Fiona Macdonald, Index Project: renovated
February 14 - March 21, 2009
Opening February 13, 8pm
Open Space is pleased to welcome Australian Fiona Macdonald, an artist who makes history itself a material part of her artistic process. While in Victoria, Macdonald will create the Index Project: renovated, intended to catalyze the subtle, enduring influences of history— specifically art history—as it animates contemporary art production. Macdonald investigates how art made during the 1970s and 80s continues to inhabit contemporary art production with particular emphasis on how historic ‘translation’ adapts to the creation, presentation and reception of art. Macdonald based this project on the influential collaborative conceptual art group Art & Language, whose Index Project was presented at the international art fair Documenta 5 in 1972—the same year Open Space was incorporated. Art & Language was part of a massive shift in art practices during the 1970s and 1980s, a shift that hard-wired the dialogic framework of conceptualism and art theory into artist-run culture, art education and production. Macdonald’s project reviews assumed histories and self-reflexive habits of presentation. She proposes to “locate modalities of meaning and interpretation as conditions of necessity and contingency relative to differences of circumstance.”
Index Project: renovated demands active response, which Macdonald will include in videotaped and written forms. To that end Macdonald has issued a casting call seeking respondents whose videotaped response will form a component of the installation.
The Index Project: renovated involves two parts. The first part will involve a large-scale wall text—an index of conceptual formulations—with accompanying catalogues and ample space for the addition of notations and concatenatory entries. The second part is performative, and will be videotaped and included in the exhibition as a projection. It will spark subsequent annotation to the wall work. As the work is modified, it becomes an experiment in modality: generational, regional and political.
Fiona Macdonald will install the Index Project: renovated from Monday, February 9 until Friday, February 13. She will be videotaping participants on Tuesday, afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00pm. To participate, please contact Open Space Director Helen Marzolf at director@openspace.ca or 250-383-8833. Participants interested in written contributions can stop by at any time.
Join Fiona Macdonald and Open Space for the opening of Index Project; renovated on Friday evening, February 13. At 7:30pm, Fiona will present an informal artist talk about this project and previous works. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.
Fiona Macdonald acknowledges the support of the Visual Arts Board of the Australian Council for the Arts and the Monash University.
Open Space acknowledges the support of the Type 'N Write Shop of Victoria, BC.