MICHAEL ASSIFF
JAMES KERR
SARA MAGENHEIMER
ROULA PARTHENIOU
JON RAFMAN

Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran is proud to present the second edition of Playlist, its summer group exhibition, showcasing five young Canadian and American artists: Michael Assiff, James Kerr, Sara Magenheimer, Roula Partheniou and Jon Rafman. Their works come together to create a unique visual, sensorial and interactive experience. The title, Playlist, brings out the diversity of aesthetics and mediums that will be found in this engaging show. The public is invited to discover the distinctive approach of these artists coming together as a whole for the first time.

Michael Assiff makes paintings, objects and installations that investigate cultural heritage, environmentalism and branding. Much of the work takes the form of the handmade, challenging the nature and authority of the manufactured objects they draw from. Imagery in the work is sourced from Internet newsfeeds as well as petroglyphs, creating a continuum of nature, culture, history and industry that the artist uses to stage contemporary commercial tableaux.

James Kerr, through animation and digital collage, wants to convey his vision of the world around him by repurposing elements from the art canon in such a manner as to give the works a new life outside of the canvas on which they originally appear. With his work, Kerr explores the often mundane and, at times, bizarre parts of modern life.

Sara Magenheimer works across a variety of media, including video, sculpture and photography. Magenheimer’s language-based practice treats objects, images and the human voice as raw material, personal signifiers and semantic stand-ins. Through rhythm and syncopation of visual deviation, she creates experimental strategies for reading the world.

Roula Partheniou’s practice explores the replica and how the remaking of a familiar object can shift our perception and perspective. Her projects take the form of sculptural installations that make use of material puns, context, colour cues and various degrees of trompe l’oeil to deconstruct the familiar and trigger a reconsideration of common forms. Her work questions how we see and read objects and challenges the viewer to negotiate between the perceived and the actual.

Jon Rafman, explorer and archivist of Internet culture, investigates the changing nature of the self under contemporary conditions as he navigates the boundaries between the virtual and the real, the historical and the personal. His body of digital and physical works traverses the found and the made, the still and the moving, incorporating video, installation, sculpture, photography and painting. By exploring both the physical and the virtual, his works take up an unfamiliar and singular third space between the two realms.