As If by Chance

Revered Canadian artist Vera Frenkel will be showing her new two-channel and print installation, As If by Chance, at Charles Street Video (CSV), 76 Geary Avenue. 

Made possible thanks to CSV's artist's residency, showing Vera's work in our gallery marks the end of a residency and the appearance of CSV's master editor Konrad Skręta the work itself.

 About the Exhibit: 

The title of this two-channel video art and digital print installation alludes to an inter-generational card game, evidence of which was found by police after a Toronto art centre was closed by the City.

Designed by the centre’s founder, Natasha (surname unknown), the game invited players young and old to choose card designs they liked from a special pack spread before them. When turning their cards over, participants would discover single words on the back of each card they were invited to paint on. Footage that remained after the centre’s closure, also included instances of children and elders describing in detail what they had created, as if by chance.

 Screening/Exhibition Dates 

Opening Reception/Screening (Free Admission):
Saturday Nov 22, 4pm to 6pm

 RSVP Here! 

Exhibition times (Free Admission):
Wednesday, November 26, 12pm to 4pm
Thursday, November, 27th, 6pm to 8pm
Saturday, November 29th, 12pm to 4pm 


 About Vera: 

Vera Frenkel’s videotapes, drawings, audio works, installations, photographs, writings and new media projects explore the forces at work in human migration, experiences of displacement and deracination, the resulting learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the increasing bureaucratization of everyday life.

Rooted in an interrogation of the abuses of power and their consequences, projects by Vera Frenkel have been seen at documenta IX, Kassel; the Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz; the Setagaya Museum, Tokyo; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Biennale di Venezia (Club Media), the Freud Museum, London; the Altaussee Salt Mine, Austria; and the Shanghai Biennale among other interesting venues.

Recipient of the prestigious Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Frenkel has also received some of Canada's major prizes awarded to a living artist. These include the TFVA Founders' Award 2018, the Bell Canada Award for Video Art, 2001.the Canada Council Molson Prize, 1989; the Toronto Arts Foundation Visual Arts Award, 1994; and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize, 1995. The CCCA (Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art) ‘Untitled’ Art Award for ‘Best Exhibition or Project in Virtual Space’ was presented to Frenkel at a gala ceremony in Toronto in March, 2005.

 2025