Nov. 12, 2008 - Issue #682: Tariq Ali

Hot Topic vs Wednesday Lupypciw: Up for debate

Queer and feminisit identities a Hot Topic

Two Alberta artists will be working together as much as pulling each other’s works apart as part of this year’s Exposure Festival. Curated by Amy Fung, Hot Topic vs. Wednesday Lupypciw is a painting-and-performance-based exhibition at the ARTery featuring Edmonton’s Kirsten McCrea and performance artist Wednesday Lupypciw of Calgary.

 

Kirsten McCrea completed Hot Topic for her BFA at Concordia University in Montréal. The series, based on the song “Hot Topic” by the band Le Tigre, is a set of 60 portrait paintings of counter-culture icons listed in the lyrics of the song, including Yoko Ono, Nina Simone, Billy Jean King, Cibo Matto, Gertrude Stein and many others who have addressed queer and feminist issues in their work.

 

“Every person walking in will recognize at least one person,” says McCrea, “They’re going to want to know how that person relates to everyone else.”

 

McCrea hopes that as visitors become curious about the exhibition, they will learn more about the work these women have done.  “This is an important thing to do,” she says. “You need to honour your own cultural heroes.  If you don’t preserve your own history, no one will.”

 

Next Friday, November 21, McCrea’s works will be joined by Beige Decade(s), a performance art work by Calgary-based artist Wednesday Lupypciw.  Lupypciw is excited about working in response to McCrea’s paintings. Well established in Calgary, Lupypciw is also looking forward to her time in Edmonton and in front of an Edmonton audience.

 

“I was excited at Amy’s approach to curating the show in a queer arts festival”, she said on the phone from Calgary, “I really like Edmonton’s arts scene.”

 

Lupypciw’s work explores issues of feminism and queer identity through performance and textile art, referencing the fibre artists of the ’60s and ’70s. McCrea’s paintings, a traditional form of art-making, will be challenged by Lupypciw’s performance, ephemeral and traditionally feminine.  Together, their works form a dialogue about feminist and queer culture that extends beyond their art, articulating Fung’s curatorial vision of problematizing traditional labels and definitions, thereby encouraging the audience to, as Fung says, “add an ‘s’ to whatever [you] identify as.”

 

For Edmonton, this is an exciting opportunity to see a one-night-only collaboration between two Alberta-based artists. Lupypciw, working in performance and textiles, has no contemporary in Edmonton, and McCrea’s work has not been exhibited in Edmonton in its entirety before this exhibition. Add in Corissa O’Donnell’s exhibit of works from her “Ladies” series of ink drawings in the Backroom and the arts community has an exceptional conversation about feminism and queer identity at its disposal, encouraging artists and audience to inhabit new perspectives. V 


Fri, Nov 21 (8:30 pm)
Hot Topic vs Wednesday Lupypciw
Curated by Amy Fung
Part of the Exposure: Queer Arts and Culture Festival
The ARTery (9535 Jasper Ave)

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