Coyota & Lynxus © Logo Alvin Luong & Ivana Dizdar.
Ivana Dizdar & Alvin Luong
Co-presented by the Images Festival
April 8 – 29, 2017
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, April 8 from 7-10PM*
ARTIST TALK & WORKSHOP
Saturday, April 15 from 2-4:30PM
* There will be a FREE shuttle bus departing St. George Station in Toronto at 7PM for the opening reception. For more details and to reserve your spot on the bus, visit bidding-war-bus.eventbrite.ca
1345 Morningside Avenue, a Scarborough strip mall, has been listed for sale. Two parties are bidding for the property, eager to transform the existing units into a single large-scale business. The bidders are Luong Coyota & Lynxus, a booming car dealership established by business mogul Alvin Luong, and Dizdar Projects, a commercial art gallery founded by high-status Canadian gallerist Ivana Dizdar.
Bidding War, a research-based and site-specific exhibition, comprises photography, sculpture, and a performative two-channel video as its centrepiece. The video follows the rivalry between Luong and Dizdar, detailing the bidding process as well as their corporate ambitions, professional fields, and personal lives. The video also features the individuals’ assistants, Luong’s secretary and Dizdar’s unpaid intern, who have their own stakes, plans, and motivations within the bidding war.
The artists have taken real estate, gentrification, and spatial politics in the GTA as points of departure in creating a humorous meditation on cars, art, institutions, branding, consumerism, capitalism, and labour.
With text by Marina Fathalla.
Download Exhibition Essay (PDF)
Bidding War received the OCAD University Off Screen Award, honouring the strongest new Canadian or international installation or new media work in the Images Festival, “for its thoughtful integration of time-based media into a comprehensive installation and its simultaneously playful and critical approach to site-specificity, addressing poignant issues within urban/suburban cityscapes with humour.”
Bidding War was made possible by the Ontario Arts Council and programming support has been provided by the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and ArtReach Toronto. The exhibition is co-presented by the Images Festival, April 20 – 27, 2017. For more information visit imagesfestival.com.
FAKING IT: Artist Talk & Workshop
Saturday, April 15, 2-4:30PM
Please join Dizdar & Luong on Saturday, April 15 at 2PM for FAKING IT, a talk on performance for the camera with a specific focus on dramatic characterization. At 3PM, the artists will lead a participatory workshop that explores performance techniques, performance for video, and performance editing.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Alvin Luong is an emerging artist from Toronto. Luong is interested in why documentations and instructions are created and how they can be interpreted. This set of interests is put into practice through research, performance, moving image, and photography. Luong has exhibited in group exhibitions at Gallery 44 and Trinity Square Video, and exhibited commissioned works at Trinity Square Video. He has performed and lectured at Blackwood Gallery. Upcoming exhibitions include a collaborative project at 8eleven gallery in May 2017 and a solo project at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts in June 2017.
Ivana Dizdar is a Toronto-based artist and curator with an interest in research, history, and narrative. Her practice considers institutional, corporate, social, and labour systems, and the construction and consumption of history. Dizdar has programmed exhibitions and projects at various spaces including Trinity Square Video, Hart House, and 8eleven Gallery where she is a collective member and curator. Recent curatorial projects include solo exhibitions by Tau Lewis, Patrick Cruz, and Maya Ben David. Upcoming art projects include Cipher, a collaborative installation in the form of an escape room game, which will open in spring 2017. This summer, Dizdar will be the artist in residence at Beo_Project in Belgrade, Serbia.