Wednesday, December 20th found us at the Western Front for a momentus occasion and a raucus art party attended by upwards of 125 people.
We began with a talk by Jillian Mcdonald, which was followed by a Holiday Party with a selection of music curated by Jesse Scott and Memelab that included DJ Emily Carr.
McDonald spoke about her new body of work, "Horror Cycle", which concentrates on the manufacturing of fear as entertainment that the horror film genre accomplishes. Unlike contemporary horror films, this work offers no extreme violence, little gore, no character development, and zero plot. These are stripped away in order to highlight the protagonists and their dilemmas. McDonald's previous work mined the field of celebrity worship and fan fiction. Her work is often performative and relational, and is meant to be stumbled upon in everyday situations. Mcdonald also showed a broad selection from "Me and Billy Bob" and discussed "Snow Stories".
Jillian Mcdonald
Jillian Mcdonald is a Canadian artist, transplanted in New York. Originally from Winnipeg, she dreams of the snow-covered prairie landscape.
Recent solo shows include Jack the Pelican Presents Gallery in New York, vertexList in Brooklyn, TPW (presented at The Drake Hotel) and YYZ in Toronto, Video Pool in Winnipeg, and Edge Media in Newfoundland. Her work was also shown recently at The Whitney Museum's Artport, Sixty Seven Gallery in New York, Year Zero One in Toronto, Manifestation d'Art Internationale de Québec, 404 International Festival of Electronic Art in Argentina, BananaRAM in Italy, The Sundance Online Film Festival in Utah, The Cleveland International Performance Art Festival, La Biennale de Montréal, ISEA 2004 in Estonia, and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie in France.
Mcdonald received grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Soil New Media, Turbulence, The Gunk Foundation, NYSCA, The Experimental Television Center, Thirdplace.org, and Pace University. She lectures regularly in North America and Europe about her work and has attended numerous residencies including DAIMON, Sagamie, and La Chambre Blanche in Québec; CFAT in Halifax; Em-Media in Calgary, and Harvestworks in New York. She teaches art at Pace University.
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