Sunday, October 27, 2024, at 2 to 4 pm
Stacks, a workshop and artist-led talk with Anthony Douglas Cooper
Offsite at Leslie Spit, Toronto
An artist-led walk and workshop with Toronto-based artist Anthony Douglas Cooper exploring practices related to accumulation and assemblage, this off-site program with Cooper is the initial event related to the group exhibition Manual Assembly: Fragments of a Whole, one of our inaugural exhibitions of the The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery opening November 12 (announcement coming soon!).
The walk will take place at the human-made headland of Leslie Spit in Toronto, where the artist will speak about his collecting practice related to his ongoing Stacks sculpture project. He will also direct us in a walk through the parkway, shifting our focus from litter into a framework of potential. Participants will be invited to spend time collecting materials for their own “stacks.”
Cooper’s Stacks are composed of small cylindrical objects collected from the streets of Toronto. For over a decade, Cooper has been collecting discarded scraps as an ongoing passive collecting practice during his day-to-day routine. He collects discarded bits of tubular plastic or metal pieces, their past uses often unidentifiable. Sorting is an essential part of his process as the assembly of each sculpture is dictated by how it fits into the next. The miniature sculptures are always installed, arranged, and exhibited en masse.
Meeting location:
Tommy Thompson Park Pavilion
1 Leslie St
Toronto ON M4M 3M2by car: At Leslie Street and Unwin Avenue, five minutes east of the DVP/Gardiner junction along Lake Shore Blvd East. Free parking available.
by TTC: Tommy Thompson Park is a 5 minute walk from the bus stop at Commissioner’s and Leslie, serviced by the 83 Jones Southbound bus.
by foot/bike: The Martin Goodman Trail/Waterfront Trail passes Tommy Thompson Park between Woodbine Beach and Cherry Beach.
Anthony Douglas Cooper is a Toronto-based artist and nurse working across sculpture and performance and is known for his collaborations through vsvsvs and as a founding member of Toronto-based art gallery, The Plumb. Cooper’s most recent curatorial projects include the exhibition goodtime, which continued and expanded John Goodwin’s recent curatorial work, and Andrew Patterson: Never Enough Night, co-curated with Laura Carusi and Kate Whiteway. Cooper’s sculptures were recently in the group exhibition Vision321, 2024, curated by Hearth Garage, at The Plumb.
This workshop/walk is part of the public programming for Manual Assembly: Fragments of a Whole, the first group exhibition to be presented in The Goldfarb Gallery, on view from November 12 to December 21, 2024, with a public reception on Wednesday, November 13, from 7 to 10 pm. Manual Assembly features nine artists who use accumulation and assemblage as the basis for the construction of both form and meaning, entwining material experimentation with personal experiences, economic histories, and ecological impact. This cogent and striking group exhibition includes work by El Anatsui, Kevin Beasley, Wally Dion, Anthony Douglas Cooper, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Kelly Jazvac, Jenine Marsh, and Rosie Lee Tompkins, and is curated by Lillian O’Brien Davis, curator of collections and contemporary art engagement, and Jenifer Papararo, director/curator.
