PAST EXHIBITION
ALEXANDER PILIS AND THE COLLECTION: The Blind Architect Meets Rembrandt
São Paulo-based Canadian artist/theoretical architect Alexander Pilis presents an extant video work The Blind Architect Meets Rembrandt, 2004, as a “centrepiece” for a site-responsive installation at the McMaster Museum of Art. Working with Senior Curator Ihor Holubizky, he has developed and articulated a dialogue between the explicit and implicit visual texts in his video-work, and works from the Museum’s European historical, modern, and contemporary collection.
Over the past 25 years Alexander Pilis has explored a research praxis through exhibitions, workshops and curatorial projects under the aegis and metaphor of “Architecture Parallax”; posing questions about visual literacy and cognition, and the modernization of vision that is woven through the built environment (architecture and the city). More recently, Pilis has delved into these concerns through the modes and strategies of representation in the history of art.
The exhibition is mounted in the Levy Gallery: the built-in interior room and perimeter gallery resonate with the tracking format and site of the Pilis video, conceived and shot during a residency in Banff. In the video a “blind architect” repeatedly walks around the perimeter of the space, which is empty with the exception of a single reproduction of a Rembrandt portrait pinned to a wall. On the final circuit, the “blind architect” stops to view the image—hence, breaking the premise of blindness.
Collection works are installed along the perimeter gallery—in essence to echo the video, with the visitor tracing the “blind architect’s” path.
Related Links:
Video: The Blind Architect Meets Rembrandt – Alexander Pilis
Co-curated by: Alexander Pilis and Ihor Holubizky
August 28, 2010 – January 08, 2011
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SUBMISSIONS & ASSISTANCE
SUBMISSIONS:
The McMaster Museum of Art is presently not accepting artists’ submissions for exhibitions at this time of leadership change at the museum. Our Interim Director will be undertaking a review of the museum’s forward exhibition schedule, as well as our policies and procedures, in the coming months. Our present focus is the ongoing maintenance of our permanent collection and storage needs for future collection activities.
The museum remains committed to our collecting priority in the continued support of early career, mid-career and established Indigenous artists, artists of the Black diaspora and racialized artists through purchases and commissions. Donations will be welcomed and reviewed at a future date which will be posted on our website.
ASSISTANCE:
The McMaster Museum of Art is a third party recommender for Ontario Arts Council (OAC) Exhibition Assistance Grants.
The museum is currently accepting applications. Our next program deadline is: December 16, 2024.
Priorities:
Artists who demonstrate an interest and consideration of art as a medium for social change and action.
Please follow the guidelines established by the Ontario Arts Council, apply directly through their website, and submit the following with your applications:
Brief artist statement
Confirmation letter from the gallery/museum/venue
Budget
CV
Digital images of work
