Sara Cwynar. Source

Sara Cwynar. Source

January 30–May 24, 2021

Remai Modern presents Sara Cwynar’s largest museum project to date. The exhibition features two expansive new installations combining still and moving images, alongside an immersive viewing environment for Red Film (2018), the last work in the artist’s recent cinematic trilogy.

Drawing on an ever-expanding collection of image and objects, Cwynar has developed a distinctive visual language. She combines materials from a multitude of sources, including thrift stores, eBay, discarded photo albums, art history books, fashion and luxury advertising. Her process often involves a back-and-forth between printing, collaging and re-capturing. The resulting compositions are dense, chaotic and logic-defying, speaking to the endless accumulation of consumer products and pictures. Tapping into personal and collective desires, Cwynar explores how visual culture both reflects and shapes notions of beauty, value and truth.

The title of the exhibition, Source, describes a point of origin, a direct or authentic connection. It also evokes something mystical, a form of energy or power beyond understanding or control. Technology is changing how we engage with images and information, in increasingly ever-present and data-driven ways. Cwynar’s work explores these developments in the arc of late capitalism, considering new and fundamental shifts in how we see, feel and function.

Sara Cwynar (b. 1985, Vancouver) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has exhibited at international museums including the Museum of Modern Art (2020); Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (2019); Milwaukee Art Museum (2019); Minneapolis Institute of Art (2018); Museum für Moderne Kunst (2017); the Fondazione Prada (2016); and MoMA PS1 (2015). In 2014, Cwynar was awarded the Printed Matter Emerging Artists Publication Series and published her first monograph, entitled Kitsch Encyclopedia, with Blonde Art Books. Her work is in the permanent collections of museums including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Guggenheim Museum, SFMoMA, Centre Pompidou, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2020, Cwynar was recognized with a Sobey Art Award, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award.

Curatorial Team
Organized by Rose Bouthillier, Curator (Exhibitions), with Donald Roach, Exhibitions Manager; Emily Dunseith, Registrar (Exhibitions); Troy Mamer, Programs Assistant (Curatorial); and installation team: Jason Hosaluk, Chad Redl, Darren McQuay, Cameron McKay, Preparators, Paul Atkins, Ian Rawlison, and Caleb Dueck.