Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto’s Graduate Geography and Planning Student Society and The Tendency Group present:

Talking Stats 1: Artists

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Time: 7pm
Place: Music Room, Hart House, Universityof Toronto, 7 Hart House Circle

14 accomplished art workers sit before you and disclose every single terrifying detail of their economic life: what they make, what they spend, where they spend it, what they’ve saved, what they own, what they owe and what they anticipate inheriting. No detail will be spared. Then we’ll crunch some of the stats, throw around a few distributions, some pie charts and then we’ll talk.

Featuring the fully disclosed economies of:
Bill Burns, Timothy Comeau, Siya Chen, Heather Haynes, Sheila Heti, Amy Lam, John McCurley, Srimoyee Mitra, Amish Morrell, Daniel Nimmo, Darren O’Donnell, Ngozi Paul, Camille Turner and Carl Wilson.

There’s a lot of discussion about the purpose and value of art. Does it make the world a better place? Does it improve the economy? Is a good social investment? Is it a good economic investment? What is the value of artistic production for cities? Can art do anything more than make the city more attractive to tourists? Can artists improve the qualities of neighborhoods?

These are all great questions. None of which we plan to answer.

Lost in this cacophony are the naked economic facts of the life of the art worker. What exactly does it mean to your bank account to be an artist? Is the starving artist stereotype an accurate one? Who is really funding the arts?

Those are the questions we will begin to answer.

Talking Stats 1: Artists
The Music Room at Hart House, University of Toronto
7 Hart House Circle, Toronto

The Tendency Group is a flexible research-based collaboration directed by Darren O’Donnell, with Eva Verity, Marney Isaac and Yi Luong. For more information: darren@tendency.ca

things don’t just happen, they tend to happen

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
Hart House, University of Toronto
7 Hart House Circle
Toronto, ON M5S 3H3
CANADA

www.jmbgallery.ca
416-978-8398