Concordia University MFA Visiting Artist program presents:

Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder (Canada)

Friday March 24th, 2006
3:30pm – 5:30pm
Concordia University
York Amphitheatre
Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex EV 1-615
1515, rue Ste-Catherine Ouest
Montréal (Québec)
 
BOOK LAUNCH
Friday March 24th, 2006 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
6pm - 8pm
Galerie La Centrale
4296 Boul. St-Laurent
Montréal (Québec)
(514) 871-0268

Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder are co-editors of Caught in the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women published by YYZ books.

Tanya Mars is a feminist performance and video artist who has been involved in the Canadian art scene since 1973. She was a director of Powerhouse Gallery (La Centrale) in Montreal (the first women’s art gallery in Canada), editor of Parallelogramme magazine for 13 years, and very active in ANNPAC (the Association of National Non-Profit Artist-run Centres) for 15 years. She has also been an active member of other arts organizations since the early 70’s. Her work is often characterized as visually rich layers of spectacular, satirical feminist imagery. She has performed widely across Canada, and recently performed r(Age) Defying Gravity at the First International Congress of Performance Art in Valparaiso, Chile. Her most recent major work, a 7-hour durational performance entitled “The Tyranny of Bliss” involved over 30 performers who created 14 tableaux in and around Queen’s Park in Toronto, and in downtown Hamilton. She currently teaches performance art and video at the University of Toronto at Scarborough. She was recently named artist of the year (2004), awarded by the Untitled Arts Awards sponsored by Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto.

Johanna Householder has been making performances and other artwork in Canada since the late 70s. Inspired by the performance work of Yvonne Rainer and the Grand Union at Oberlin College, she went on to the London School of Contemporary Dance and then to study at York University, Toronto, when the school was a hotbed of new music and new dance. She was part of the “independent choreographers” revolution of dancers leaving the restrictions of choreography in favour of performance, fostered in places like 15 Dance Lab., the Music Gallery and A Space.

She began teaching Intermedia at the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1988, and has taught Performance Art and Contemporary Issues ever since. She was chair of the New Media program and founding chair of the Integrated Media Program from 1990 to 1996. She writes and speaks on performance and new media whenever she gets the chance, and her work is also represented in Prêt á Porter / Take Out: Performance Recipes for Public Space, edited by Christine Redfern for La Centrale, Montréal, 2004.