12div.communitystation@peelpolice.ca, john.kovac@mississauga.ca, Susan.Legge@mississauga.ca
Cc: mandy.salter@mississauga.ca, Sadaf.Zuberi@mississauga.ca, Ryerson.Maybee@mississauga.ca, Susan.Legge@mississauga.ca
Dear concerned parties,
Please view the email correspondence I had with the Art Gallery of Mississauga after I visited their recent exhibition. have forwarded the emails at the end of this letter.
On Tuesday May 8th [KPA: 2018] around 11am, I went to the Art Gallery of Mississauga to view the exhibition seeping upwards, rupturing the surface by Daniele Dennis, as well as the XIT-RM installation Jahez | Dowery by Mariam Magsi.
I followed all the gallery's basic protocol, and spent about 40 minutes studying the exhibition while taking notes on my notepad [KPA: paper, not electronic]. At the end of my tour, I had a couple of questions to ask the staff and I approached the reception desk. Both my questions were on the musical scores which accompanied Daniele Dennis' and Lotte Meret Effinger's videos.
An assistant came over and said she didn't know, and would ask Mandy Salter, the gallery's director and curator. Ms. Salter came through and, after some pleasant greetings, she accompanied me to the back of the gallery to Effinger's video and pointed out to me the music composer (Florian Meyer). She said that she wasn't involved in the curation of Dennis' piece and gave me the email for Kendra Ainsworth, who is the curator for contemporary.
I thanked her, made a brief final tour, and left the gallery, thanking the receptionist on my way out. I went next door to the C-Cafe for a short while before resuming my other activities.
Once home late that afternoon I composed a careful email to Ms. Ainsworth so that my technical question was clearly worded, and I was expectantly waiting her reply. I also left a Facebook message to Daniele Dennis since her website has no way to contact her.
As an artist, I am curious and interested about many aspects of art exhibitions: their subject matter, the methods used, the technical details of the pieces, and the artists' backgrounds and training.
Artists approach and depict difficult topics, such as Dennis covering her face with pink cotton candy, and Meyer videotaping various aspects of bodily fluids. And they often provide little explanation. I understand this, since I prefer that audiences come out their own explanations and thoughts. But I always welcome questions and even opinions, ready to tackle the difficult, technical queries as well as the unpleasant negative feedback. That is par for the course for artists. We come many times critiquing society through our art, but society also has that same right to critique our work (and even us!) especially if we exhibited in public, and in publicly funded organizations like the AGM.
Ms. Salter remarks about "the nature" of my reviews of some (of course not all) of the works exhibited at the AGM are simply a way of silencing what she determines to be unfavourable criticism of the AGM's programs. Any posts I have printed on individual members of her staff are related to the work they present, and the manner in which they present the gallery's work, and are not personal.
She has defamed me without trial or jury, as promoting "hate propaganda," which she has determined to be a criminal act. And with this, arbitrary, judgment, she has criminalized my person, and tainted my citizenship in Mississauga, for simply making educated and expert (I am an artist!) observations about the gallery.
But that is the least of my worries. What concerns me is that artistic progress cannot occur if open discussion and observation, presented boldly and honestly, and in person, before all the parties involved is curtailed. If artists cannot critique each other within their own communities, and those who are critiqued cannot accept these critiques at face value, then all we will have is a group of people who assemble because they agree with each other, and those who do not are criminalized and silenced as "haters."
The only place where this was acceptable was Soviet Russia.
My task as an artist is to do exactly what Ms. Salter "allows" me to do on my blog but not in the real world, where such actions are much more useful for everyone concerned: the critics, the ones being critiqued, and the administrative and managing bodies of art institutions, and the institutions themselves.
I have been doing so for about fifteen years now, providing some lucid and insightful contributions to the art world through my blogs, my longer published articles, and my presentations to large academic audiences. And I will continue to do so.
Sincerely,
Kidist Paulos Asrat
- Reclaiming Beauty
- Society for the Reclamation of Western Beauty
- Reclaiming Beauty Designs
- Reclaiming Beauty Photographs
- Reclaiming Beauty Articles
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mandy Salter
Date: Wed, May 9, 2018 at 12:00 PM
Subject: Kidist Asrat - no longer permitted entry to the AGM premises or events
To: Kidist Paulos Asrat
Cc: Ryerson Maybee , Susan Legge , Sadaf Zuberi
Hello Ms. Asrat,
I had emailed you some months back expressing the AGM’s concern with the nature of your reviews and commentary for the AGM’s programmes, staff, artists and community. I had clearly articulated at the time that if the hateful and insulting tone of many of your blog posts, in regards to AGM content, staff and or community did not cease, you would be no longer welcome at the AGM. While you certainly have the right to freedom of speech, the AGM also has the right to not be defamed and or the recipient of hate propaganda.
As you have continued to criticize, defame and generally create an unsafe space for many at the AGM, you will no longer be permitted to enter the AGM premises under the Trespass to Property Act, RSO 1990, c. T.21 - Ontario.ca
If you are to enter the AGM premises at any time in the future, you will be escorted off the property immediately by City Security.
Mandy Salter
Mandy Salter MA ISA
Director/Curator
T. (905) 896 5507
E. mandy.salter@mississauga.ca
______________________________ ______________________________ ____
From: Kidist Paulos Asrat [mailto:eighthpictures@gmail. com]
Sent: 2018/05/09 3:53 AM
To: Kendra Ainsworth
Cc: Mandy Salter
Subject: Daniele Dennis
Hi Kendra,
I was at the AGM yesterday afternoon and saw Daniele Dennis' video. I asked the staff a couple of questions and they said that you might have the answers.
- I understand that the video was about 10 minutes long and that it was looped (set to replay).
The accompanying music was a Verdi piece according to Mandy:
- What was the actual piece, and the movement
- Were the images set to the music, i.e. the music ended as the images ended and was re-looped accordingly
- Or was the music simply following the images and it re-looped before they ended.
The main question is: what is the technical (editing) relationship between the video's images and sound (music).
Thanks,
Kidist