooner music cobbled together from fiddle, voice, typewriter, plastic bag, bass clarinet, accordion and other folksy sounds. You are free to waltz.

weewerk salon: Coinciding with this show weewerk has organized its first salon, in which a small group of cultural producers will meet to discuss and respond to each other's recent and current work. (Update: participants in the salon were Ed Pien, Catherine Osborne, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Ilene Soba, Eliza Griffiths, and Germaine Koh.) Please let us know if you are interested in participating in future salons or discussion groups.

Biographies

Eliza Griffiths was born in London, England in 1965 and immigrated to Canada in 1973. She received a BFA(studio) from Concordia University in 1991, did coursework towards a Masters Degree in art history/theory at Carleton University. Her work has been exhibited extensively in Canada, as well as internationally. Solo exhibitions include: the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal; Mercer Union, Toronto; the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina; Katharine Mulherin Gallery, Toronto; Struts Gallery, Sackville, NB; Galerie Sans Nom, Fredericton, NB; Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver and Edmonton; Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax; the Ottawa Art Gallery; and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. Group shows include Body Double, curated by Bruce Ferguson at the Winston Wachter Gallery in NYC; the Painting Center in NYC; and Platform Gallery in London, England. Griffiths currently lives and works in Ottawa. (link to Eliza Griffiths site)

Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke have been working collaboratively since June 1994. They work in printed matter, installation, curation and sound, but their primary practice is the production of single-channel video. Their work has been exhibited in galleries and at festivals in North and South America and throughout Europe, including the Walker Center (Minneapolis), The Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), The Renaissance Society (Chicago), The New York Video Festival (NYC), The European Media Arts Festival (Osnabruck), and The Images Festival (Toronto). Their tape Being Fucked Up (2001) has been awarded prizes from film festivals in Switzerland, Germany and the USA. Bad Ideas for Paradise (2002), their most recent work, was recently purchased for broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
         Emily Vey Duke received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and is currently pursuing her Masters at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was just awarded the campus-wide University Fellowship. Cooper Battersby received his diploma in computer programming at Okanagan College in Kelowna, BC. He was the recipient of a Canada Council Production Grant in 2001, and will begin pursuit of his MFA at UIC this fall. (link to Duke+Battersby site)

Bob Wiseman and the Damn Ugly Children: No, it's not a description of the band members, but a reference to the lonely orphan songs produced by Bob Wiseman's latest group. The band - which looks fine to us - also includes the indomitable violin stylings of Julie Penner; Appalachian vocal funambulist Kristine Schmitt; the sedulous uncombed James Anderson on bowed saw, wine glasses, mandolin, bamboo broom, and more; and Julia Hambleton on bass clarinet. There are also ballroom dancers who won't fit into our space. (link to Bob Wiseman site)