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Rocks, Stones, and Dust

Man holding rock in front of face

Works by:

Michael Belmore, Bonnie Devine, Jimmie Durham, FASTWÜRMS, Jason de Haan, Spring Hurlbut, Kelly Jazvac, Susanne Kriemann, Lindsay Lawson, Nicholas Mangan, Marcelo Moscheta, Kerri Reid, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok, Lawrence Weiner

Rocks, Stones, and Dust

October 28–December 18, 2015

Curated by John G. Hampton

University of Toronto Art Centre

Rocks, Stones, and Dust is an exhibition devoted to rocks and their relations. It surveys diverse speculations on the roles that rocks play in the development of human culture and how they exist to and for themselves. Rocks are everywhere—they are in our tools, architecture, philosophy, theology, beneath our feet, and flying far above our heads—but this ubiquity sometimes masks their ontological significance. Rocks are prototypically non-human and characteristic of the least animated objects in our world, yet stones are born, they move, age, breed, and return to dust. Some ask us to pick them up off the side of the road and carry them with us, and others invite us to stare into their surfaces to look for inner truths. In their omnipresence, rocks can go unnoticed, but within object-oriented philosophies, aboriginal epistemologies, panpsychism, and countless other systems of knowledge, rocks are recurring characters that show us how even in what seems to be the least mobile of things, we can find life. The works brought together in Rocks, Stones, and Dust address this vitality and unearth the role rocks play in helping us understand questions of beingness outside of human being.

Opening Reception

Wednesday, October 28, 2016

Artist Talk + Screening

Friday, November 6, 5:30-7pm
Featuring Lindsay Lawson
The Goethe-Institut, 100 University Ave., North Tower, 2nd floor

Curator’s tour with John G. Hampton

Wednesday, November 11, 6:30-7:30pm
University of Toronto Art Centre

Artist Talk

Falling for Stones
Wednesday, November 18, 6:30-7:30pm
Featuring Michael Belmore + Lindsay Lawson
Video Documentation
Debates Room, Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle

Artist Talk

Stones as Species
Friday, November 27, 6:30-7:30pm
Featuring Bonnie Devine + Egill Sæbjörnsson
Video Documentation
South Sitting Room, Hart House

Panel Talk

Rocks: the Scientific and Speculative
Wednesday, December 2, 6:30-7:30pm
Featuring Pierre-Yves F. Robin and FASTWÜRMS
Video Documentation
University of Toronto Art Centre

Video Documentation

Pleasure Stones by Egill Sæbjörnsson

Publication

Web catalogue: Rocks Stones and Dust: Contemporary art devoted to rocks and their relations

Media Coverage

Our Supporters

We gratefully acknowledge the operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, with additional project support from the Ontario Arts Council, the Jackman Humanities Institute, the Goethe-Institut, and Manulife Financial.

Title Image: Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok, Mother with Children, late 1970s to early 1990s. Carved stone. Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts.

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