Jon Sasaki, Flyguy Triggering His Own Motion Sensor, 2010, nylon, fan, plinth, motion sensor. Image courtesy of the artist.

Jon Sasaki: Good Intentions

 

Curated by Crystal Mowry

Organized by the Doris McCarthy Gallery
in partnership with the Kenderdine Art Gallery,
Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery,
Southern Alberta Art Gallery,
MacLaren Art Centre, Dunlop Art Gallery,
and Prairie Art Gallery

June 15 - September 5, 2011
Catalogue launch and Artist Talk:
Thurs, July 14, at 7 pm
View invitation here

Utilizing video, objects, performance and installation, Jon Sasaki's work takes cynicism, futility and tragedy as starting points, countering the thematic heaviness with dry, comic delivery. Sasaki investigates an eternal optimism that, while endearing and charming, is filled with the trappings of failure. Given that all actions do not end in a result that one might hope for, the inherent possibility for failure becomes an opportunity to find beauty, or to discover a sweetened sense of the human condition. An unfulfilled promise still has its origins in an earnest belief and still delivers the notion of one who tries… really, really hard.

Sasaki is a self-described romantic-conceptualist who pays homage to always looking on the bright side. Good Intentions will be comprised primarily of videos, including A Wound-Down Watch Coaxed to Run a Bit Longer (2008). As the title suggests, the video consists of a fixed shot of a wristwatch that requires constant intervention to help it keep time or, in other words, retain its purpose. For just over three and a half minutes we see the watch being tapped on a table, the protagonist's hand persisting in coaxing an extra ninety

Jon Sasaki, Ladder Stack (detail of still photo), 2010, 36" x 72". Image courtesy of the artist.

seconds out of it before its ultimate exhaustion. Cycle (2009) depicts a similar relationship with inertia and attempts at perpetual motion. In this video we see Jon-as-protagonist pedalling vigorously on a busy urban street, yet moving at a glacial pace compared to everything else around him. Despite the absurdity of the venture before him, Sasaki persists like someone who doesn't have much to lose. For Sasaki, the allure of the gamble is located less in the hitting of that elusive jackpot than in the tragicomic nature of good intentions.

Jon Sasaki's practice incorporates primarily performance-for-video, objects, installations and interventions in work that mixes humour and pathos, often with gently antagonistic results. Sasaki's work has been presented in solo exhibitions at 126 (Galway, Ireland), Gallery TPW (Toronto), and The New Gallery (Calgary). He has participated in recent group exhibitions at VOX (Montreal), the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (University of Toronto), the Owens Art Gallery (Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB), Simon Fraser University Gallery (Burnaby, BC), as well as the 2006 and 2008 editions of Toronto's Nuit Blanche. Jon was an active member of the Instant Coffee art collective between 2002 and 2007. He lives and works in Toronto and is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects.