The Storyteller

The Storyteller

Curated by Claire Gilman & Margaret Sundell

The Storyteller includes an international group of artists working in video, photography, drawing, mixed media and installation. In some cases, the artist’s “story” is a drama based on real events, as in the work of Jeremy Deller and Mike Figgis, who staged a reenactment of a 1984 clash between striking miners and police in England, or in the video and installation works of Ryan Gander and the collective called Missing Books. In other cases, the stories function less as reconstructions of the past than investigations into the relationship between past and present, as in Lisa Roberts’ and Omer Fast’s work. A third group, which includes Cao Fei, Joachim Koester, Adrian Paci, and Mounir Fatmi, invokes the literary genres of fairy tales, photo essays, and folklore. The last group features projects by Lamia Joreige, Steve Mumford and Michael Rakowitz that involve active participants in contemporary political situations.

Significantly, unlike their postmodern predecessors, the artists in The Storyteller neither take the idea of documentary truth as an object of critique nor abandon fact for fabulation. Rather, they enable individuals—whether themselves, their subjects, or their audience—to construct the story of their unique participation in historical processes, thereby presenting these events in a new and unexpected light. These artists demonstrate that history can be activated through personal experience, re-imagined and thereby re-experienced through the artist’s personal encounter or the character’s narration. The exhibition is co-curated by independent curator and writer Claire Gilman and by Margaret Sundell, director of the Creative Capital l Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program.

Jeremy Deller and Mike Figgis, The Battle of Orgreave, 2002

Artists

Cao Fei, Jeremy Deller & Mike Figgis, Omer Fast, Mounir Fatmi, Ryan Gander, Lamia Joreige, Joachim Koester, Emanuel Licha, Missing Books (Maria Barnas, Maxine Kopsa, Germaine Kruip), Steve Mumford, Adrian Paci, Michael Rakowitz, Liisa Roberts, Hito Steyerl

Additional Images

Lamia Joreige, Objects of War n° 3, 2006

Cao Fei, Whose Utopia, 2006

Ryan Gander, The Boy Who Always Looked Up, 2005

Touring Schedule

AVAILABLE

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September 19, 2010 - March 31, 2012

Art Gallery of Ontario

Toronto, Ontario, Canada
May 8, 2010 - August 29, 2010

Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design

New York, New York
January 29, 2010 - April 9, 2010

Salina Art Center

Salina, Kansas
October 22, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Related Events

The Storyteller: Film Screenings

Parsons The New School for Design
Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street
New York City
March 27, 2010

The Storyteller: Talk Series

The New School
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor
New York City
February 24, 2010

The Storyteller: A Colloquium

Parsons The New School for Design
Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street
New York City
January 30, 2010

The Storyteller Opening Reception

Parsons The New School for Design
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
66 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street
New York City
January 29, 2010

Technical Specs