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19/9/2013

Micah Lexier

The Power Plant, Toronto

curated by Gaetane Verna

One, and Two, and More Than Two presents a survey of significant work by Toronto-based artist Micah Lexier. United by his interests in temporal and graphic systems of organization and measurement, this exhibition brings together an important selection of recent work that reflects the artist’s diverse and dynamic practice. Featuring four solo pieces, three collaborations, and one new, ambitious curatorial project, One, and Two, and More Than Two witnesses Lexier at all levels of his practice. Whether working individually (One), in a collaborative process (Two), or encompassing hundreds of different artists (More than Two), Lexier’s work evinces witty and playful reflections on the creative processes of making and presenting art.

At the level of One, this exhibition features personal projects such as Self-Portrait as a Wall Text (1998/2013), a seminal conceptual installation Lexier produced at the age of thirty-seven, paired with an updated version made specifically for this show and presented for the very first time in Toronto. Likewise, Working as Drawing displays a selection of 470 working documents culled from the last thirty-two years of his own artmaking. The gallery’s second floor is meanwhile devoted to Two: Lexier’s collaborations with writers, including Two Equal Texts, a complex anagram work made with the poet Christian Bök, and I Am The Coin, in which Lexier custom minted twenty-thousand coins with a text by novelist Derek McCormack. At his most ambitious, however, is Lexier’s More Than Two (Let It Make Itself), a curatorial project that displays over 200 new and recently created artworks and other art related objects by 101 artists/duos/collectives in and around Toronto, with a deep interest in process and form. Encompassing artists of all ages and at varying stages of their careers, Lexier presents his take on the wide-ranging, multi-generational portrait of a robust Toronto art community. In seeking to celebrate this expansive community, Lexier brings to The Power Plant an incisive look at the networks of creative production that surround it. “The thirty vitrines that constitute the exhibition”, he states, “house my personal take on some of the wonderful, inventive, like-minded objects that I encountered during my research. I went on an expedition to my own city, and this is what I found.” More Than Two is in constant dialogue with the rest of the exhibition, while enabling audiences to see and experience Lexier’s multi-faceted practice.

Micah Lexier (Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1960) is an artist and curator living and working in Toronto. He received his BFA from the University of Manitoba (1982) and his MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1984). Working as a professional artist for the last thirty years, Lexier has participated in an impressive number of solo exhibitions and group exhibitions, and has produced a dozen public commissions (including permanent local projects at the Air Canada Centre, Exhibition Place, Metro Hall, and the Sheppard and Leslie subway station). He was a finalist for the 2013 Premier's Awards for Excellence in the Arts, and his work is found in numerous private and public collections, including: The British Museum, London; the Contemporary Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. He is represented by Birch Libralato, Toronto.

Image:
Micah Lexier in collaboration with Derek McCormack, I am the Coin, 2010. 20,000 custom-minted coins. Courtesy Birch Libralato, Toronto. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid

Opening Party: Friday, 20 September

The Power Plant
231 Queens Quay West Toronto

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