Why Can't Minimal: An exhibition of humorous minimalist art.

Public Events
September 11, 6 – 8 pm – Opening Reception at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
September 20, 2 pm – Curator tour with John G. Hampton
September 26, 2 pm – Curator tour as part of Culture Days
October 14, 6 pm – Panel discussion on humour and minimalism with Daniel Borins, Jennifer Marman, John G. Hampton, John Marriott, and Tammi Campbell at the University of Toronto Art Centre, 15 King’s College Circle

Why Can’t Minimal mines minimalism for its humorous side by pointing to a latent absurdity hiding beneath its cool demeanour. The exhibition rejects the assumption that minimal art requires solely serious, solemn contemplation, and embraces the more intuitive, jovial, and personal pleasures that occur when one has fun with the comically utopian ambitions of unitary forms. Playing with the forms, traditions, and incongruities of multiple levels of minimalism, the presented works elude rational comprehension, repositioning conceptual value to make room for the types of recognition made possible through levity, play, humour, and sentiment.