Libby Leshgold Gallery

Exhibition curated by Cate Rimmer
Opening Reception: Tuesday January 22, 2008 at 7:30pm


The Charles H. Scott Gallery is pleased to present Trust in Me, an exhibition about magic, trickery, and the willingness to believe. The exhibition includes work in a variety of media by both local and international artists.


In Telemistica, German artist Christian Jankowski records his on-air phone consultations with television psychics predicting the success of his upcoming artwork for the Venice Biennale. British artist Marcus Coates enacts a shamanic ritual for the benefit of residents of a Liverpool housing estate in Journey to the Lower World, in which his bemused audience asks about their future as their homes are slated for demolition. In her video, Waking the Witch, emerging artist Claire Greenshaw pays homage to feminist artist Ana Mendieta by conjuring her own version of an iconic work by the deceased artist.


Tim Lee references the work of other artists and figures from popular culture. In Upside Down Water Torture Chamber, Harry Houdini, 1914, the artist re-enacts a feat performed by the infamous magician and illusionist. Fellow Vancouver-based artist Christine D’Onofrio also performs a classic illusion in her photographic work, Tricky/Gullible, while Janice Kerbel’s series of posters advertise phantasmal acts by fictional characters such as The Human Firefly. Portugal’s João Onofre cites a previous performance in his work Believe (levitation in the studio) where he had a magician levitate a woman within the mundane surroundings of his studio as a response to Bruce Nauman’s Failing to Levitate in the Studio. David Carter merges magic and illusion with an interest in the minimalist object as evidenced in his sculptural works Presenting and Magic Box, both of which are included in the exhibition at Charles H. Scott Gallery.

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