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Libraries
October 26, 2012 - December 3, 2012
Exhibit dates:
Reception date & time:
Description:
‘Libraries‘ is built from three installation artworks: ‘Library of Depth and Gender‘, ‘Library of a Traveling Dandy‘, and ‘Delineate‘. Each of these works is concerned with classification and normalization of the body, and of beauty in unexpected places. The work functions as an axis where knowledge, nature, and gender intersect to investigate how we classify and order the world around us, what the process of selection reveals, and questions who makes those decisions.
In ‘Library of Depth and Gender‘, McPhee creates a library containing natural history books, Foucault and queer theory, as well as monster movies, Darwin-jellyfish footstools and miscellany of her drag persona Cosimo. ‘Library of a Traveling Dandy‘ posits an early 1900s science writer dandy who travels across North America with nothing but books and a wardrobe. The 65 drawings of cephalopods (squid, octopus, nautilus) of ‘Delineation‘ function as an illustration of an Other body, existing in a realm beyond our access.
Admission to the Archives Gallery is free.
Fully accessible.
Biographies:
Nancy Anne McPhee is a textile installation artist originally from Alberta and now based in Montréal, Québec. McPhee works with themes of knowledge, gender and biological bodies, in large-scale drawings, silk trapunto quilt installations and theatrical performances as a collective member of the Drag King troupe Dukes of Drag. She has shown across Canada in commercial galleries, artist run centres and public theatres, recently including a solo exhibition at Galerie FOFA, Montréal, and as a performer in Dukes Up! at the historic Café Cleopatra Drag Bar in Montréal.
Press Release: http://embracedisruption.com/2012/10/15/client-news-libraries-exhibit-merges-monster-movies-with-a-drag-persona/