Collection Count + Care with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, General Idea, and Marcia Herscovitz

Collage is often an under-researched and under-recognized medium in a collection. It relies upon an understanding of the images and materials being used, with the ability to see beyond the realities and meanings of the “original.” It also invites us to recognize relationships made possible through reimagining already existing images. General Idea, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, and Marcia Herscovitz all use simplified and powerful methods in their collages, combining two or three fragments to enact change and ignite imaginations.

Each collage, in their own particular way, focuses on energized thresholds filled with untapped potential, the spaces between, the push and pull that exist on, to borrow General Idea’s term, the borderline. General Idea’s borderline hovers between the public and the institution. Ibghy and Lemmens’s collage playfully considers internal and external ways of seeing. For surrealist Herscovitz—in her photocollage contribution to the 1968 artist portfolio S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop)—imagination forms a space between our conscious and subconscious. As we look forward to radical transformations with Agnes Reimagined, these works encourage us to critically and creativity re-examine the potentials that exist in Agnes’s fervent borderlines, holding both our pasts and futures.

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Transcript

French Transcript >

Collection Count + Care seeks relationships within and conversations across the collection. What stories does the collection tell? / Prise en compte, prise à cœur cherche à tisser des liens et des dialogues entre les œuvres de la collection. Quelles histoires la collection raconte-t-elle?

Speakers / Présentatrice

Curated by Elyse Longair under the mentorship of Alicia Boutilier, as part of a practicum course in the graduate program of Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies, Queen’s University. Organisée par Elyse Longair, sous le mentorat d’Alicia Boutilier, dans le cadre d’un cours pratique du programme d’études supérieures Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies de l’Université Queen’s.

Installation view of Collection Count + Care with Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, General Idea, and Marcia Herscovitz. Photo: Tim Forbes

Works / Œuvres

Richard Ibghy and / et Marilou Lemmens, Paid, Unpaid, Personal and Free Time Across Countries; Schlumberger HSE Lagging Indicators; The Self-Perspective and the Other Perspective (from the What We Know for Sure series) / Temps rémunéré, non rémunéré, libre et personnel dans divers pays ; Indicateurs retardés de Schlumberger HSE ; L’autoperspective et l’autre perspective, 2017–2018, collage, coloured paper and ink on paper / collage, papier coloré et encre sur papier. Gift of the artists, 2018 / Don des artistes, 2018

General Idea, Borderline Case: Five – The Great Divide / Cas marginal : Cinq – la ligne de partage, 1972, screenprint on paper with postcard applique / sérigraphie sur papier et collage de carte postale, 3/80; Borderline Case: Nine – Consummation / Cas marginal : Neuf – la plenitude, 1972, screenprint on paper / sérigraphie sur papier, 34/50. Purchase, Chancellor Richardson Memorial Fund, 2003 / Achat, Fonds commémoratif chancelier Richardson, 2003

Marcia Herscovitz, Seven of Ten Collages (from S.M.S. No. 2) / Sept de Dix collages (tiré de S.M.S. no 2), 1968, photocollage on paper/ photocollage sur papier, edition of 40 / édition de 40. Purchase, George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund, 1989 / Achat, Fonds commémoratif George Taylor Richardson, 1989

Credits

Johnson, Johnston and Macrae Investment Group, part of CIBC Private Wealth Wood Gundy is the sponsor for Collection Count + Care and its related programs.