Thursday, October 27, 2016 to Friday, November 25, 2016
Forest City Gallery is proud to present mind mouth, a collaborative exhibition by Jenine Marsh (Toronto, ON) and Kim Neudorf (London, ON).
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 27th from 7 - 9 PM Drawing Workshop: Saturday, November 12th from 1 - 3 PM About the exhibition: mind mouth “…liquid words have no relation to the “illegible” scribblings of which modern art has supplied so many variations...for while the latter are like Rorschach tests inducing the viewer to project linguistic meanings onto them and thus to rearticulate them, [liquid words] leave no role to our imagination other than to complete the work of decomposition…” Yve-Alain Bois[1]
“...alteration...bifurcated from within...points in opposite directions simultaneously: both downward, to the decomposition of matter (as in a corpse), and upward, to its transcendence (as in the passage to an altered, sacred state, as for example, a ghost).” Rosalind Krauss[2]
Thhhhhfffeeeeetthh / A great bowing forehead heavy with sleep and stone / CHOP through some liquid wiggling / I just got there / SERIOUSLY NO / same same develop your head / open mind / maps to the mouth / tidy silvery meteorite face sheath / a thinking song to the brain / Snakes taking a nap all up my arms / More future selves? / Lumpy floowr brass body and blossom head are one / Like a hug with the darkness / A direction and action – go! Yes a thought and a thing – go too! / Hairible hay very good / V pkeasant
We have it by the tail-ear-nose. A word-string informed by a ceramic pizza. A word chain like a boa constrictor having eaten a bike-cat-hat-pail-bottle. mind mouth is a co-existence via alien communiqués a la Dreyfuss and potatoes. Where the pointing fingers of zombied limbs twitch. Or where mountainmash meets eyeholes marked as earpaths.
Not a backdrop. More like a layer. Layering in order to build up the flesh of the thing. The whole thing. The fleshy skin layer? All sensitive? Or a backdrop TO NOTHING. A thing in itself. Maybe just a DROP.
To work with the building up. Actual thing happening, becoming, spreading, twisting around right there under the fingers. More a play with the hell MOUTHYness of it. Like a swear or a made up term. Hell as mouth as an opening.
Like talents that are USELESSSss. Send message do neat trick, pause, do you get it do you like it? Send a follow up message trick, pause, watch the watcher, check their face, do you get it? Do you like it? No? Yes? Wag wag dance spin.
Or for making strange and complex emotional things take place in a drawing or an art thing. Like to be able to make something that has a real sense of humor, a real power. Just a beginning idea as a drawing to then fill with stuff in a visible way. Like it isn’t visible until there is something to hold it.
Some kind of search for how to be in the world, something way more compassionate. Awareness of yourself as WITH and not just AS. No need to travel from inside to out, it’s already out. Having to make things up on the go WITH others, against their vibe, their mood, how you are being received, how they are being with you BACK. A big improvement.
Decide to believe. “I want to believe” says Mulder.
Something that is on the outside, because you are never in a bubble, it always has to do with SOMETHING. Or someone! Closes the gap, creates a tangible, tacky, textured tangibility between the surfaces of you and...it, getting close and getting your face in its face. Intuiting the next shape to make on this big sheet of shapes and feeling out…!
A direction and action – go! Yes a thought and a thing – go too!
[1] Yve-Alain Bois, “Liquid Words,” Formless: a user's guide (New York: Zone Books, 1997) 129.
[2] Rosalind Krauss, “Olympia,” Formless: a user's guide (New York: Zone Books, 1997) 150.
About the drawing workshop:
Kim Neudorf and Jenine Marsh will host a drawing workshop for all and anyone interested in collaborative drawing, drawing games, and outright improvised drawing weirdness. No drawing skills necessary! All materials will be provided, but feel free to bring your own fave drawing tools.
About the artists:
Jenine Marsh (b. 1984, Calgary, Canada) is based in Toronto. She received her BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2007 and her MFA from the University of Guelph in 2013. Recent solo exhibitions took place at Beautiful, Chicago IL; COOPER COLE, Toronto; Lulu, Mexico City; 811, Toronto; and Chapter 61, New York. Recent group exhibitions include Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles; The Bakery, Vancouver; Raising Cattle, Montreal; and Fourteen30, Portland OR. She has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre, the Vermont Studio Centre, and Struts Gallery.
Kim Neudorf is an artist and writer based in London (ON). Her writing and paintings have appeared most recently in sotto at Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Kingston; Para//el Room at DNA Artspace, London; Paravent, curated by Sky Glabush, London; the fold-up, the get-up, the move about at Evans Contemporary Gallery, Peterborough; and The Room and Its Inhabitants at Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto. In the Fall of 2014 she curated balloon / portal / starres / fiends at DNA Artspace in London, an exhibition of works responding to a short story by Donald Barthelme.
Kim Neudorf would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.