KITCHEN PARTY: the art of intervention

Live performances, interventions, screenings and presentations

October 16 – 21, 2006
Gallery Hop with performance artists October 20, 7PM

SAINT JOHN, NB: Third Space Gallery presents a week-long performance art series that will focus on interventions into the public sphere, investigations of the body, and how culture shapes both. The traditional Kitchen Party has deep roots in both anglophone and francophone cultures as a place of gathering, sharing and creation. In the context of contemporary art, Third Space Gallery is inviting a number of francophone and anglophone performance artists together to share ideas and workshop new work. Invited artists include: musical duo Geneviève et Matthieu of Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, performance art troupe Women With Kitchen Appliances of Montréal, Québec, Jason St. Laurent of Ottawa, Ontario, Mathieu Léger of Moncton, NB, Jesse McKee of Saint John, currently studying in Ottawa, ON and local syntho-pop musician Gary Flanagan. A catalogue essay of the event will be written by Galerie SAW artistic director Stefan St. Laurent.

IN THE GALLERY AND UPTOWN: Monday, October 16 at 8pm, Introduction to performance art with Third Space Artistic Director Chris Lloyd and screenings of performance-related videos. Wednesday and Thursday, October 18 and 19 from 5:30pm: Presentations, performances, and discussions with invited artists. Throughout the week: Third Space Gallery will be transformed into a public-access, interactive studio as artists make work. Stay tuned for impromptu performances Uptown. For example, in a continuation of his Camouflage series, Jason St. Laurent will attempt to incorporate himself into the 1972 Claude Roussell sculpture Progression that sits atop City Hall. Documentation of artist actions will be presented in the gallery.

OCTOBER 20, GALLERY HOP AND LE FAUBOURG: Beginning at 7pm Third Space Gallery will host Jesse McKee as he tests bodily limits and boundaries in a performance titled Tache, while outdoors Mathieu Léger will investigate linkages between power, poverty and loyalty through subtle street actions. At 9pm Geneviève et Matthieu take to the stage at Le Faubourg at 115 Prince William Street , to commence an evening of music and art. Women With Kitchen Appliances will follow, taking the audience on a fascinating aural journey of commonplace kitchen appliances. Completing the evening will be local celebrity Gary Flanagan with his unique brand of syntho-pop.

LOCATION TBA: On Saturday, October 21 the Montréal-based group Women With Kitchen Appliances will perform a sound certification on a local kitchen. If you would like to have your kitchen certified and host this public event in your kitchen, or would like to lend kitchen appliances for the performance, please contact Third Space Gallery at 644-9670 or email info@thirdspacegallery.ca.

KITCHEN PARTY: The art of intervention received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the recently announced Saint John Community Art Program. Sponsors include the Telegraph Journal, Punch Productions, Picaroons Brewery, T4G, Le Faubourg and l’ARCf, and Chipman Hill Suites.

The only artist-run centre for contemporary art in Saint John, Third Space Gallery is an interdisciplinary exhibition, performance and production space committed to representing local, regional and national professional contemporary artists. Admission to the gallery is free.

KITCHEN PARTY: the art of intervention

Curator: Chris Lloyd

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Jason St-Laurent was born in Moncton, NB and is an artist and curator based in Ottawa. He studied fine arts at the Université de Moncton and the University of Toronto. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, South Africa and Finland, notably at the Western Front in Vancouver, VertexList in New York City, the South African National Gallery Annex and MUU MediaBase in Helsinki. As a curator, he has presented more than 50 projects in Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Finland and Estonia.

Stefan St-Laurent was born in Moncton, NB and currently works as the co-artistic director of Galerie SAW Gallery in Ottawa. His performance, photography and video have been exhibited in France, Sweden, Russia and China, among numerous other counties. His curatorial projects have been exhibited at venues such as the Lux Centre (London), Les rencontres internationals Vidéo Art Plastique (Hirouville, France), and the Cinémathèque Québécois (Montreal). He has been a programmer for the Images Festival of Independent Film & Video (Toronto), V tape (Toronto), and the Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie (Moncton).

Geneviève et Matthieu (Geneviève Crépeau and Matthieu Dumont) are a musical duo from Rouyn-Noranda, QC. Formed in 1999 this romantic duo take an interdiscipinary and humorous approach to performance, the vidual arts, installations, poetry and music. In 2001 They launched their first self-produced album of music titled Mélodies. Furthering their musical quest the duo released their second self-produced disc Crions notre joie in 2003. An explosive force to be reckoned with, Geneviève et Matthieu are a personification of visual and musical improvisation

Women With Kitchen Appliances (WWKA) are three, four or five or six. Identical. Interchangeable. Disposable. And dead serious. We are a rock band, a sound project, a cabaret act, a synchronized rubber glove routine, a BBQ chicken washing machine, a confectionary flour Christmas jingle and Kitchen certification service. Since their formation in 1999 more than fifteen individual artists have performed as WWKA in lofts, kitchens, galleries, storefronts, in festivals and thrift shops throughout Québec, Ontario, New York and Belgium.

Mathieu Léger received a BA Multidisciplinary (Fine Arts / Literature) from the Université de Moncton in 1998. He has exhibited his sculptural, photographic, print-based and perfromantive works in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Brunswick, Québec and France. He has participated in residencies in Newfoundland, France and Banff, Alberta and most recently the 24th symposium international d’art contemporain de Baie-St-Paul, Québec.

Jesse McKee is from Saint John and is currently studying fine arts and theatre at the University of Ottawa. He has participated in visual art and fashion exhibitions and most recently curated and participated in the performance art event Personaes sponsored by Gallery 101 and the University of Ottawa.

Gary Flanagan hails from Saint John and has just released his fifth album, “Rhapsody In Black”, his most mature and poetic offering to date. He has extensive experience in film and theatre, which provide a strong influence on his lively and animated performances. He has performed throughout eastern Canada, and has opened for the likes of Buck 65, Lederhosen Lucil and BJ Snowden. He has performed at the Pop Montreal Music Festival, The Halifax Pop Explosion, Evolve and several other events. His songs have appeared on compilations alongside such acts as Ladytron, Miss Kitten, Berlin, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and others. He is currently completing his BA in French at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John.

le français suit

Colonial Relics and Performance Remnants

text by Stefan St. Laurent

Cruise ships taller than most buildings in downtown Saint John come in and out of the harbour, seriously altering the landscape in a matter of minutes. Saint John has always been in a state of being ‘discovered’ – in the past by Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq peoples, then by French and English settlers, then the Loyalists, and now by tourists. In October 2006, in the spirit of discovery and exploration, some of the world’s top risk-takers—performance artists—descended on the Port City to take part in Kitchen Party: the Art of Intervention – the first ever performance art festival of its kind in Southern New Brunswick.  As proud Acadian originally from Moncton, and a collaborator in the project, I was invited to observe and document the unfolding of Kitchen Party.

Founded by the United Empire Loyalists in 1783, Saint John, Canada’s oldest incorporated city, was never truly a haven for Acadians even centuries after their mass expulsion. Historically at odds with each other, Moncton and Saint John haven’t bridged many gaps in recent years, and certainly not in the art world. Generally speaking, francophone communities in Canada don’t connect in any tangible way with each other, so hosting a kitchen party for mostly francophone artists from Moncton, Ottawa, and Québec in Saint John is a significant gesture.

As a result – like the colonial relics we can find in The New Brunswick Museum or Loyalist House – Saint John now possesses an archive of performance remnants: video, photography, ephemera, writing, of site-specific work by some of Canada’s leading interdisciplinary art practitioners. I wonder if hundreds of years from now the two disparate collections will entwine, giving researchers access to a more expansive view of history?

The first performance I witnessed in this festival was by my own twin brother. It felt both familiar and strange, being together again 20 years later in Saint John (a place we barely remembered from our youth). Covered in plastic bags from the discount super chain Giant Tiger, Jason St-Laurent climbed up the slanted roof of City Hall to integrate himself in the public sculpture Progression (1972) by famed Acadian artist and active participant in the Acadian cultural movement, Claude Roussel. As part of his ongoing photo-based project, The Camouflage Series, Jason assimilates himself into public monuments – but never completely: We often see him dangling off one part of a giant public work, pathetically trying to hold on and fit in. A divisive modern sculpture loathed by many, I would hypothesize that the negative reaction to Progression might have had less to do with form than politics. By virtue of being Acadian and gay, Jason quietly commemorates those of us who are often made to feel invisible.

Performance artists are more often then not rejected and scoffed at for confronting the public with that which is marginalized or ignored. Moncton-based multidisciplinary artist Mathieu Léger was perhaps the most ostracized of all, performing in various locations during the popular gallery hop without proper invitations. Standing on a carpet demarcated with the words ‘liminal space’, flanking ‘loyal-ties’ Léger stood by the entrances of Uptown commercial galleries, engaging onlookers with an impassive attitude. This relational work brought to the forefront the dichotomy that has subsisted for hundreds of years between Anglophones (Loyalists) and Francophones (Acadians), and what was intended to be a genuine exchange between historical enemies quickly degenerated into new sets of dichotomies: artist and audience, insider and outsider, and performance artist and traditionalist.

The Third Space Gallery featured Saint John born artist Jesse McKee for his video-based performance Tache (Stain). McKee projected a video of his belly being shaved on a cube of lard, covering it later with black spray paint and then removing the opaque layer with his bare hands; his body once again revealed, but cast now on a gross surface carved by fingernails on fat. The stripping bare of skin from fat, a solid matter that softens and melts from human touch, is both literal and metaphorical. No matter how hard we try to peel away at surfaces, new ones continually form and shield the heart. He wiped his dirty hands on t-shirts containing another image of his chest, which he then savagely staple-gunned to the gallery walls.

The evening of gallery hopping ended with a big bang at Le Faubourg – a legendary place that started as the Bank of New Brunswick, later became a series of bars and now is a francophone music venue. You can’t imagine how excited I felt to realize how much things had changed in Saint John. The place was packed with half Acadian and half art world folk totally opening their hearts to performance art. When that happens, you know you are going to have fun…

The evening began with dynamic duo Genevi̬ve et Matthieu, a couple who have been collaborating for many years on performances that blend French crooning, improvisation, outlandish fashion and minimalist pop Рmy brother and I were even invited to perform as background dancers, supplied with tight dresses and geometric forms. Selecting material from their appropriately titled new album Crions notre joie, G & M enamored the crowd with their raw energy, uplifting lyrics and positive attitude so refreshing in a music world more obsessed with tits and ass than real showmanship.

After a mesmerizing set of surreal sounds by Montreal’s infamous collective Women With Kitchen Appliances the grand finale featured local pop legend Gary Flanagan, who gave us a new wave, synth-pop performance that was indescribably good. The archetypal tecky nerd in his moment of glory on stage is slowly deconstructed into a smart, articulate and melodically inclined songwriter. Not one to qualify energetic musicians as performance artists, I feel conflicted when describing what he does. Flanagan appropriately sang his French hit ‘Métro Boulot Dodo’ with its cute French refrain, mistakes et al: “Métro, boulot, dodo – chaque jour, c’est le même chose”. It always breaks my heart to hear an Anglophone earnestly speak French, but I am most impressed by his potential to become a serious New Brunswick musical export.

The following day in a nice settler home, the Women With Kitchen Appliances carried on with their kitchen certification project, probing the entire room with sound receptors that were amplified live for the people who attended. The sounds produced from the triggering of various appliances and plumbing in the room were disconcerting. The WWKAs, dressed in mundane uniforms crossed between a maid and a shuttle crew member, did their best to reveal the dark underside of the kitchen space. Perfectly correlating with the theme of the kitchen party, WWKA’s performance was a beautiful way to end our affair.

And like the excesses of other kitchen parties—beer bottles full of cigarette butts, stale chips and broken guitar strings—Saint John is left with a pile of performance remnants – residues of history that may forever change the way  I and others view the city in the future. Now, as  the colonial relics of the past slowly go to wrack and ruin, they may bear less significance and offer up fresh new viewpoints.

Stefan St. Laurent