Premiere Screening of "Cold Iron Is A Titanic Comedy" January 23, 2014 at CineCycle, Toronto

PREMIERE SCREENING

"Cold Iron Is A Titanic Comedy" 2013, (70 minutes) Directed & written by Wesley Rickert
January 23, 2014 CineCycle (behind 129 Spadina Ave, Toronto, Canada)
8 PM
Tickets $10

Read the Pre-Release Review here

PLUS
a short line-up of short films and videos by Toronto area artists:
"the sinking of the TITANIC, 2012, (3 minutes, 30 seconds) Istvan Kantor
"untitled" 2012, (4 minutes 30 seconds) Chris Boni
"powerline" 2013, (2 minutes) Wallace D. Robinson

To reserve tickets or for more information contact 253469@gmail.com

(photo: Art Szombathy as a pipe smoking "Louis the IV")

253469 Opens Art Zoo Studio With Group Exhibit

Art Zoo Studio, a new project by 253469, opens with a weekend group exhibit on Saturday October 19, from noon - 6pm and continues Sunday October 20, noon - 6pm in Toronto's west end.  Promoting the avant garde, the known and the underground, Art Zoo Studio is a place for art enthusiasts and the public to gain access to bi-monthly group exhibits and non-traditional performance workshops. Art Zoo Studio is also a full time working studio for creating and is genuinely dedicated to working with a diverse range of challenging artists and art forms. 

The first group exhibit includes contemporary sculpture, work on canvas, mixed media, work on paper, ceramic art, photography, video art, audio recordings and found objects.  Participating artists Henry Banger Benvenuti, Istvan Kantor, Kathleen Reichelt, Wesley Rickert, Kathleen Troy, Caroline Mosby, Kelly Wray, Char Da Silva, Kenneth Laing Herdy, Alexandria Pellegrino, David Bateman, Erin Murphy, Alpha Couple and Ashley Zarowny.  

Art Zoo Studio is a 253469 "umbrella without the hat" project and will be open for art exhibits, special events and by appointment.  

Art Zoo Studio is located at 1 Wiltshire Avenue, Unit 132, Toronto, at Dupont and Symington.

www.artzoostudio.com
www.253469.com

Spell of the Hippodrome

Spell of the Hippodrome
a theatrical duration intervention

Saturday October 5, 2013
898 Queen Street West
8PM - midnight

A mobile theatre on wheels pulled by the chariots of abstraction.  Part performance, part intervention, part allegory, part noise band, the theatre within the theatre mesmerized and hypnotized all who looked into the stage, at any stage of the night.  With Burning Iceberg, Kathleen Troy, Henry Banger Benvenuti, Ashley Zarowyn, Ellamira and Sandra Fitzsimmons.

March to Paris

Burning Iceberg and Fountain Enterprises performing in Paris

On August 2, 2013, in the gardens across from the Louvre, Burning Iceberg and Fountain Enterprises made a stage on the elevated terrace between Jardins des Tuileries and Jardin du Carrousel, a historical site at the front of the Tuileries Palace before it burned in 1870. 

Expressing the fountains of quiet elation, paper buildings and public poetry the Canadian artists slowly circled with ice on post-revolutionary spaces where thousands were drowned and beheaded.  

To declare quietly that all may see!
The individual is alive!
Conformity is the salt on your paper!
Suburbs are to be drowned and cities are to be snowed!
Art speaks for us!
We are living!
We are abstraction!
I sign my name to the sky!
I stir my river on your idols!
I sleep outside of museums!
Only some things are for coins!
The revolution is a hat on my head!

Photographs by Philippe Henry

The Triple Absurdist Play House & Film Project at 163 Sterling Road

* Christina Kozak and Art Szombathy on set in the Triple Absurdist Play House 

For the month of February 253469 works out of 163 Sterling Road to create the Triple Absurdist Play House & Film Project.  A group of Toronto artists will create, collaborate and perform for the camera under the direction of Wesley Rickert. 

The 253469 film project process and approach is based in art making and collaborative creation with little connection to the film model of script and traditional instruction.  Instead artists are invited to enter a space designed to develop and express their ideas within the parameters set by the director, using and making objects, costumes and movements.  It sounds something like art school but its really more of a collective agreement with a captain steering the ship.

While Rickert controls the camera and editing, the other half of the project is headed by Kathleen Reichelt who provides the tools for artists, if they choose, to prepare for their performance through drawing, painting, sculpture, audio and discussion.  There is room for costume and prop making and for creating work that won't be in the film but is still part of the project through its creation in the space during this time.

Each filming session is an opportunity for the artists involved to participate in multiple ways.  The ultimate goal is to film the performers and capture the magic of their performance.  But sometimes the magic in art making can't solely be captured on film.  The energy and ideas that are generated by object based creation are directed to the camera and though gratification may come through performing, the participating artist may have a more immediate sense of gratification through the object which was created directly or indirectly for the film.  Ultimately the immediate object view is something the film can't provide in the same way.  Even if the video can be played back instantaneously, its not an object that's  tactile and can't be held or touched.  This does not take away from the ultimate experience of the film as the end result, but may be different to the performer's experience.

As the month of February progresses Rickert will be filming the performances and Reichelt will be safeguarding the objects that are made.  At the end of the month there will be an exhibition in the Sterling Road space.

Post Film Exhibition