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Studio arts, Conferences & lectures

Conversations in Contemporary Art presents Simon Denny

The CICA lecture series is hosted bi-weekly by the MFA Studio Arts. All lectures are free and open to the public.


Date & time
Thursday, October 23, 2014
6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Cost

No fee.

Contact

Ingrid Bachmann

Where

Henry F. Hall Building
1455 De Maisonneuve W.
Room DB Clarke Theatre

Wheel chair accessible

Yes

We are proud to partner with Sylvie Fortin and the Montreal Biennial to bring Simon Denny to the stage for the fourth talk in the Conversations in Contemporary Art 2014-2015 fall season. 


“All you need is data: the DLD 2012 Conference REDUX rerun” installation view, 2012. images courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.
“All you need is data: the DLD 2012 Conference REDUX rerun” installation view, 2012. images courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.

First presented at Kunstverein Munich in 2013, Simon Denny’s installation of eighty-nine digitally printed canvases references the conference All You Need Is … DATAstaged in 2012. The annual Munich conference and its subsidiary events held around the globe are organized by the Munich-based Digital Life Design (DLD) network, whose aim is to bring together investors, businesses, digital entrepreneurs and other influencers in the field of science, culture and communications, in order to propose and test possibilities for future experiences and products.

The installation marshals us through an incongruous metal structure displaying canvases that collectively form both an archive of the conference and a representation of its various topics. This routing of the viewer and the totalizing effect of the depictions intensify a sense that future speculation is becoming controlled by an elite, driven by opportunities for the monetization of information exchange. The incongruity between the analogue presentation and its subject, or, to say it differently, the incongruity between Denny’s reliance on canvas and its associated values and his depictions, yields a dated and somewhat forensic aesthetic. This datedness reinforces the installation’s focus on the power of speculation to render everything immediately redundant in our digital economy, where data is the only currency.

–GB

Bio
Born in 1982 in Auckland, New Zealand, Simon Denny is currently based in Berlin. He studied at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts and Frankfurt’s Städelschule Hochschule für Bildende Künste, graduating in 2009. Denny was a founding member of the Auckland artist-run space Gambia Castle. In 2013 he was nominated for the prestigious Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst; in 2012, he won the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel. Denny’s work has been featured in many solo exhitions, including The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Mumok), Vienna (2013); and All You Need Is Data: The DLD 2012 Conference Redux, Kunstverein Munich, Petzel Gallery, New York, and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2013). He will be representing New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). 

Denny’s work was also presented at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) and the Biennale of Sydney (2008), and has been exhibited at major European arts institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Germany; KW Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. 

Denny is represented by Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin; Petzel Gallery, New York; T293, Naples/Rome; and Michael Lett, Auckland.

Admission for all Conversations in Contemporary Art events is FREE and open to the general public. Seating is first come, first serve.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

The lecture will be held in English.

Related links:
Conversations in Contemporary Art – official website. 
Concordia University Studio Arts Department 
Simon Denny at Petzel Gallery

 

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