Matthew James Cangiano: The Will to Power

Opening: 26th February 6-8pm

Exhibition runs until: 7 March, 2015

Competition weighs in heavily on the societal minds and aspirations of the collective contemporary North American psyche. Those of us living in a position of moderate economic good fortune exist concurrently with rapidly changing technology and the ability to share and distribute information at exceptionally accelerated speeds. We are taught from a young age that acceleration means, very simply, to go faster, and that by doing so, we must find something to compare our speed and success to. What was once a display of strength and success that needed only to be made to a moderately sized community or network, now has the potential to be projected and reach farther than ever before, thus expanding the virtual and physical territory available for conquest.

Cangiano employs the aesthetic tropes of classic machismo imagery to create a visual exploration of an uphill power struggle between a single persons capability to achieve great success while pitted against similar efforts on the part of millions of other bodies that also conspire for power, and why traditional representations of what it means to be the strongest, most powerful or simply THE BEST have begun to lose potency.

Text by Inez Genereux

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The Will to Power is part of a series of three OCAD University Sculpture/Installation thesis exhibitions hosted by Birch Contemporary. Also coming up:

Jared Prince: Home Body

11 - 21 March, 2015 - opens Thursday 12 March 6-8pm

Jane Lee: With Matter

25 March - 4 April, 2015 - opens Thursday 26 March 6-8pm