-- Advertisement --

-- Advertisement --

Canadian Art

See It

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay: A Song of Myself

Dazibao, Montreal Apr 10 to May 15 2010
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay <I>Legacy</I> 2010 Detail © Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay Legacy 2010 Detail © Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay <I>Legacy</I> 2010 Detail © Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

The Montreal-born “artist, diarist and aspiring bon-vivant” Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay possesses a remarkable singing voice that he brings to his art-making. His new show, “Legacy,” features two works created during a recent Dazibao residency. The Burden is a sound piece set within an installation of mirrors that provides a fitting setting for an oratorio about self and isolation based in repetition of the pronoun "I." A continuing interest in mirrors, this time expressed in the form of a futurist/medieval mask of same, is found in the title work, Legacy, a 12-minute video loop. In it, the artist walks a wooded gay cruising ground that evokes the charm of an enchanted forest. Along the way, he dialogues, through a series of film excerpts, with characters who “like oracles, bring to light the wisdom and knowledge of past generations of gay men.” (4001 rue Berri #202, Montreal QC)

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay <I>Legacy</I> 2010 Video still © Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay Legacy 2010 Video still © Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

This article was first published online on May 6, 2010.

RELATED STORIES

  • Song Show: Pop Stars by Proxy

    The posthumous pop-cult force of Michael Jackson points to a difficult morass of mass musical feeling. This fall, two curators wade into this psychologically charged territory with “Song Show,” an exhibition at Artlab in London.

  • Bas Jan Ader: Falling for Failure

    In recent years, the late Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader has become admired worldwide for his mix of tragic emotion and brainy rigour. Now Montreal’s Dazibao presents “Gravité,” the first Ader exhibition in Canada since 1973.

  • You Don’t Really Care For Music, Do You?: A Fresh Spin on Recorded Realities

    Economic vitality may be flagging in the art world and elsewhere, but some new privately sponsored galleries are still opening. One such space, Toronto’s Red Bull 381 Projects, currently hosts an exhibition on music that includes some impressive Canadian artists.

 

FOUNDATION NEWS

More Foundation news

ONLINE

  • Jon Rafman: Mapping Google

    Jon Rafman’s work enjoys a deservedly high profile at this year’s Contact Festival. As Saelan Twerdy observes in this review, Rafman’s stunning, and often funny, Google Street View scenes demonstrate how the Internet is making everything public, from information to intimacy.

  • Spring Auctions: Going Once, Going Twice…

    The auction record for contemporary Canadian art was broken earlier this month in New York with Christie’s $3.6 million sale of a Jeff Wall photograph. This week, Canada’s top houses head into their spring sales hoping to break more records.

  • Keren Cytter: Video Virtuoso

    “Based on a True Story” in Oakville boasts the largest North American survey to date of Keren Cytter, the Tel Aviv–born artist known as one of today’s most intriguing video practitioners. Mariam Nader reviews, finding greatest hits and unexpected delights.

  • Sovereign Acts: Painful Histories, Terrific Performances

    The history of indigenous people performing for colonial audiences inspires "Sovereign Acts,” a current Toronto group show. As Max Mosher writes, the show—featuring Lori Blondeau, Adrian Stimson and others—is both campy and contemplative.

  • Dil Hildebrand: In the Green Room

    Dil Hildebrand is one brave painter. In his new show “Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise),” he stares down the old adage that no one wants to look at a green painting, let alone buy one. There's not just one green painting here—there's a room of them.

More Online

- Advertisements -



- Advertisements -
Report a problem