Janice Kerbel – Pre, NOVEMBER 16–DECEMBER 21, 2012

Janice Kerbel
Pre
November 16–December 21, 2012

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto, Canada

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by London-based artist Janice Kerbel, the first solo exhibition by the internationally renowned artist in Toronto in over fifteen years.

The two works presented in her exhibition at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery close in on her ongoing interest in ‘the question of visibility’, in trying to find or show the form for things that otherwise can’t be seen. Titled Pre, the exhibition includes an audio recording evoking the kind of speculation and analysis commonly preceding an impending baseball game. Kerbel has worked with the past 100 years of baseball statistics to construct a mathematically ‘average’ game, to play with what is widely considered the most quantified and statistically exploited sport in the world. Pregame represents the first part of this major, ongoing project that will eventually encompass a complete, play-by-play single-voice announcement of the full sequence of nine innings of a carefully scripted, but unplayed, baseball game. The work allows for a scrutiny of the performance of language, the tenor of hope and disappointment, anticipation and distraction.

Kerbel’s exhibition at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery will also feature Cue, 2012, a series of 36 silkscreen prints which chronicle a sequence of theatrical light events. Together, these works demonstrate Kerbel’s playful and acute attention to language, to both historical and contemporary cultural systems of visual and auditory representation. Ultimately, they illuminate how these in turn mobilize and act upon the viewer, listener, and reader of her work.

Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid.