~HOMMAGE a GUIDO MOLINARI . . MERCER UNION, TORONTO / ARCHIVE w SIMON CERIGO, NANCY SMITH, MARSHAL HOPKINS, BARBARA REID & ANNA-MARIE COBBOLD
HARDCORE – O.G. !!!!!!!!!
above, a wall of PAINTINGS by SIMON CERIGO / painted in NYC, in a studio/apt of a run down storefront on Rivington & the Bowery, at the heart of the Lower East Side, and shipped up North for the show.
ARCHIVAL IMAGE VIA MERCER UNION
’54/84′ – ‘HOMMAGE a GUIDO MOLINARI’
curated by ANNA-MARIE COBBOLD
23 OCT 1984 – 17 NOV 1984
MERCER UNION – a long running, artist-run space in TORONTO, founded in 1979 & still up & running.
Early works on paper by the Canadian Formalist, GUIDO MOLINARI, (RIP) will be on exhibit together with recent work by 5 of his former students . . . . .
SIMON CERIGO (RIP), NANCY SMITH, MARSHAL HOPKINS, BARBARA REID, & ANNA-MARIE COBBOLD (RIP)
def, see: ’54/84′ archive on MERCER UNION website
we all lived & studied with Guido in Montreal, except by 1984 Anna-Marie had moved to Toronto & thus managed to swing the show. We were all in our early 30s, except for Guido, of course . . who was 51, but at the time very very, famous, and with good reason, he was a brilliant man / both in Quebec & the rest of Canada.
not all the members of Mercer Union at the time were behind the show, thus a lack of archival documentation of the art of all the exhibitors. this was because we represented a radical, hardcore (some might say: ‘outsider’), underground presence, and they were more predictable, mainstream and grant-leaning / at the time, I will give no names, at present, lol.
time will tell . . !!
there’s visionaries, and there’s, NOT.
SIMON & I, had already split for New York, 1981.
RENO & MARSH .. left for Vancouver.
and Anna-Marie died peacefully in her sleep one day, for some strange reason, not too long after.
def, see: GUIDO MOLINARI
to help put the timeline in perspective, LEONARD COHEN was 50, one year younger than Guido …. and had just released ‘Hallelujah’ (1984). it was really culturally, a glory time in Montreal, fueled by the immigrant experience, rather than the native French population, but whose magic and poetry . . we adored, & absorbed like crazy.
today you can reference that inspired ‘Montreal’ fever, in the English-speaking band, ARCADE FIRE & the young artist, JIM JOE who has a big show at THE HOLE opening this month.
& of course, the formalism and ability to break-down art, that I learnt from Guido so well . . .
is the backbone of this . . blog.