The Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto is delighted to support the participation of Paolo Patelli and Giuditta Vendrame‘s project, Friction Atlas, in the exhibition The Art Gallery Problem, presented by the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
Among the works of other featured artists, documentation of previous iterations of Friction Atlas will be showcased throughout the gallery exhibition, culminating in a large-scale public installation during the final week of the main event. Additionally, Paolo Patelli will participate in a panel discussion alongside architects and urbanists Sneha Mandhan and Scott Sorli.
EXHIBITION
The Art Gallery Problem
ARTISTS
Nikita Gale | Annie Macdonell & Maïder Fortuné | Matt Nish-Lapidus | Karthik Pandian | Paolo Patelli & Giuditta Vendrame | Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste
CURATOR
Fraser McCallum
January 8, 2025 to March 5, 2025
THE BLACKWOOD GALLERY
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Rd | Mississauga ON
Monday to Saturday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Wednesday: 12:00 PM – 8:00 PM
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE EXHIBITION AND THE VARIOUS PROGRAMS
The “art gallery problem” is a well-known math problem with a simple premise: what is the minimum number of guards or surveillance cameras necessary to observe an entire gallery? Across different layouts and floorplans, the art gallery problem challenges math students to achieve full surveillance of a space using the minimum labour or technology. The problem is not put to use by major museums and galleries, however, despite replicating their standard operations. Even so, it remains a dominant understanding of art’s presentation.
This exhibition appropriates the art gallery problem as a framework to consider how objects and bodies are put to work in galleries and museums. The “problem” is in fact not singular: there is far more to the presentation of art than the securitization of objects; there are problems of narrative, representation, hegemony, and access to knowledge.
The art gallery problem highlights a set of underlying assumptions that animate museums and galleries, including surveillance, labour, visuality, law, and ownership. As significant human labour and technologies are mobilized for the preservation and display of objects, it bears asking: Do norms of exhibition and display serve audiences and galleries alike? What are the alternatives to reification, permanence, ownership, and surveillance? What are other ways for living with objects?
PUBLIC INSTALLATION
Friction Atlas
Paolo Patelli & Giuditta Vendrame
February 26, 2025 to March 5, 2025
COMMUNICATION CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY BUILDING (CCT)
Atrium
University of Toronto Mississauga
1800 Middle Rd | Mississauga ON
Friction Atlas illustrates the laws that govern public spaces. Visualized as a large-scale diagram on the floor or ground, Friction Atlas is an ongoing critical archive, where laws regulating behaviours and gatherings in public spaces are represented and collected. Past versions have chronicled policing of “anti-social” behaviour in Victoria, Australia; campus sanctuary protections in Athens; children’s curfews in Iceland; and restrictions on freedom of assembly in New York City, among others. Friction Atlas engages the public in a close reading of urban space, collective gathering, and the law.
For this iteration, the artists have researched laws of assembly in Mississauga and Peel Region to add a new entry to the Atlas. The floor diagram will be exhibited in the CCT atrium during the final week of the exhibition, while existing materials from Friction Atlas are presented in the galleries throughout the exhibition.
DISCUSSION
Saturday, March 1 | 12:00PM
Free event |Registration Required
Sneha Mandhan
Paolo Patelli
Scott Sorli
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE DISCUSSION
Alongside a weeklong presentation of Patelli and Giuditta Vendrame’s Friction Atlas in the CCT Atrium (February 26 – March 5), Patelli will discuss this new iteration of the artwork in conversation with architects and urbanists Sneha Mandhan and Scott Sorli. Friction Atlas is a cumulative archive of laws governing public assembly, illustrated as large-scale floor diagrams. For this presentation, the artists researched spatial agency in Mississauga and Peel Region; they will discuss the dimensions and directions of their research alongside contributions from local contributors Mandhan and Sorli.
Accessibility: The CCT building is physically accessible, with accessible washrooms, and all-gender washrooms on the third floor.
PAOLO PATELLI is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Aarhus University, where he investigates the architectural contexts of environmental data within the Design and Aesthetics for Environmental Data project led by Jussi Parikka. His research uses artistic and collaborative methods to explore intersections between space, society, technology, and the environment. Previously, Paolo was a Research Associate at the Research Center for Material Culture (2020–22) and held fellowships at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Het Nieuwe Instituut, and the New Museum. He earned his PhD in Architecture and Urban Design from Politecnico di Milano in 2015. He later collaborated with Sciences Po’s SPEAP program and taught at Parsons Paris, Design Academy Eindhoven, and Sandberg Instituut. His work has appeared in exhibitions at MoMA, MAXXI, Het Nieuwe Instituut, and the 16th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia. He contributed to the Helsinki Biennial (2023) and Ljubljana’s 26th Biennial of Design (BIO26). He has published internationally, including in Design Issues and Visual Studies, and has led workshops at institutions such as ZKM, the Istanbul Design Biennial, and Strelka Institute.
GIUDITTA VENDRAME is an Italian artist, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Through a research-based, multidisciplinary and collaborative practice, she questions socio-political structures that often go unchallenged. She addresses both physical and non-physical systems that govern shared spaces and movement across different spatial scales. Inhabiting a variety of media—including spatial interventions, video, performance and installation—her work engages with these structures through natural elements and forces, which she views as connectors. Her works have been exhibited and presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Malta Art Biennale, Walker Art Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Deutsches Historisches Museum, RMIT Gallery Melbourne, OCAT Shenzhen and others.
THE BLACKWOOD GALLERY (est. 1969) is a contemporary art centre at the University of Toronto Mississauga dedicated to open, public research. We present curated exhibitions featuring the work of local, national, and international professional artists in on-campus gallery spaces; program off-site projects throughout the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area; support artistic research, commissions, and residencies; and foster transdisciplinary strategies for knowledge production and circulation via a robust publishing program.
