ANDREW FORSTER
Duet
Andrew Forster is an artist whose practice involves installation, performance, video and photography. He has done several collaborative projects such as the performance That Time by Samuel Beckett (in collaboration with Michel Fernandes, 1997); the award-winning design at the Place des Arts entrance hall contest in Montreal (in collaboration with Atelier Big City, Architects, 2004); the performance En masse, bringing together 75 people on stage at the Tangente space (in collaboration with choreographer Suzanne Miller, 2003); Push!, an installation on photography and violence, produced with the help of several artists (Pierre Giner, Shauna Beharry, Isabelle Bernier and David Miller) and presented at Galerie B-312 in 2004; Cinema, a performance event presented outside the SAT building for an audience sitting indoors; and Moat, a performance and video installation recorded around Canada House in Trafalgar Square, London in 2005, combining live performance with video surveillance technology. An overview of his most recent videos and installations (Duet / Trio / Quartet) was presented this summer at the Saint Mary's University Art Gallery in Halifax, while in October, he will produce a new performance at l’espace Tangente.- In 2003, the artist created PUSH, a company focused on interdisciplinary research (performance, dance, architecture and new media).
—OPENING FRYDAY 05 SEPTEMBER 2008 AT 5 PM
Galerie B-312 is pleased to welcome in its small room: Duet, a video installation Andrew Forster has created in collaboration with dancers Monique Romeiko and Robert Schweitzer. The video shows the body of a male character being controlled by an obscure will. A female character then enters the scene to accompany him in the reconquest of control over his actions. - The situation is deprived of any context. No place, no time and no determined action; only a duel combined with a duet: a duel between a body and an invisible force in the process of taking possession of it; a duet of two beings, where the gestures of one accords to those of the other. - In this non-linear work, the double dialectic of confrontation and concord is constantly replayed without finding a terminology, except that of opening a space of reflection without limit on the question of the motive of the gesture. Duet is able to illustrate many situations where the gesture is involved, starting with the creation of the gesture in the field of dance. Knowing that the choreography of the male character is an echo of the scene of the arrest of Hassam Abdo, a 14-year-old boy, on March 24, 2004 by the Israeli army at a checkpoint in the West Bank, offers a whole other interpretation of the piece. The question remains: gesture and action, a duel or a duet?
Summary of text by—JEAN-ÉMILE VERDIER
Andrew Forster is an artist whose practice involves installation, performance, video and photography. He has done several collaborative projects such as the performance That Time by Samuel Beckett (in collaboration with Michel Fernandes, 1997); the award-winning design at the Place des Arts entrance hall contest in Montreal (in collaboration with Atelier Big City, Architects, 2004); the performance En masse, bringing together 75 people on stage at the Tangente space (in collaboration with choreographer Suzanne Miller, 2003); Push!, an installation on photography and violence, produced with the help of several artists (Pierre Giner, Shauna Beharry, Isabelle Bernier and David Miller) and presented at Galerie B-312 in 2004; Cinema, a performance event presented outside the SAT building for an audience sitting indoors; and Moat, a performance and video installation recorded around Canada House in Trafalgar Square, London in 2005, combining live performance with video surveillance technology. An overview of his most recent videos and installations (Duet / Trio / Quartet) was presented this summer at the Saint Mary's University Art Gallery in Halifax, while in October, he will produce a new performance at l’espace Tangente.- In 2003, the artist created PUSH, a company focused on interdisciplinary research (performance, dance, architecture and new media).