Melanie Gilligan

Crisis in the Credit System & Popular Unrest

March 9 – April 8, 2012

When: Mar. 9 - Apr. 8, 2012
Where: Justina M. barnicke Gallery, Hart House
Cost: Free

Opening Reception: Mar. 8, 7:00 - 9:00 pm, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
Artist Talk: Mar. 8, 5:30 - 6:30 pm, 1 Spadina Crescent, Room 313

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery is pleased to present the Toronto premiere of two major video works by artist-in-residence, Melanie Gilligan, titled Crisis in the Credit System (2008) and Popular Unrest (2010). In conjunction with the exhibition, Gilligan will be working on a new work, currently titled The Common Sense.

Melanie Gilligan’s videos lean on the tradition of television rather than cinema. Taking the form of episodic narratives, Gilligan weaves together research in bioscience, technology, and economic theory with popular culture ciphers to develop stories distinguished by uncanny prescience. Her four-part drama, Crisis in the Credit System, commissioned and produced by Artangel Interaction (UK), in the summer of 2008, represents the first filmic foray into the looming debt crisis in the fall of that year. Drawing on extensive research, including discussions with bankers, economists, journalists, and activists, the work explores in a speculative and imaginary manner the way in which the financial system would deal with its breakdown. The drama unfolds as characters devise responses to the crisis, tumbling between practical and absurd solutions that function as a piercing analysis of the debt-fuelled havoc of the contemporary financial economy, and the desperate attempts of finance to capitalize further on the collapse.

The exhibition also features the video installation of Gilligan’s recent multi-episode drama, Popular Unrest, which takes as its point of departure the current state of politics and the public realm in the midst of capital’s ongoing crisis. Popular Unrest presents a disturbing science-fiction narrative set in a future much like the present, whose story centers on a rash of mysterious killings and a vast computer system called “the Spirit,” which oversees all economic and social relations. Reflecting on the bio-political nature of power today, Gilligan’s work draws stylistically from David Cronenberg’s “body horror,” and was influenced by the visceral turn taken in much contemporary American television drama (CSI, Bones, Dexter).

In conjunction with the exhibition, Gilligan will be working to produce a new project titled The Common Sense. Commissioned by the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery in collaboration with LIFT and Charles Street Video, the work will approach, even more than the earlier works, the format of a dramatic television series. Situated in a fictitious “now,” the story is set after a world-wide revolution against economic inequality has erupted, one that was catalyzed by the invention of a new technology that allows people to feel one other’s emotions. Empathy and political solidarity suddenly become concrete and visceral sensations, bringing about strong desires for social change across the world. With the first part shot entirely on the campus of the University of Toronto, the complex and ambitious narrative will be produced over a period of two years across different cities internationally, where partnering institutions are located.

Melanie Gilligan was born in Toronto in 1979. She completed a BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2002 and was a Fellow with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Programme in 2004-2005. Based in New York and London, Gilligan works in a variety of media, including video, performance, text, installation, and music, and is also known as a writer on issues in contemporary art and culture. Recent exhibitions include Transmission Gallery Glasgow (2008); Franco Soffiantino Gallery, Turin (2009); and Interaccess, Toronto, (2011). Popular Unrest was co-commissioned and presented in 2010 by Chisenhale Gallery (London, UK), Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne), Presentation House Gallery (North Vancouver), and Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff Centre), with the support of Galleria Franco Soffiantino (Turin), and the Arts Council of England. In October 2009, Gilligan was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists, and in 2010 she received the Illy Present Future Prize at the Artissima Art Fair.

The exhibitions and programs of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery are generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information:
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
416-978-8398.
www.jmbgallery.ca

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Thursday: 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
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