School of Chairs

Forrest Bess, Jason Dodge, Rodney Graham, Jo Hanson, Los Jaichackers, K.r.m. Mooney, Feminist Land Art Retreat, Anicka Yi

February 17 – June 9, 2018

The 500 Capp Street Foundation is pleased to present, School of Chairs, the first group exhibition at The David Ireland House. The exhibition’s artists, through expanding and redefining their respective mediums, have by consequence reshaped how we think about social and gender politics, the environment, and the role institutions play in shaping art history.

We wrote this together, since each of us was several, there was already a crowd. Ours is a community reliant on one another, together as a mass, we craft and shape the narrative we call an exhibition. Our surroundings help dictate the direction, manage the message, and cultivate conversations regarding the arts, sciences, and social struggles. We make use of everything, ideas closest and those far away. We set up systems only to break them down, creating operations motivated by movement and space. We are forward thinking although grounded by our historic foundations. Turned upside down, we are both giver and taker, a structural contradiction built through contemporary discourse. Outspoken and cannibalistic, we move through the exhibition silently. We require maintenance; evade logical perception and demand believability. It is through generational lenses we visualize not just the tree, but also the roots of the exhibition. We create objects that embody a way of knowing, and a way of being in the world. Together we occupy space within 500 Capp Street; a home challenging domesticity; a museum testing what an exhibition can be.

It is here we kindly ask our viewer to consider the importance of their neighbor, listen to their story and breath.