Casey Kaplan
Preview
By Matthew Higgs
May 2019
Brian Jungen: Friendship Centre
Art Gallery of Ontario
Curated by Kitty Scott
Over the past two decades, Brian Jungen has developed a highly idiosyncratic practice, one that adopts an almost alchemical approach to the transformation of common, everyday objects: namely, his now-signature repurposing of Nike Air Jordan sneakers or plastic lawn chairs into sculptural artifacts that mimic objects more typically encountered in a natural-history or anthropological museum setting. Of both European and indigenous descent, Jungen has long explored questions of identity and cultural appropriation in his work. This exhibition, the largest survey of his oeuvre to date, will present more than eighty pieces from Jungen’s materially promiscuous and socially empathetic practice, including sculptures, drawings, films, and, for the first time, materials drawn from artists’ archives. A far-reaching catalogue with contributions from Candice Hopkins, Ken Lum, Gerald McMaster, Yasmin Nurming-Por, and curator Kitty Scott will round out a near-definitive account of one of today’s most conceptually rigorous and formally inventive artists.
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