The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University will celebrate the opening of two new exhibitions curated by Felicia Mings on Friday, Jan. 31 from 6 to 9 p.m. The artist Maryam Taghavi's first institutional solo exhibition in Canada, Unfolding Worlds, includes recent paintings, sculptures and an architectural installation. This will be an expanded iteration of Charles Campbell's An Ocean to Livity, which includes sculpture and sound, after exhibitions in Surrey and Nanaimo, B.C.
Exhibition view of Lake Michigan 4 and Lake Michigan 5 (Horizon Series, 2023) from Chicago Works: Maryam Taghavi, MCA Chicago, Dec. 16, 2023 to Jul. 14, 2024. Photo by Shelby Ragsdale, courtesy MCA Chicago
Maryam Taghavi: Unfolding Worlds
In her practice, Taghavi is motivated by the unseen. She explores this concept through letter forms, particularly Islamic calligraphy, which expresses a reverence for the spiritual and a connection to the divine. "Calligraphy by its beauty becomes a portal to experience God," explains Taghavi in an interview with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. "The perfection of the form is a part of the message."
Exhibition view, detail of Quadrilateral View (2023) from Chicago Works: Maryam Taghavi, MCA Chicago, Dec. 16, 2023 to Jul. 14, 2024. Photo by Shelby Ragsdale, courtesy MCA Chicago
But Taghavi is not practicing perfection, she says. Nor is she really practicing calligraphy. "I am far away from the context this comes from," she explains. Part of the Iranian diaspora, she feels distant from the art form both physically and in its traditions. Much of the work in Unfolding Worlds derives from an interest in the noghte, which serves as a unit of measurement in calligraphy. Represented by a diamond-shaped point, the noghte is the most essential diacritical mark in Arabic and Persian script. In her paintings noghtes delineate horizon lines. In Taghavi's sculptures and installations, the noghtes are peepholes to mesmerizing reflections of light. When placed on the gallery's windows, translucent noghtes reflect ultraviolet light that can be seen by birds but is invisible to the human eye, opening up the exhibition to the natural world.
The diamond shape is also suggestive of her longstanding engagement with abstraction and deft knowledge of Islamic and Euro-American art history. In the exhibition, Taghavi manipulates light, language, and architectural space to emphasize the simplicity and beauty inherent in colour and geometric forms.
Taghavi is a Tehran-born, Iranian-Canadian artist and educator based in Chicago. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Taghavi has received numerous awards and grants, including support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the 2022 Artadia Award. Her work has been displayed at the Brick (formerly LAXART) in Los Angeles, Queens Museum in New York, Ex Teresa Arte Actual (EXTAA) in Mexico City, Sazmanab Gallery in Tehran and Chicago's Driehaus Museum, Chicago Cultural Center and Chicago Artists Coalition. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Blanc Gallery, Chicago.
Parallel programs inspired by this exhibition include the artist in conversation, exhibition tours, and a response to Unfolding Worlds choreographed and performed by dancer Andros Zins-Browne. Working at the intersection of performance and dance, Zins-Browne extends his choreographic practice into encounters with dancers, non-dancers, singers, students, objects and texts. The performance by Zins-Browne will take place on Saturday, March 15 at 3 p.m.
Charles Campbell's Maroonscape 3 Finding Accompong (2021). Photo by Ian Lefebvre
Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity
In An Ocean to Livity, the immersive works on view consider what breath carries of our experiences, and how breath connects us to the past and present, to each other and our natural environment. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement protesting anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned police brutality and the killing of Black people, Campbell developed a work that focused on bringing Black life into galleries through breath. In a performance at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Campbell had 20 Black artists and curators roam the rooms disseminating the sound of their recorded breath through speakers. The recordings became the beginnings of Campbell's Black Breath Archive.
"For each iteration of this exhibition, Campbell works with community organizations to host intergenerational gatherings and facilitate breath recording sessions that guide participants through meditative prompts encouraging them to connect with their ancestors," says Mings. The process of creating these recordings shapes the final form of the sculptural and audio elements that Campbell exhibits in An Ocean to Livity.
To expand his Black Breath Archive in the Greater Toronto Area, Campbell collaborated with the Afrosonic Innovation Lab, York University's Making and Media Creation Lab, local poets David Delisca and Joshua "Scribe" Watkis, and emerging sound artist Chibuzor Igwilo to facilitate a new iteration of breath recordings. The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery presentation of An Ocean to Livity was also made possible with support from Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create project grant.
Campbell is a Jamaican-born multidisciplinary artist, writer and curator. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from Goldsmith College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University. His body of work includes sculptures, sonic installations and performances. Campbell is the recipient of the 2022 VIVA Award and the 2020 City of Victoria Creative Builder Award. His work has recently been on display at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and Pérez Art Museum Miami. Campbell lives and works on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Victoria B.C.
Parallel programs inspired by this exhibition include the artist in conversation, exhibition tours, and a night of poetry and music featuring David Deliscia, Joshua "Scribe" Watkis and DJ Grumps.
Unfolding Worlds and An Ocean to Livity are on view from Feb. 1 to April 26. The Goldfarb Gallery is located at 83a York Blvd., Toronto. It is free and open to the public Tuesday to Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m. The new gallery is a one-storey accessible building metres away from York University Station on Line 1 where there is a Wheel-Trans on the north entrance. For those who drive, there is paid street parking on Fine Arts Rd. or at the Student Services Parking Garage (84 James Gillies St.). For more information, visit The Goldfarb Gallery's website.
Parallel Programming Point Of View 30-Minute Gallery Talks
Wednesday, Feb. 12 from 12:30 to 1 p.m.: An Ocean to Livity with Allyson Adley, education and community engagement coordinator, The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery
Allyson Adley develops educational programs that bolster the work of youth-led and youth-serving organizations engaged in hip hop, music, and performance. The programs she designs provide enriching arts employment, mentorship and professional development experiences that help artists build and sustain their practice. For the Toronto iteration of Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity, Adley has been integral in developing the poetic component, inviting poets to co-facilitate the expansion of the Black Breath Archive and to create poetry in response to their experiences.
Wed. Feb. 26 from 12:30 to 1 p.m.: Unfolding Worlds with Mehraneh Ebrahimi, associate professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies
Mehraneh Ebrahimi is an associate professor of English whose area of specialization encompasses Middle Eastern diasporic writing with an emphasis on aesthetics, ethics and politics. Ebrahimi is the author of Women, Art and Literature in the Iranian Diaspora. Her forthcoming book project is titled Refugee Literature: Dignity, Agency, & Voice in Iranian Exilic Life Writing.
Wednesday, March 12 from 12:30 to 1 p.m.: An Ocean to Livity with Ola Mohammed, assistant professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies
Ola Mohammed specializes in interdisciplinary research exploring Black cultural production, Black social life, and Black being as sites of possibility. Her manuscript, "The Black Nowhere: The Social and Cultural Politics of Listening to Black Canada(s)," examines the sonic dimension of anti-Blackness in Canada. Her research interests include Black Popular Music, Black Studies, Sound Studies, Diaspora Studies, Performance Theory, and Digital Culture.
Wednesday, March 26 from 12:30 to 1 p.m.: Unfolding Worlds with Felicia Mings, curator, The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery
Felicia Mings is a curator at The Goldfarb Gallery. She focuses on interpreting and presenting modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on arts of Africa and the Caribbean, along with their diasporas. Mings' recent curatorial projects include the Toronto iteration of Charles Campbell's An Ocean to Livity, Maryam Taghavi's Unfolding Worlds, Dele Adeyemo's From Longhouse to Highrise: The Course of Empire (2023), and Meleko Mokgosi's Imaging Imaginations (2023).
The Joan and Martin Goldfarb Gallery of York University is a socially minded, not-for-profit contemporary art gallery. A supported unit of York University within the President's Division, it is a space for the creation and appreciation of art and culture. The Goldfarb Gallery is externally funded as a public art gallery through the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, local and international foundations, embassies, and members who support its programs.
