Split Chorale for Viljo Revell, 2014

Kathryn Andrews - Los Angeles, USA
Scott Benzel - Los Angeles, USA

Performance Art

Responding to the architecture of Toronto's City Hall (Viljo Revell, 1965), nicknamed "The Eye of the Government" because its shape is much like a large eye overlooking Nathan Phillips Square, artist Kathryn Andrews presents a large-scale performance work that transforms the building's multilayered interior into an inverted theatre, where the traditional posts of performer and audience are swapped. Upon entering the building, visitors encounter a panoply of video montages floating on its central stalk, while simultaneously being viewed by a legion of choral singers engaged in a marathon drone. Los Angeles-based composer and artist Scott Benzel collaborates with Andrews on the work.

Inspired by the colorful, idiosyncratic landscape of Los Angeles as well as the city’s rich legacy of contemporary art, including “finish fetish,” pop art and minimalism, Andrews’ sculptures, installations, and performances blend wry conceptualism with theatrical spectacle and industrial design. Her work often combines incongruous parts to powerful effect, marrying the ephemeral aspects of performative materials such as rented clown costumes or deflating balloonst with elegant, hard-edged structures.

Los Angeles-based artist Kathryn Andrews (b. 1973) is the subject of a solo exhibition at The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing in 2014. Andrews has exhibited at Museum Ludwig, Cologne; MOCA and the Hammer Museum, both in Los Angeles; ICA, Philadelphia; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; and MOCAD, Detroit.

Scott Benzel is a visual artist and composer. He has debuted works at LACMA and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and collaborated with artists including Sam Durant and Mike Kelley.

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Nathan Phillips Square - City Hall Rotunda

100 Queen Street West

This project is indoors.