Alex Morrison

For more than twenty years, the practice of Vancouver-based artist Alex Morrison has explored the aesthetics of utopian thought, whether as embedded in activism and counterculture or architecture and design. Highlighting the persistent ways radical ideals and impulses are historicized, distorted and repurposed over time, Morrison’s work traces the means by which even the most persuasive of vernaculars cycle from avant-garde to kitsch and commodity.

In *Nooks and Corners*, Morrison presents a suite of new and recent works in painting and sculpture that extend his ongoing investigation into cultural identification and the ways identity and politics are fashioned aesthetically, particularly in the domestic sphere. Whether reflecting on the migration of once-revolutionary abstractions into the decorative and ornamental, the house- plant as an object of status and signification, or architectural revivalisms emptied of their styles’ foundational integrities and optimisms, Morrison foregrounds the inevitable divergences between the original intent of a given aesthetic and its continuous, often contradictory adaptation to new social and political ends.

### Biography 

Alex Morrison was born in Redruth, UK and currently lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. His work has been exhibited at White Columns, New York; La Plage, Paris; Vancouver Art Gallery; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff; and Artspeak, Vancouver, amongst other venues. His work is held by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; Museum Abteiberg; Germany; Zabludowicz Collection, London, and numerous other public and private collections.

ProgramGuideWinter2022.pdf

CAG_AlexMorrison_ExhibitionGuide.pdf

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Nooks and Corners

Alison Yip

Across her work in painting, wall treatments, writing, and sculpture, artist Alison Yip moves between the observational and the speculative. Known for an ongoing concern with the ambiguities and ambivalences of figuration and perception, Yip’s works often evoke transitional states, mystical forms and psychic or spiritual phenomena to consider the disconnected ways humans experience time, space, self, and relationships.

Reflecting on the radical systems failures and temporal shifts of the current moment, Yip’s most recent body of work, *Soma Topika*, led her to look for ways to envision alternative futures. Undertaking parallel divinatory processes, Yip engaged both a neo-shaman and a psychic, posing to each an identical set of questions about her life, relationships and desires. From this, she produced two sets of intimate oil paintings, depicting herself in each as a poseable mannequin in scenes that interpret the concurrent yet contradictory predictions delivered to her. Rendered on unconventional substrates — scraps of metal for the psychic’s predictions and laminate floor tiles for the neo-shaman’s — Yip presents these works at CAG amidst a gallery under renovation, offering a scene that is as provisional and unfixed as the futures she seeks.

### Biography

Alison Yip‘s multidisciplinary practice finds ways of speaking to the dispersed nature of our cognitive apparatus, often working from the psycho-phenomenal origins of figuration. Ambivalent tensions are evoked through a mix of withholding expressions, over-used or popular imagery and various pictorial modes. Yip holds a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada. She continued her studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany and in 2016 received an MFA from the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany. Recent solo, collaborative and group exhibitions include Galerie Noah Klink, Berlin; Mauer, Cologne; Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier; Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund; Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver; ACUD, Berlin; and Lady Helen, London.

ExhibitionGuideAlisonYip.pdf

AlisonYipEssayTizianaLaMelia.pdf

A close up view of a painting depicting three seated figures, the central one is a life-size wooden doll, surrounded by two humans with crossed legs holding paper notes.

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An unfinished wooden wall structure in a gallery space on which hangs a wooden panel with black text, translucent plastic sheets and a small painting.  More paintings and a sculpture are visible through the wall.

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Three small paintings hang on a gallery wall draped with plastic sheetings. To the left is an unfinished wooden wall structure. A sculpture made of yellow textiles, plastic and rope sits on the floor. 

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Four small paintings on faux-marble tiles hang along a gallery wall draped with translucent plastic sheets.

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 Small paintings hang on gallery walls draped with plastic sheets. An angled view of an unfinished wall structure intersects the view. A sculpture made of textiles, plastic and rope sits on the floor. 

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An unfinished wooden wall structure in a gallery space, on which hangs a painting on faux-marble tile. More paintings hanging on the gallery walls and a sculpture are visible through the wall structure. 

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Two small paintings hang stacked on a gallery wall draped with translucent plastic sheets. The painting on the top is painted on a faux-marble tile, the one on the bottom on a vertical sheet of metal.

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A view through an unfinished wooden wall structure of two small paintings hanging on a gallery wall draped with translucent plastic sheets and a sculpture sitting on the floor made with yellow textiles. 

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Four small paintings on faux-marble tiles or metal sheets hang on gallery walls draped with translucent plastic sheets. A sculpture made of yellow textiles, plastic and rope sits on the floor. 

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 Four small paintings hang on gallery walls draped with translucent plastic sheets. A stack of pink paper and a sculpture made of yellow textiles, plastic and rope sits on the floor. 

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A small painting on a textured metal sheet hangs on a gallery wall draped with translucent plastic sheets.

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A corner view of two small paintings on metal sheets hanging on gallery walls draped in translucent plastic. A stack of bright pink papers sits on the floor at the base of the wall. 

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A small copper painting hangs on a white gallery wall draped in translucent plastic sheets. To the left a small blue painting on a metal sheer hangs on an unfinished wooden wall structure.

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Small paintings hang on gallery walls draped with plastic sheets. At the entrance is an unfinished wall structure, paintings hang on either side of it. A sculpture made of textiles, plastic and rope sits on the floor. 

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 A low-lying sculpture sits on a gallery floor. The sculpture is made of yellow and black scarves, brown rope and scraps of plastic packaging tied in knots and draped over a metal seat like structure. 

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A close view of a sculpture made of yellow and black scarves, brown rope and scraps of plastic packaging tied in knots and draped over a metal seat-like structure. 

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A security camera is surrounded by sheets of translucent plastic sheeting taped to the walls and ceiling in the corner of a gallery. 

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Soma Topika

Christine Sun Kim

For more than ten years now, Christine Sun Kim has been engaged expansively with the ways sound is understood, experienced and valued. Upending the notion of the sonic as a solely auditory occurrence, the California-born, Berlin-based artist foregrounds sound’s visual, spatial and political properties across a variety of mediums including drawing, video, performance, and installation. Exploring and employing elements of American Sign Language (ASL) — the artist’s first language — alongside other visual communication systems such as musical notation, infographics and memes, the formal vocabulary of Kim’s work is a singular one, engaging with critical precision and deadpan humour the politics of language, listening and voice. 

In *Oh Me Oh My*, Kim brings together a broad selection of recent drawings, along with a new large-scale mural and two public artworks installed on the CAG Façade and at nearby Yaletown-Roundhouse Station. Whether diagramming the structural and cultural underpinnings of seemingly personal decisions, tracing social debts to consider what we owe one another, or mapping the distortions and delays inherent to Deaf/hearing communication, Kim’s works challenge widely held hierarchies that tether voice inextricably to sound, disrupting the implicit authority of the spoken over the signed and the aural over other perceptual planes.

*Christine Sun Kim: Oh Me Oh My* is co-organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery, Remai Modern, the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College.

*Christine Sun Kim: Debt Debt Debt* is presented in partnership with the Canada Line Public Art Program — InTransit BC.

### Biography
Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, California) has exhibited and performed internationally, including at Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Whitney Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam; the Berlin Biennale; the Shanghai Biennale; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others. Kim was awarded an inaugural Disability Futures Fellowship by the Ford Foundation as well as an MIT Media Lab Fellowship and a TED Senior Fellowship. She lives and works in Berlin.

CAG_FallProgramGuide2022_WEB.pdf

CAG_ChristineSunKim_ExhibitionGuide_RegularPrint_WEB.pdf

CAG_ChristineSunKim_ExhibitionGuide_LargePrint_WEB.pdf

A large pencil drawing depicting a venn diagram with three overlapping circles. “When Grammar Mood” is written along the top of the diagram in block text.

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Entryway into a gallery with two drawings by Christine Sun Kim visible on an interior wall. Drawings each feature curved black shapes on a white background.

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Four black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a wall with an opening, through which a wall painting featuring the word "point" and three other drawings by Kim are visible.

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Two black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a wall with an opening, through which a wall painting featuring the word "point" and three other drawings by Kim are visible.

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Three line drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a white wall, each featuring curved descending lines. One drawing features the words "owe owe owe."

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Four drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting pie charts arranged around the corner of adjoining white walls.

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Three drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting pie charts.

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Three drawings by Christine Sun Kim, variously depicting pie charts and venn diagrams. The drawing in the foreground features the words "when grammar mood."

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Seven small drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting graphic notations arranged in a broken grid on a white wall, with a large drawing of a venn diagram on the adjoining wall to the left.

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A wall drawing by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "point" and curved black shapes on a white background, with two similar drawings by Kim hung on top of it.

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Three line drawings by Christine Sun Kim arranged across a corner on white walls. One drawing features a venn diagram and the words "pronouns in american sign language."

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Four line drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a white wall bisected by a wall with an opening, which also has a drawing by Kim on it.

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Facade of CAG with with two rows of windows visible in frame. Black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "echoing" across the windows.

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Facade of CAG with four windows in a 4 by 4 grid visible in frame. Black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "echo" across the windows.

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Image of CAG behind two trees, with black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim across the gallery's windows.

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Oh Me Oh My

Abbas Akhavan

The work of Abbas Akhavan takes shape across a range of media and forms. From sculpture and installation to drawing, performance and video, Akhavan’s practice is anchored deeply in the specificities of the sites and spaces he engages. Often open-ended, ephemeral or mimetic in nature, Akhavan’s works frequently traffic in slippages and transferences — between public and private, presence and absence, structural and symbolic.

At the Contemporary Art Gallery, Akhavan presents *cast for a folly* (2019/2022), an installation that takes as its point of departure a photograph of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad: an image of the museum’s lobby taken following its unprecedented looting during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Through sculpture, custom-fabricated furniture and found objects, amongst other forms, Akhavan recreates this scene in the gallery from the single vantage point of his source image. Adjacent to this installation is a new work composed of flower fridges — *untitled* (2022) — a continuation of Akhavan’s ongoing engagement with plant life as both index to and instrument of broader social economies. 

*cast for a folly* (2019/2022) was originally curated by Kim Nguyen and commissioned by CCA Wattis Institute.

### Biography
Abbas Akhavan lives and works in Montréal. Recent solo exhibitions include Mount Stuart House, Isle of Bute (2022), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2021); CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2019); Fogo Island Gallery, Fogo Island, (2019); and VIE D'ANGE, Montréal (2018). Group exhibitions include Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2022); Momenta Biennale at Phi Foundation, Montreal (2021); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2018); SALT Galata, Istanbul (2017); Sharjah Biennial 13, United Arab Emirates (2017); and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016). He is the recipient of the Fellbach Triennial Award (2017); Sobey Art Award (2015); Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014); and the Berliner Kunstpreis (2012).