"In Light: Video Installation by Seth Price"
2003-01-11 until 2003-04-06
Art Gallery of Ontario
Toronto, ON, CA

This is the fourth in a series of eight video projections comprising the two-year project In Light. An innovative new figure, New York artist Seth Price has made an impact with camera-less videos such as Modern Suite (2002), which has its museum premiere at the AGO. In this sombre, melancholic work, technique and form correspond to content. Price grabbed playground-related photographs off the Internet and edited this static imagery directly to digital video.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is proud to highlight the importance of video art. Begun on April 6, 2002 and running until April 4, 2004, an exhibition series entitled In Light presents video installations by eight contemporary artists. This two-year series features recent video works by Canadian and international artists who were selected for their unique approaches to the medium and its elaboration of themes identified with their individual practices.

The AGO's commitment to video has been seen through previous exhibitions, such as Video Primer and Ecstatic Memory. The AGO has made a priority of presenting ongoing video exhibitions and introducing visitors to this ever-evolving art form.

Based on technologies that have only existed since the mid-1960s, video art does not have the lengthy genealogy that informs our understanding of more traditional artistic media. With large-scale video projections, however, the artists in In Light make strong connections to the pictorial traditions of fine art, with added dimensions of movement, luminosity and acoustic space. Video is an experiential medium that unfolds as you watch. Each artist in the In Light series will use continuous DVD projection to present a single work that will be on view for a 12-week duration.

The inaugural segment of In Light will be Euan Macdonald's 3 trucks (1999). Macdonald, formerly of Toronto, now lives and works in Los Angeles, where he has enjoyed considerable international success. In 2002 he has solo exhibitions in New York, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Dunedin, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. He was included recently in important group exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Montreal Biennal. 3 trucks depicts the nose-to-nose-to-nose meeting of three ice cream trucks with a resulting cacophony of different music-box jingles. Following Euan MacDonald, In Light will present work by Louise Noguchi (Canada), Mark Wallinger (Great Britain), Seth Price (United States), Darren Almond (Great Britain), Francis Alys (Belgium/Mexico), Stacey Lancaster (Canada) and Daniel Olson (Canada).

Contemporary programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario is supported by The Canada Council for the Arts through the Assistance to Art Museums and Public Galleries program.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Canada

Other Important Exhibitions in Toronto