Dream Song 386 at COOPER COLE

Artists: Alan Belcher, Cara Benedetto, Holly Coulis, Ben Fain, Wesley Friedrich, Aleksander Hardashnakov, Becky Howland, Miles Huston, Mirak Jamal

Exhibition title: Dream Song 386

Organized by: Keith J. Varadi

Venue: COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada

Date: April 1 – May 30, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and COOPER COLE, Toronto

COOPER COLE is pleased to host Dream Song 386, a group exhibition organized by Keith J. Varadi.

Dream Song 386

Life, friends, is no longer boring.
We must no longer pretend to be bored.

There has never been good news,
but there have always been good stories.

If you are not blind, if you are not deaf,
if you are not bored, you are sensible.

The real life is a hack code; a cheat sheet
means nothing in the indigo language
of a city on a lake. Daughters tread lightly
on slippery surfaces, and sons don’t worry
about their weight—they never wait
to spill blue stories on shifting scales.

Holidays are for forgiveness;
seasons are for forgetting.

My brain is filled with rusty words;
my mouth recedes with such nerve.

Thoughts, tears, missing bodies;
we either float, or flee from tributaries.

Alan Belcher (b. 1957, Toronto, Canada) is an established visual and conceptual artist, recognized as a driving force behind the hybrid of photography and sculpture (“photo-objects”). He was co-founder and director (with artist Peter Nagy) of Gallery Nature Morte in New York’s East Village from 1982-1988. He has exhibited widely at such galleries as Marlborough Gallery, Jack Shainman Gallery, Marianne Boesky Gallery, The New Museum, New York, USA; Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Galerie Yves LeRoux, Montréal; The Apartment, Presentation House, Vancouver; and The Power Plant, Art Metropole, Mercer Union, The Japan Foundation, Toronto, Canada. Belcher currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Cara Benedetto (b. 1979, New York, USA) received her BFA from University of Wisconsin River Falls in 2001 and her MFA from Columbia University of the Arts, New York in 2009. She has exhibited at Art Metropole, Toronto, Canada; Night Gallery, Young Art Gallery, Los Angeles; Chapter NY, Laurel Gitlen Gallery, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, USA; and Galeri Marquise Dance Hall, Istanbul, Turkey. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Print Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Benedetto currently lives and works in Richmond, USA.

Holly Coulis (b. 1968, Toronto, Canada) received her BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto and her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has shown her work at such galleries as Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, Sardine, Brooklyn; Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, USA; Claudia Groeflin Gallery, Zurich; Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel, Switzerland; Mikiko Sato Gallery, Hamburg, Germany; Galleria d’Art Moderna, Milan; and Galerie Glance, Turin, Italy. Coulis currently lives and works in Brooklyn, USA.

Ben Fain (b. 1980, London, UK) received his BFA in sculpture at the University of Hartford, Connecticut in 1998, his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2206 and most recently studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan. He has exhibited at such galleries as Balloon Contemporary, Monique Meloche Gallery, Ben Russell Gallery, Lloyd Dobler Gallery, Chicago; Guild and Greyshkul, The Folding Chair, New York; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Young Blood Gallery, and Saltworks Gallery, Atlanta, USA. Fain currently lives and works in Brooklyn, USA.

Wesley Friedrich (b. 1983, Cleveland, USA) received his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio in 2007 and his MFA from the Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia in 2011. His work has been exhibited at such galleries as Know More Games, Brooklyn; White Box Gallery, Homestead Gallery, New York; Open Space, Hexagon Gallery, Baltimore; and Reference Gallery, Richmond, USA. Friedrich currently lives and works in Milwaukee, USA.

Aleksander Hardashnakov (b. 1982, Toronto, Canada) has exhibited his work at such galleries as The Loon, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; Tomorrow Gallery, Martos Gallery, New York, USA; Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium; and Croy Nielsen, The Duck, Berlin, Germany. Hardashnakov currently lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Becky Howland (b. Niagara Falls, USA) received her BFA from Syracuse University in 1974 and her MFA from Bard College in 1999. She has recently exhibited her work at Moiety Gallery, Know More Games, Brooklyn; James Fuentes, ABC No Rio, Printed Matter, New Museum, New York; and Freddy, Baltimore, USA. Howland currently lives and works in New York, USA.

Miles Huston (b. 1981, Hull, USA) received his MFA from Yale University in 2010. He is the co-founder of the exhibition space KNOWMOREGAMES and is the creator of the website currentcondition.org. He has recently exhibited at The Artist Institute, The Still House Group, Room East, New York; and Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA. Huston currently lives and works in Detroit, USA.

Mirak Jamal (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran) studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto. His work has shown internationally, recently concluding solo exhibitions at Galerie Sultana, Paris, France; L’Ascensore, Palermo, Italy; Ashley, Berlin, Germany; and MonCheri, Brussels, Belgium. He has also shown at The Loon, Toronto, Canada; Kinderhook & Caracas, Berlin, Germany; and 1857, Oslo, Norway. Upcoming shows include a group show at Tomorrow Gallery, New York, USA; and a solo at Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin, Germany. Jamal currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.