14/9/2012
Zackary Drucker
Vtape, Toronto
"You Will Never Be a Woman..." is a nine minute performance-based video from 2008 in which two transgender individuals engage in '..a brilliantly written and staged dialogue...'
curated by
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
You Will Never Be a Woman,
you must live the rest of your days entirely as a man and will only
grow more masculine with every passing year.
There is no way out.
a video by Zackary Drucker
colour, 9:00, 2008
in collaboration with Van Barnes, Mariah Garnett, A.L. Steiner
Berlin-based Canadian artist and guest curator Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
brings a video work by L.A. based performance, film and video artist Zackary
Drucker to Toronto for its premiere exhibition in Canada. A collaborative piece –
as is frequently the case with Druckerʼs work - You Will Never Be a Woman, you
must live the rest of your days entirely as a man and will only grow more
masculine with every passing year. There is no way out. (Zackary Drucker, Van
Barnes, Mariah Garnett, A.L. Steiner), is a nine minute performance-based video
from 2008 in which two transgender individuals engage in “...a brilliantly written
and staged dialogue - alternately violent, alternately tender - with each other,
themselves, and the spectator, weaving a complex, textured and provocative
portrait of gender fantasies.” (BNR)
Since graduating with an MFA from CalArts in 2007, Zackary Druckerʼs performances,
films, photographs and videos have been screened and presented in a variety of
locations in Europe and North America including: the Swiss Pavilion at the Venice
Biennalle 2011; 5th Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, The Central House of Artists;
the up-coming L.A. Biennial: and Les Recontres Internationales, Paris/Berlin/Madrid.
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The 2012-13 Vtapeʼs Artists Squared (Artists to the Power of Artists)
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
A public lecture on the work of
Zackary Drucker
Saturday, September 15, 2pm
@ Vtape in the VMAC Gallery
We will open the Vtape programming season with an exhibition of Druckerʼs
work, curated by Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay and a public lecture that takes in
the expanded body of work produced by Drucker. The lecture will be the second
edition of Artists Squared (Artists to the Power of Artists), a new Vtape
programme that seeks to expand and deepen public discussion around media
arts through an annual lecture presented by an artist and focused on the work of
another artist. We envision that this programme will sharpen vocabularies and
produce important critical tools for the understanding and appreciation of media
arts.
In this lecture, to be followed by a publication, Nemerofsky Ramsay will
look at Druckerʼs work from a variety of angles, including a social critique of the
growing proliferation of consumer-driven pornographic imagery and language in
mainstream media, transgender expression outside of the Male-to-
Female/Female-to-Male binary, and the aesthetics of performance video art after
Ryan Trecartin.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012, 7 pm
This I Promise You
Curated by Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
Co-presented by PleasureDome and Vtape
@ Tallulah's Cabaret, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street
“This I Promise You assembles international performance-based video works
that herald an alternate future—part utopia, part nightmare—in which dominant
structures of gender and sexuality finally collapse beyond the borders of bodies
and gestures. While some videos point to the fragile fault lines that are being torn
apart as we speak, others propose fantastical visions, realities on the other side,
worlds that the artists have decided they will wait for no longer. These videos all
seem to make a promise to the viewer: a promise that there is more ahead, a
promise that it wonʼt be long, a promise that we are, in fact, already there.” (BNR)
Lost Lake, Zackary Drucker + Van Barnes, USA, 7:45
M3RM41D, Mikiki, Canada, 2012, 2:00
Dressage, Julika Rudelius, Netherlands, 2009, 9:00
Belly Dancer, Pascal Lièvre, France, 2009, 4:00
Reifying Desire, Part 2, Jacolby Satterwhite, USA, 2011, 8:00
She Gone Rogue, Zackary Drucker + Rhys Ernst, USA, 2012, 22:00
The evening will conclude with a live performance by Zackary Drucker.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is a Montréal-born artist and diarist who was
based in Toronto and active in the local art and video community throughout the
1990s. Since 2001, he has divided his time between Berlin and Montréal. His
work contemplates the history of song, the rendering of love and emotion into
language, and the resurrection of voices –sung, spoken or screamed – from the
past, taking form through video, sound, print and textiles. His work has been
exhibited throughout Canada, Europe and East Asia and is represented in the
collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Recent curatorial projects include the short video program No Ordinary Love for
the Vienna International Short Film Festival (2010) and serving on the curatorial
committee for Paraphrasing Babel, a series of site-specific video installations in
public spaces throughout Maastricht and Heerlen, Netherlands taking place this
October. www.nemerofsky.ca
OPENING SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 1-5PM. Curatorʼs talk at 2pm
Vtape
401 Richmond St., #452
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
Tuesday-Friday 11am-5pm, Saturday 12-4pm