MACLARENARTCENTRE, BARRIE
RECEPTION FOR 2012 SPRING EXHIBITIONS
THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 7 TO 9 PM



Jon Sasaki
Good Intentions
Gallery 3
March 3 to May 27, 2012
Reception: Thursday, March 8, 7 to 9 pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, March 8 at 10:30 am, Campus Gallery, Georgian College

Jon Sasaki: Good Intentions has been rearticulated for each stop on its national tour since it originated in 2010 at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Scarborough. This presentation at the MacLaren features ten works dating from 2007 (Artist's First Painting Bronzed) to 2012 (Lucky Thinker, a site-specific artist's intervention involving two bronze casts of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker). These include six video loops ranging from room-scaled projections to set-piece "efforts" framed on television screens. Sasaki takes inspiration in the gag techniques of early slapstick film, personified by such silent-cinema pioneers as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, casting himself as a modern Everyman. In these performative artworks, he enacts misplaced efforts in quests characterized by unrequited longing and futile hopes. His works are simultaneously comic and poignant. A collaborative eighty-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition with essays by Ann MacDonald, Crystal Mowry and MacLaren curator Ben Portis.

Jon Sasaki holds a BFA from Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB. From 2002 to 2007, he was a member of the Toronto-based artist collective Instant Coffee. He has had solo exhibitions in Toronto, St. John's, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Galway, Ireland. Jon Sasaki lives and works in Toronto, where he is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects.


Hourglass Continent
Curator: Ben Portis
Janice Laking Gallery
March 3 to June 3, 2012
Reception: Thursday, March 8, 7 to 9 pm

Hourglass Continent reunites artists Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo, Oscar Camilo de las Flores, Nahúm Flores, Erik Jerezano and Ilyana Martínez, who formed the Latin Collective at Ontario College of Art + Design in 2000. They have remained allied by mutual purpose and awareness while their careers evolved in disparate locations. Each has developed an intensive, extended drawing practice that involves pronounced elements of Mexican and Central American iconography, mythology and history, combined with personal experience ranging from political expatriation to cosmopolitan opportunity.

This exhibition consists of colourful mixed media drawings by Montreal-based Castillo (born in El Salvador); dense ink drawings on rice paper by Toronto-based de las Flores (born in El Salvador); and collaborative drawings and a new mural created in situ by Toronto-based Z'otz* Collective: Nahúm Flores (born in Honduras), Erik Jerezano (born in Mexico) and Ilyana Martínez (born in Canada). Hourglass Continent connotes an active Americas cultural migration that retains a distinctive granular composition as it pours across boundaries and over time.

Image credits: Jon Sasaki, Ladder Stack [still], 2009, high-definition video, 2m 5s, silent, looped. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto (left). Z'otz* Collective, Web Maker, 2009, mixed media on paper, 38.1 x 27.9 cm. Courtesy of the artists (right).


GENERAL INFORMATION

About the MacLarenArtCentre
The MacLarenArtCentre is the major public art gallery in central Ontario serving the residents of Barrie, the County of Simcoe and the surrounding area. The Gallery has a permanent collection of over 26,600 works of art and presents a year-round programme of innovative, world-class exhibitions, public art projects, art education activities and special events. The MacLaren is housed in a 24,000 square-foot award-winning building. This architectural landmark in downtown Barrie combines a renovated 1917 Carnegie library and a contemporary addition by Siamak Hariri of Hariri Pontarini Architects. The complex includes multiple galleries, an education centre, a sculpture courtyard, café, gift shop and framing department. As the cornerstone of culture for Barrie, the MacLaren is a central meeting place and a cultural hub of activities for residents in the city, a partner to many community organizations, a tourist destination for visitors from across the province, and an economic driver and catalyst for downtown revitalization. The MacLarenArtCentre engages over 56,000 people each year through its programmes at the gallery, in the schools and in the community, including 21,000 children and youth. The Gallery is committed to building a vibrant, healthy and creative community. Its award-winning education department offers art appreciation activities for all ages, interests and abilities, including lectures, panels, artist talks and gallery tours that illuminate the exhibitions, and seasonal art classes for children, youth, adults and families.

Acknowledgements
The MacLarenArtCentre gratefully acknowledges the support of its members, benefactors, partners, donors and sponsors, the City of Barrie, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Ontario and exhibition sponsor Salter Pilon Architecture Inc.

Gallery Location
37 Mulcaster Street, Barrie, Ontario, L4M 3M2, 705-721-9696 www.maclarenart.com
Directions: From highway 400 north, 90K north of Toronto, take the Dunlop Street East exit to Mulcaster Street and turn left. The Centre is one block north on the right hand at the intersection of Collier Street and Mulcaster Street

Gallery Tours
Guided tours for groups and schools are available by appointment

Gallery Admission
Suggested admission $5
Café Culture $5/Members free
Family Sunday Workshop $5 per child/Family Membership holders free

Gallery Hours and Gallery Shop Hours
Monday to Friday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Closed April 6, 8, May 21

The Radio Café
Monday to Friday 7:00 am to 4:30 pm
Saturday 7:00 am to 4:00 pm
Sunday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Closed April 6, 8, May 21

Wheelchair accessible