An exhibition and public events programme, ‘Getting Rid of Ourselves’ explored the aesthetic and political possibilities of obscuring, delegating, withdrawing or complicating the conventional signs of authorship and artistic subjectivity. Through the various tactics of anonymity, collectivity, shared authorship, appropriated identities, delegated production, and financial speculation that it presented, the exhibition questioned the link between art and self-expression. Highlighting how subjectivity is treated as a form of living currency to exploit, market and sell to, the exhibition argued for the diffusion and distribution of artistic agency and intellectual property.

'Getting Rid of Ourselves' brought together practices that refuse to engage in the tireless self-promotional cycle inherent to artistic and art world labour. Instead of submitting to being exploited as forms of living currency, the exhibition posited collective creative endeavours as alternatives to individualized pursuits.

Rather than presenting a series of discrete works, the exhibition attempted to perform some of the conditions that it delineated. A key tactic was to blur curatorial and artistic gestures. The installation design by Kernel, for instance, created a series of simultaneously controlling and permeable mesh barriers or cages, while the sculptural installation of Adrian Blackwell, which doubled as gallery seating for public events. Claire Fontaine’s tennis ball sculptures containing contraband, sprawling out over the floor, also added to the sensory experience of the installation, while introducing an element of instability. The title of another of their works directed viewers to instructions on how to pick locks. Another example of how artistic and curatorial gestures were blurred was Goldin+Senneby’s investment of artists’ and curatorial fees over the course of the show according to a secret algorithm. As Sam Cotter described in his review of the exhibition in C Magazine: “The exhibition is not so much an inventory of artistic strategies as a holistic alternative to these systems, functioning more as a model of self-mobilization than a collection of autonomous artworks.”

Artists participating in the exhibition were Becky Beasley, Adrian Blackwell, Heath Bunting, Jesse Darling, Kajsa Dahlberg, Claire Fontaine, Goldin + Senneby, Janez Janša Janez Janša Janez Janša, and Kernel.

Central to the exhibition was a programme of free public events comprising lectures, gallery tours, a walking/reading group and a workshop on urban survival skills.

Wednesday, July 16
6:30 p.m.
CLAIRE FONTAINE ON 1970S ITALIAN
FEMINISMS AND THE HUMAN ST RIKE
presented in partnership with the Consulat général de France à Toronto
Room 190/Auditorium
100 McCaul St.
8 to 10 p.m.

Saturday, July 19, 1 p.m.
Curator’s talk with Helena Reckitt

Sunday, July 20, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Artists Survival Workshop led by
Heath Bunting under the aegis of
irational.org
In this workshop, practical woodland and shoreline survival skills were examined and contrasted with both urban street-level and office survival strategies. Participants explored techniques of sourcing clean water, fire, food, shelter and weapons. The workshop built on Heath Bunting’s extensive experience of surviving as an artist on the margins of social and technological surveillance and control.

Tuesdays, 6 to 8 p.m. (August 5, August 19, September 2, September 16)

Let ’s Get Lost – A Walking / Reading Group focused on the Dismantling of Subjects and Spaces
Hosted by Scapegoat: Architecture/Landscape/Political Economy
Led by Adrian Blackwell and Marcin Kedzior
Responding to the proposition that we ‘get rid of ourselves’, this biweekly walking/reading group explored the spatial construction of subjectivity. Discussions focus around selected articles that highlight the contradictory values of individual freedom and private property underpinning the principle of the autonomous modern subject, and their current manifestations under Neoliberalism.

Adapted from the Walking / Reading Group on Participation
devised by Ania Bas and Simone Mair in London in 2013.

August 5
The Or igins of Property in Liberal Individualism
Brett Neilson and Sandro Mezzadra, Fabrica Mundi: Producing
the World by Drawing Borders; Shiri Pasternak, Property in
Three Registers.

August 19
Precarious Actors of Neoliberal Urbanization
Irmgard Emmelhainz, The Mexican Neoliberal Conversion and
Differentiated, Homogenous Lives; AbdouMaliq Simone, Water,
Politics and Design in Jakarta.

September 2
Opened by the World
Georges Bataille, The Economy Equal to the Universe; Jane
Bennett and Alexander Livingston, Philosophy in the Wild:
Listening to Things in Baltimore; Jesse Boon, Kids on Buildings:
Echos, Mirrors, and Ghosts.

September 16
Commonism, or Caring With Others
Wendy Jacob and Gina Badger, In the Presence of Another
Being; Paige Sarlin, Vulnerable Accumulation: A Practical Guide;
Isabelle Stengers and Erik Bordeleau, The Care of the Possible.

Wednesday, September 24, 6:30 p.m.
Insite Exh ibition Tour with Paulette Phillips
OCAD U faculty, Integrated Media
Paulette Phillips is an artist and educator based in Toronto.
Currently she is creating an archive of artist portraits using
a polygraph, a camera and series of questions that frame the
basis of self-representation.

Wednesday, October 1, 6:30 p.m.
Insite Exhibition Tour with
Jim Drobnick, OCAD U faculty, Liberal Arts & Sciences
Jim Drobnick is a critic, curator and Associate Professor of
Contemporary Art and Theory at OCAD U. He has published on
the visual arts, performance, the senses and post-media practices, and is the co-editor of the Journal of Curatorial Studies.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/11062