Join us on Saturday, April 29th from 6-8PM at PAVED Arts (424 20th Street West) to celebrate the launch of Critical Fictions, a new book of experimental and heart-felt art writing by Winnipeg-based writer Hannah Godfrey.
The event will feature a reading from Critical Fictions by Godfrey, followed by lively conversation and delicious refreshments. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase copies of Critical Fictions on-site as well as renew your subscriptions to BlackFlash or pick up copies of our new issue.
From the publisher, ARP Books: “In her bold departure from conventional art criticism, Hannah Godfrey looks to the work of five contemporary queer visual artists, with attention to, and affection for, the wit, subversion, and many complexities of each of their practices. Shifting through written forms as experiential coves, Critical Fictions is a collection of inventive responses that are delicately linked, and devoted to their subjects.
Alongside the five artists—Derek Dunlop, Kristin Nelson, Hagere Selam shimby Zegeye-Gebrehiwot, Andrea Oliver Roberts, and Logan MacDonald—Godfrey shares a keen interest in intricacies of queer power, the body, and abstraction. Her varied approach to criticism embraces stories, poetry, essays, and other textual formations as means of wayfaring through the work of art. In these pages the reader will find not only celebrations of the depth, beauty, and acuity of the artworks discussed, but explorations of the imaginative thoroughfares they open up.”
From Lauren Lavery, Editor of Peripheral Review: “It’s with a unique, caring voice that Godfrey speaks about, to, and with the artists in this collection. Even if the reader is familiar with an artist’s practice, the writing, in both its abstract and critical forms, offers the time and space so desperately needed to cover the complicated and intimate relationship of a critic engaging with artwork. Critical Fictions is a special, caring, and necessary book where art criticism is written, challenged, turned on its head and back again, interlacing the varying concepts of the featured artists’ practices like thread in a loom. Only when the reader reaches the end does it become apparent the threads have become a tapestry—a rare and beautiful process that will stay with you into the real world.”
Hannah Godfrey/hannah_g is an artist, curator, and writer. Her work is informed by queer echo-locating, contemporary art, and recollection. She is the Curator of Galerie Buhler Gallery in St. Boniface Hospital, Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory. Godfrey has previously released two chapbooks: ‘Not For The World Would I Compare It To Anything’ (Parameter Press), and ‘Thought Factory’ with Leslie Supnet (Intercopy Press) which you can find here.
This is a free public event and all are welcome. PAVED Arts is a fully accessible venue.
Thank you to Canada Council for the Arts and SK Arts for your ongoing and incredibly generous support.
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