Samuel Chow Exhibition Generating Much Interest

On OMNI TV 2, the Cantonese Daily News aired a new items and an interview with Samuel Chow on several occasions late last week. This follows on from a review in Now magazine, from highlighting in Toronto WHERE magazine, and a review note in a feature article in the Toronto Star.

Chow's I'm Feeling Lucky exhibition has seen a steady flow of visitors since its opening on September 3. Many visitors have confessed to being pleasantly surprised at how enthralled they have been by Chow's new-media "random path network". I say "surprised" because they have either had no experience of moving-image or video art or indeed have viewed video art before but not been impressed. Visitors come out of the projector room talking on the aesthetic side about being "refreshed" and "bathed by the lushness" of the imagery. A little girl of seven or eight just came to the gallery as her first gallery visit (her parents read about the show in the Ming Bao Chinese-language daily) said she did not really understand what it was all about but she really loved the images. I have learned to respect the visual instinct of kids who are interested in art, and I see this as one more sign of the deep appeal of Chow's work. On the ideas side, some visitors find that the work's function as a metaphor for the nature of knowledge in an Internet age slowly dawns, sinks in and then sparks reflection, while others say the work stands on its own without the conceptual underpinning. However one reflects on one's experience, the response has been very very positive -- which is not what I was necessarily expecting given the lack of video-art reference points for most art appreciators.

I mentioned Ming Bao, which is the largest Chinese-language daily in Hong Kong with a Toronto edition. Apart from the listing that brought the above-mentioned family to the gallery, the newspaper plans to do a feature on Chow in the September 27 Saturday Magazine.

Do note next weekend (27th and 28th) is the final weekend to see the work. Note that it is available in an edition of 15 as a Blu-ray disc in a special presentation box, along with a medium-format digital print of the I'm Feeling Lucky frame of the purchaser's choice, for $3650. Prints are available separately for $750 (small format in edition of 9) to $1600 (larger format in edition of 5).

NOW magazine review of Samuel Chow's "I'm Feeling Lucky"

Samuel Chow's I'm Feeling Lucky exhibition opened on Wednesday evening with an excellent turnout and much discussion of the layers upon layers in Chow's work presented in association with the Toronto International Film Festival Future Projections programme. The day after, Leah Sandals' review of the show appeared in NOW Magazine: Jump into Chow's visual pool. Take a peak. The show runs throughout TIFF and then continues until September 27.

For those interested in starting a collection of an up-and-coming young artist whose video work has already been exhibited at New York's MoMA, do consider coming by or looking at the still images online. (Chow's first video, "Banana Boy" in a MoMA was part of a group exhibition of 10 artists in 2006, in which Chow was the only artist under age 40 [he was 26 at the time] and the only artist whose work was created in the new millenium.) The pricing is $3650 for a Blu-ray Disc of the moving-images "I'm Feeling Lucky" 'random path network' (edition of 15) plus a medium-format print that will be unique for each purchaser of the Blu-ray Disc; the collector choose the specific frame that s/he wishes to have printed. For the prints, (the prices are $1525 for the largest format (edition of 5), $975 for the medium format (edition of 7) and $725 for the smallest format (edition of 9).

Goddard profiles the TIFF Future Projections exhibitions

A couple days ago, we noted the Globe profiling the Toronto International Film Festival's Future Projections programme of seven exhibitions that place film and the visual arts in dialogue. On Monday, the Toronto Star also profiled the seven shows. See Peter Goddard, "Off the movie screen into the art galleries". Apart from the Craig Scott Gallery exhibition of Samuel Chow's conceptual "random path network" new-media work, I'm Feeling Lucky, which opens 6-9 PM, tomorrow (Wednesday) evening, September 3, check out the descriptions of the various exhibitions. All told, the Future Projections programme looks to be a really interesting conceptual/aesthetic mix.

Globe and Mail previews the Future Projections line-up

Check out David McGinn's Where art and cinema meet: on the wall, all over town in the weekend Globe and Mail. McGinn overviews the idea behind all seven, including the gallery's "up-and-comer" Samuel Chow, of the Toronto International Film Festival's program linking film and the visual arts in its Future Projections program.

McGinn quotes Noah Cowan, Artistic Director of the (soon to be) new home of TIFF and co-curator of the Future Projections program with Laurel MacMillan:

"We've focused really strongly on what you might call a subset of media art which relates to the culture and legacy of film," he says. "Film began as spectacle," says Mr. Cowan. "It began as this weird, wild, overwhelming phenomenon at the end of the Industrial Revolution.

"And I think the visual artists we're featuring this year really capture that spirit.

"Our first priority is to ensure that Future Projections speaks to the diversity of art-going experiences in Toronto. So we work with what I call the leading public institutions in the city around art and culture, plus what we consider to be the more intelligent private galleries," says Mr. Cowan.

Note that the article references Chow's I'm Feeling Lucky exhibition as a "mash-up of online videos." The use of 'found' video is only part of the transformations that Chow engages in with his work. He also includes found photographs and audio, but just as importantly artistic renderings and transformations of the raw material of Internet surfingf experience through what can best be called new-media painting.

I'm Feeling Lucky opens 6-9 PM this coming Wednesday, September 3, at the gallery (all welcome).

Two new stills selected for Samuel Chow's upcoming TIFF exhibition

We have posted a few times on Samuel Chow's upcoming I'm Feeling Lucky exhibition in association with the Toronto International Film Festival: Future Projections (and will post some more before and during the show). Part of the show will include five stills distilled from the new-media work (a 'random path network' or RPN) on display in the centre gallery while I'm Feeling Lucky projects in the north gallery. In relation to the form of the RPN and the particular Internet theme of I'm Feeling Lucky the print stills, as freeze-frames of the fluid mash-up that is the I'm Feeling Lucky experience, have an ironic quality. I will leave it to the reader to muse over that observation and will limit myself now to posting two new images, Into the Birdcage and Deer Hunting. See yesterday's post (right below this one) for Bullets and Honey.

Interview with Samuel Chow on new online art biweekly

Today's posting is a link to another blog. Mike Landry calls his newcomer art-centred weblog Things of Desire: Canada's Alternative Art Biweekly. He elicited some interesting, if deliberately elliptical, observations from Samuel Chow with respect to Chow's upcoming I'm Feeling Lucky exhibition (opens September 3, 6-9 PM) at the gallery, in association with the Toronto International Film Festival. Take a gander at Sam Chow Plays God. (Above, "Bullets and Honey" digital still from Chow's new-media work, which will be one of five prints pulled from I'm Feeling Lucky on display in the centre gallery while the random path network random-path-networks in the north gallery.)

Toronto International Film Festival announces Samuel Chow exhibition at Craig Scott Gallery

I noted in an earlier posting that our fall season starts with Samuel Chow's I'm Feeling Lucky show. I noted that the exhibition was in association with the Toronto International Film Festival's Future Projections programme. Today, TIFF released its press release on the seven exhibitions that make up the Future Projections programme: CINEMA MEETS THE VISUAL ARTS AT TIFF08 WITH MOVING-IMAGE PROJECTSTHROUGHOUT THE CITY OF TORONTO.

Below are extracts that pertain to the Chow exhibition:

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival presents Future Projections, seven installation-based works with inspiredconnections to the history and the culture of cinema. Presented outside the cinema space and throughout Toronto, Future Projections continues a remarkable city-wide collaboration with leading cultural institutions, bolstering Toronto’s reputation as a centre of excellence and innovation. Venues include the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Stephen Bulger Gallery/CAMERA, Craig Scott Gallery, Katharine Mulherin ContemporaryArt Projects and the Drake Hotel. The seven installations will be offered as free, non-ticketed events.

....This year, Future Projections features a diverse array of moving-image talent, well-known visual artists Glenn Ligon and Margaux Williamson share space on the programme with emerging talents Samuel Chow, multidisciplinary artist Clive Holden and Marco Brambilla, and established film directors Srinivas Krishna and Philip Haas, approaching the gallery for the first time.

...Samuel Chow’s installation I’m Feeling Lucky presents an interconnected web of moving-image narrative paths in a constant flow of internet-derived imagery. Alluding to Google’s pervasive search button, Chow’s “random path network” mirrors our daily surfing experiences. Multi-layered moving-images interweave and collide into a seamless vibrant visual mash-up as Chow remixes and constructs a network of possibilities composed of found online videos, images and sounds from his own surfing expeditions. Our experience as voyeurs leads us into a random environment where anything can happen. Chow’s project highlights the nature of contemporary cinematic experience as heterogeneous, subjective and individually determined.
Curated by Kathleen Mullen, presented by Craig Scott Gallery in association with Future Projections. Craig Scott Gallery, 95 Berkeley Street. September 3 through 27 from Wednesday to Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Opening September 3 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Samuel Chow is "Feeling Lucky" after Toronto International Film Festival embraces his September show at the gallery

Today, a little something for your calendars:

SAMUEL CHOW, I’M FEELING LUCKY,

SEPTEMBER 3 - SEPTEMBER 27, 2008

OPENING RECEPTION WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2008, 6-9 PM

at CRAIG SCOTT GALLERY at 95 Berkeley (see top of blog for full address)

This is going to be a very different kind of exhibition from any that have yet come before it at the gallery. We are very excited, as Samuel Chow introduces a new-media artwork that he calls a 'random path network.' (Above is a still called "Horses at Sea" from the work. Apart from DVDs of the entire work, a selection of stills will be displayed and sold as limited edition prints.) The press release, which is doubling as text for the Exhibitions page for the show, explains what it is all about. Click on through.

We are doubly excited by the fact that the I’M FEELING LUCKY exhibition is presented in association with the Toronto International Film Festival: Future Projections. TIFF '08 will shortly be announcing its Future Projections line-up, and at that point we will let you know more and include a link to their website.