ARYEN HOEKSTRA |The Flicker
(in partnership with theImagesFestival)
WEDNESDAY 12 APRIL SATURDAY 29 APRIL 2017
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY 14 APRIL, 5:00-8:00PM
SCREENING: SATURDAY 15 APRIL, 5:00PM AT CINECYCLE

ARYEN HOEKSTRA |The Flicker

This exhibition is co-presented in partnership with the Images Festival.  For more information visit imagesfestival.com

Two hatted figures hid their faces and plugged their ears. The concussive return of the white frame was too much to bear. But me, Im no more object now than when the lights first dimmed.The Flicker had made-me-over in its own image, but that image was merely dormant before I queued up. It was a revealing. A peeling back of skin and stage and screen, denuding the projection until it hardened under the brightness of its own flashing light. With this crystalline, glinting bit the theatres subsurface was violently drilled, coughing up an inky oil that lubricated the seat covers. I slid down a row or two. As my eyes readjusted, I noticed that the ground beneath me was full of holes though nobody else seemed to care.

Is to be likeThe Flicker to be like a porous planet? An arterial network of entries and exits carrying blobs of black from below to above. The Black Lagoon as if it was the Creature itself. Its force hidden under rocky cover, accruing capital as it flowed upward. Gaseous exhalations wafted up and down the aisles of the theatre. As above, so below. I thought, in its excess, that it might spill out into the lobby where the concession and posters are kept, carrying popped and un-popped kernels along with it. A slip-n-slide back out to the street, and daylight, and the city, but that too had been drilled. An over-handled planet with no place left to stand, but the seats remained full. Bodies pointed at backs of bodies. The floor had always been sticky, but now it was black. Total darkness, only its theory before my eyes, like right before the credits roll.

ARYEN HOEKSTRA is an artist and writer based in Toronto, ON. Recent solo exhibitions include Celestial bodies at 8-11 and Choreography for Screenat Mercer Union (both Toronto, ON). Other recent exhibition venues include Scotiabank Nuit Blanche (Toronto, ON); the Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton, AB); Gallery 44 (Toronto, ON); Forest City Gallery (London, ON); Modern Fuel (Kingston, ON); Blackwood Gallery (Mississauga, ON). He has contributed writing for YYZ Artists Outlet, Susan Hobbs, COOPER COLE, and Daniel Faria Gallery. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Border Crossings, and Magenta Magazine. From 2014 2016 Hoekstra served as the Director of G Gallery. He is currently a contributing editor at Towards.info, and runs the independent project space Franz Kaka in Toronto, ON.

Aryen Hoekstra would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.