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Gareth Long: Square Peg Round Hole

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Date: 
Thursday, 23 March 2017 to Saturday, 29 April 2017
Opening: 
Thursday, 23 March 2017 - 6:00pm

Gareth Long

Square Peg Round Hole

23 March to 29 April 2017
Please join us for the opening on Thursday, 23 March from 6 to 8 p.m. 

Stupidity is in the air. The rise of fake news, click-bait headlines, alternative facts and a stream of recent books and articles remind us that we are stupid and getting stupider. Often, this rise in stupidity’s currency is described as a turning away from intellectualism. And yet, what happens when we consider the position of stupidity as resting outside knowledge? When we embrace uncertainty, failure, and indecision, stupidity becomes a site of learning where we can move from the illegible, the nonsensical, the seemingly foolish to understanding and making sense.

Square Peg Round Hole folds together the questions ‘how is stupidity taught’ and ‘how can it be learned’ to situate stupidity as a generative means of production and, possibly, an act of refusal against economic and political pressures. As an example, many of Gareth Long’s recent sculptural works perform as a kind of losers’ game or stupid-learning tool. Here, the tool is both stupid and allows for stupidity to be learned. Their functionality is exceeded by futile acts that allow for moments of tranquility, play, and a leap away from higher reason. This is illustrated again with an animated video that repeatedly tries to stick a square peg into a round hole, responding to how stupid we are relative to our own bodies—a unifying type of senselessness. Additionally, the exhibition includes artwork by Jaimie Aitken, Grace Esford, Nora Downer, and Claudia Rick—Long’s former students from a course that extended his research on stupidity into the classroom.

As Genese Grill writes, “to see new is initially to see like a child, an innocent, or a fool. It is to stutter, stammer, stumble.” Therefore, if stupidity offers alternative models of thought, why leave it to the idiots?
 

Artist ( Description ): 

Gareth Long (b.1979, Toronto) holds a BA from the University of Toronto and an MFA from Yale University. Long has held solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien, Austria; Kate Werble Gallery, New York; Michael Benevento, Los Angeles; TORRI, Paris; SpazioA, Pistoia; Oakville Galleries, Oakville; the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Galerie Bernhard, Zürich. His work has been shown at galleries and institutions such as MoMA PS1, Long Island City; The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Denver; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; Artists Space, New York; Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York; Flat Time House, London; Drawing Room, London; Spike Island, Bristol; Wiels, Brussels; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; and Witte de With, Rotterdam.

Telephone: 
416.504.3699
Venue ( Address ): 

Susan Hobbs Gallery is open to the public Wednesday to Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by appointment. The gallery is located at 137 Tecumseth Street, Toronto.

For more information about this exhibition or the Susan Hobbs Gallery, please give us a call at (416) 504.3699 or visit www.susanhobbs.com.

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