CAFKA.02
Power to the People
The thematic title Power to the People was chosen to recognize the 100th anniversary of the inception, in Kitchener, of one of the largest publicly owned utilities in the world. The phrase encouraged artists either to make works that responded directly to this history, to take up its democratic connotations, or to simply view public artistic activity as an act of empowerment in itself.
On September 21st, Kitchener welcomed 20 artists from across Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, and Mexico. Accompanying their fascinating projects was a program of video works including titles from Canada, France, and Germany. Round Table Discussions featured an impressive roster of museum, arts, and academic professionals who debated issues related to artists and activism, censorship, and the artist/curator hybrid.
The organizers hope that this event helped increase the public for visual art in the spirit of what was once a civic motto: "Public enterprise started here."
Adrian Göllner - Star Power
The line between propaganda and advertising is a thin one. Star Power presents the viewer with a series of ads that mix communist iconography and images of hydro electricity. Bold and visually stopping the images further confuse the question of who is in control of electrical power in Ontario: Is it some far left consortium, or is a company simply borrowing the radical chic of Soviet design as part of an ad campaign? Plastered onto construction hoarding in downtown Kitchener and installed as ads inside local buses, determining the origin and intent of the images will prove difficult.
Adrian Göllner is a contemporary artist living in Ottawa. Combining disparate interests in advertising, abstraction, and the Cold War, Göllner employs commercial design standards in the creation of site specific artworks that defy easy interpretation. Göllner received a BFA from Queen's University in 1987.
Aidan Urquhart - The Electricity of Thought
I believe that the initial spark of a thought and eventual generation of an idea to its full potential can be just as much "electric" and "electrifying" as electricity itself. Examples of this theory can be discovered in a variety of sites, in the form of dynamic multi-coloured schematic grease pencil drawings on glass - directional arrows, lightbulbs, wires, machines, words and other images combine in a collaborative, visual assault on the senses. Does it all make sense? You decide. This project is a celebration of the freedom to actively engage the mind in this democratic process
Aidan Urquhart is an artist who works in a variety of media and methods including installation, photography, painting, street interventions (poster, FaxArt and sticker projects) and drawing. With an emphasis on the dynamics of communication and inclusivity, his various projects often have an aspect that exists and functions outside of the traditional gallery context. He has exhibited nationally and internationally in both solo and group shows.
Art Industria - Monument
Art Industria is proposing an installation for the ground floor of the historic Public Utilities Commission building across from the Kitchener City Hall. The process involves a dialogue between the artists, Derek Knight and Franc Petric, and Kitchener Wilmot Hydro on ways and means of illuminating the building in order to underscore the theme of Power to the People.
Art Industria was formed in 1995 by Derek Knight and Franc Petric, two artists who reside in the Niagara region. Motivated by the desire to work collaboratively, they have developed a series of proposals over the years with a focus on art, research and technology. Underlining their concerns with the dialectical relationship between ecology and industry, they have developed conceptual models which combine installation techniques and situational aesthetics in order to further the dialogue between artist and society.
