5 years after the successful VILLA REYKJAVIK, i8 returns to the mobile art event. This January, VILLA touches down in Toronto to present an exhibition of contemporary art at Union Station. i8 will be showing Ragnar Kjartansson’s video work S.S. Hangover.
Villa Toronto, presented by Warsaw’s Raster Gallery in association with Toronto’s Art Metropole, brings over nineteen local and international art galleries and their artists to Union Station’s Great Hall from January 16th to 23rd, 2015.
The one-week program is free and open to the public. Villa Toronto is the most recent in a series of international gallery meetings initiated by Raster. Previous editions took place in Warsaw (2006), Reykjavik (2010) and Tokyo (2011). The event is not an art fair. Rather, Villa aims to use the curatorial experience of private galleries to create encounters with the general public and local art communities that are innovative, stimulating, and not merely market driven.
Villa recognizes the decisive role private galleries play in determining the field of contemporary art and the type of explorations that take place within it. Villa encourages the cross-cultural circulation of art, artists and cultural workers, and dedicates its resources and focus to facilitate such an exchange, throughout the project and in the years to come. Raster Gallery is thrilled to be working with Union Station as the host venue for Villa Toronto. Toronto’s main rail transportation hub, Union Station is undergoing a major revitalization. Under the auspices of developer OsmingtonInc, the Villa partnership signals a striking vision for the revitalized space, one in which art will play a significant role in the daily life of the train station. Osmington’s commitment to bringing art to the site will continue with Art Metropole’s upcoming mobile shop-structure at Union Station.
A Wagnerian tableau of sorts, Kjartansson’s s.s. Hangover sailed between two landings in the canal in the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale 2013. The boat was manned by a brass sextet continuously playing a piece by composer Kjartan Sveinsson, which he created specifically for this work. The hemicyclic sailing of the sound of horns, trombone and tuba results in a stereoscopic effect. The boat dropped off the musicians one at a time, each left to play alone on the pier as it sails away with the rest of the band still playing onboard, only to be picked up a round or two later and replaced by another musician in a continuous loop.
s.s.Hangover, a haphazard hybrid of Greek, Icelandic and Venetian ship design, was originally a 1934 wooden fishing boat from Reykjavík; it was transformed by the artist into a remake of a theatrical boat that appeared on dry land in a swanky party scene in the film Remember Last Night? (1935).
Accompanying this presentation of Villa Toronto will be a series of special events throughout the city, featuring among others a performance by Ragnar Kjartansson and Davíð Þór Jónson titled ‘An Evening of Misery’.
Tickets, are free, and are required for this event. As of January 6th 2015, this event is sold out. A limited number of rush tickets will be available at the door at 9:30 pm on January 16th.