 Robin Simpson

*Missives*, is a new free broadsheet publication and an associated film screening event co-programmed by Patrick Staff with Canadian curator and writer Robin Simpson. Continuing the format of Staff’s recent screening-performances *Dreams of Travel* (2014) and *Uniform Smoke* (2015), this expanded public programming brings together a number of voices that generate resonances with the politics and interpersonal relationships that constitute the project, rather than describing or fixing the meaning of the work. Grounded within a Canadian context, it seeks to forge a connection among Trans/Queer contexts, production, dialogues and communities.

The broadsheet contains specially commissioned texts by Juliet Jacques, Staff and Simpson and will be distributed city wide as well as in Toronto via defunct Xtra newspaper boxes.

Alongside this, the screening event at Cineworks Annex (February 12 from 7pm), invokes a provisional social space, cinema and theatrical set where a temporary community may gather, through which a selection of film and video works explore first person narratives, interview, account and witness in queer Canadian moving image production, and reflect upon our viewing of it in a contemporary context. Presenting older works framed through their practice the evening engages an intergenerational conversation and includes: Mirha Soleil-Ross’ *Gender Troublemakers* (1993), Xanthra Mackay’s *Rupert Remembers* (2000), James Diamond’s *The Man from Venus* (1999), Mike Hoolboom’s *Frank’s Cock* (1993) and Gwendolyn and Co.’s *Prowling by Night* (1990).

*The MISSIVES* broadsheet and screening event are generously supported by the British Council. Presented by CAG in partnership with Cineworks.

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 Patrick Staff and Robin Simpson: Missives

Screening

This book documents the eponymous work by British artist, Patrick Staff, presented at the Chisenhale Gallery, London; Spike Island, Bristol; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. The film combines footage shot at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles — home to the archive of the erotic artist and gay icon and a community of people that care for it — with choreographic sequences shot within a specially constructed set.

The legacy of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), better known as Tom of Finland, spans multiple generations. Tom of Finland’s work made a considerable impact on masculine representation and imagery in post-war gay culture. Rather than focusing on Tom of Finland’s work, Staff’s film evokes the foundation as a set of relations. Staff explores how a collection is formed and constituted; the communities that produce and are produced by a body of work; and ideas of intergenerational relationships and care. Through observational footage of the house, its collections and inhabitants, the foundation is revealed as a domestic environment, a libidinal space, archive, office and community centre; a private space which is also the home of a public-facing organisation and the source of a widely dispersed body of images.

Texts by Isla Leaver-Yap and Catherine Lord. Conversation between Patrick Staff and Tom of Finland Foundation’s S.R. Sharp.



Robin Simpson

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