Interventions – MKG127

Paul Butler writes, “In August of 2008, blogger Robin Goldstein submitted a phony application to Wine Spectator’s Awards of Excellence with a fictitious restaurant named Osteria L’Intredido. The restaurant won. The hoax sparked an international debate over the award-winning publication’s credibility, and the media’s authority to determine excellence in general.

The whole scandal made me think about the mechanics of the art world – who is being championed? Who is Championing them? Who are the gatekeepers? Recent conferences including Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art’s Art Tomorrow and Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario’s hot buttons / points chauds shared the idea that art organizations should return to artist initiated and directed activities. And now, with the current financial crisis, we have an exciting opportunity as artists, to reclaim control and reinvent our art world, despite the art market.”

Paul Butler is an artist, curator and dealer with an interest in blurring the lines between practices. His practice includes hosting the Collage Party (a touring experimental studio, est. 1997); directing the operations of The Other Gallery (a nomadic commercial gallery focused on overlooked artists’ practices, est. 2001) and the exhibition of his own work. He has exhibited at; MoCA LA; JMB, HartHouse, Toronto; White Columns, NYC; Creative Growth, Oakland and Sparwasser, Berlin. His curatorial projects have included the work of Matthew Higgs, Mitzi Pederson, DearRaindrop and Guy Maddin. He has contributed writings to Decentre: Concerning Artist-run Culture (2008) and Canadian Art Magazine (Winter, 2008) Currently, he is working with Greg Curnoe’s original bike builder Mike Barry of Mariposa Cycle to rebuild one of Curnoe’s bikes in a limited edition, acting as guest curator for Plug In ICA’s Overlooked Space and leading an experimental residency at the Banff Centre called Reverse Pedagogy. In the future, Butler will attend The Mountain School for Arts, Los Angeles; exhibit at Triple Base, San Francisco; curate The Milwaukee International’s Ice Fair on Winnipeg’s Red River and organize The Exchange – a two-part exhibition that will bring together Canada’s southern and northern art communities to work alongside each other at both the Dorset Fine Arts studios in Cape Dorset and The National Gallery in Ottawa.