Louise Lawler, Louise Noguchi

September 9 – October 21, 2023

Opening: Saturday, September 9, 7-9pm

Curated by Kate Whiteway 

Open Saturdays, by appointment and during Gallery Weekend Toronto, September 21 – 24, 2023

This exhibition puts two works in concert inside the intimate space of Beauty Supply.

Birdcalls (1972/81) is American artist Louise Lawler’s only audio work. Nicknamed the “patriarchal roll call”, a list of recognizable and established male artist names become bird calls that echo through the space. By mimicking the natural (-ized) call of the wild, the work plays with how symbolic capital is conferred by name recognition in the art world.

Broncos and Bucking Bulls (2002) is a body of work by Toronto-based artist Louise Noguchi where rodeo horse and bull names transform into car logos. From the 1980s on, Noguchi developed the idiom of the “artist-as-hunter”. Interested in the ideology of individual freedom and the way that animals are roped into the performance of being tamed, Noguchi immersed herself in Western cowboy culture where she learned to trick rope, knife throw, and whip crack. Transforming animal names into metal car branding harnesses “horsepower” with dominance over nature.

Special thanks to the artists, Jennifer McMackon, Nestor Kruger, Robert Birch, Christophe Barbeau, Janet Passehl (The LeWitt Collection), and Kenneth Pietrobono.

Exhibition documentation by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Gallery Weekend:
https://toronto.galleryweekend.ca/beauty-supply-room/