19 NOVEMBER 2009- DECEMBER 5 2009

OPENING RECEPTION: 19 NOVEMBER 2009, 6 – 9 PM

Group exhibition On You On Me, featuring local and international artists, will mark the opening of Butcher Gallery, 234 1/2 Queen Street East, on November 19^th from 6-9 pm. On You On Me will run from November 19^th to December 5^th, 2009.

Butcher Gallery presents On You On Me, an exhibition featuring a select group of hyper-contemporary artists working to challenge traditional aesthetics. Ideas routed in collage as well as themes inspired by the Internet’s influences on identity, narcissism and voyeurism are presented in a variety of mediums by Brad Troemel & Lauren Christiansen (Chicago), Liam Crockard (Toronto), Andreas Banderas (Norway), Brian Rideout (Toronto), Kaitlin Till-Landry (Toronto), and Jordan Darville & Brad Tinmouth (Toronto).

In a recent text entitled ‘Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility’, media theorist Boris Groys suggests a necessary shift in the position of both art and artist, as well as audience, with the unavoidable cultural influence of online media. We all either consciously participate in our own ‘self-design’ on the Internet, or decide not to.

 “Self-design is a practice that unites artist and audience alike in the most radical way: though not everyone produces artworks, everyone is an artwork. At the same time, everyone is expected to be his or her own author.”

-Boris Groys, Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility, 2008

Spurred by the rising popularity of online exhibitions, Butcher Gallery emerges as an artist-run alternative space, conceived to support contemporary artists. Butcher‘s goal is to bring the anti-tactile discourses present in the “online art-world” to three-dimensional reality. Founded by and under the direction of Brad Tinmouth and Lili Huston- Herterich with curatorial contribution by Kaitlin Till-Landry, Butcher Gallery will exhibit quarterly and host event-based lectures, performances, and screenings throughout the year.