CounterIntellegence — an exhibition by Visual Studies Assistant Professor Charles Stankievech held last year at U of T’s Justina M. Barnicke Gallery — was named among the top shows of 2015 by both Canadian Art and Now magazine.

From “Fran Schechter and David Jager’s Top 10 Art Shows” in Now:

Berlin-based Canadian artist/curator Charles Stankievech marshalled an array of documents, texts, videos, photographs and assorted artworks on the fascinating topic of art's strange relationship to espionage and military intelligence, from a surrealist-designed torture chamber to the escapades of curator/spy Anthony Blunt to military simulation video games. The depth and breadth of information took the concept of research-based art to whole a new level.

From “Bryne McLaughlin’s Top 3 of 2014: Data-ism” in Canadian Art:

Four years in the making and packed with nearly 100 primary-source documents, objects and artworks—not to mention more than 10,000 words of didactic texts—the sheer volume of Stankievech’s working material was enough to make heads spin. His point, however, was not simply to overwhelm with an archival deluge of hidden facts and obscured figures, but rather to puzzle together a conceptual web of duplicity strung on the grey zones between truth and deception, reality and fiction, good and evil.

If you missed seeing CounterIntellegence during it’s 2014 run at the Justina M. Barnike Gallery last year, Stankievech has a major new show at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston this winter. Stankievech is also participating in a panel discussion in association with the exhibition On Wednesday, January 14 from 12:30 - 2:00pm at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Charles Stankievech: Monument as Ruin
Samuel J. Zacks and Contemporary Feature Galleries
January 10 - April 12, 2015
Season Launch: Thursday January 15 5:— - 7:00pm

Description:

Featuring new works by Charles Stankievech, this exhibition probes twentieth-century military forms and the ways in which they shaped spaces of conflict. Including video, photography and sculpture, the exhibition emerges from a study of two defense infrastructures from Britain and Europe’s coast: colossal acoustic mirrors built to listen for enemy planes before WWII and bunkers built by the Nazis lining the French, Belgian and Dutch coasts during WWII. Playing with scale and blurring the line between documentation and invention, Stankievech makes an immersive sonic space that invokes past military strategies, and questions their meaning in relation to today’s landscape of non-territorially bounded conflict.

As is the case for many of Stankievech’s projects, Monument as Ruin draws upon substantial research. The artist points out, “This show completes six years of fieldwork in military outpost architecture functioning as Early Warning Systems that follow a technological archeology: pre-WW2 sonic, WW2 visual and post-WW2 electromagnetic.”

The exhibition features a newly-commissioned soundtrack by acclaimed composer and saxophonist, Colin Stetson.

Charles Stankievech is a Canadian artist who research has explored issues such as the notion of "fieldwork" in the embedded landscape, the military industrial complex, and the history of technology. His diverse body of work has been shown internationally at the Louisiana Musem, Copenhagen; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Berlin; MassMoca, Massachussetts; Musée d'art contemporain de Montreal; Canadian Centre for Architecture; and the Venice Architecture and SITE Santa Fe Biennales. He was a founding faculty member of the Yukon School of Visual Arts in Dawson City, Canada.