Service of the goods is comprised of selected scenes from seven of Frederick Wiseman’s documentaries about state-run, tax-funded institutions, including Titicut Follies, High School, Law and Order and Hospital.
“Kelly re-created several key scenes from these films, attempting to re-shoot their handheld compositions shot-for-shot, with the characters in the film acted out by ghosts draped in white sheets and the film’s dialogue transcribed into subtitles. In looking out on one of the great masters of documentary cinema and his body of work which set out to examine the failure of institutions, Kelly simultaneously re-engages a critique about the social safety nets in our society today and questions the efficacy of documentary representation.”
-Pablo de Ocampo
Wiseman’s representational strategy–his overall production and editing process–is, itself, evoked as an institution subject to the same means of observation and expression.
Jean-Paul Kelly is a Toronto-based artist born in London, Canada (1977). He creates videos, drawings and photographs that are often displayed together. His work has exhibited at Scrap Metal Gallery (Images Festival, Toronto, 2013), The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, 2011 and 2013), Mercer Union Centre for Contemporary Art (Toronto, 2010), Cambridge Galleries (2009), Gallery TPW (Toronto, 2005 and 2008) and Tokyo Wonder Site (2006). Kelly was a guest artist at the 2013 Flaherty International Film Seminar. Other screenings include the European Media Arts Festival (Osnabrück, 2013), International Festival of Films on Art (Montreal, 2013), International Film Festival Rotterdam (2013), Toronto International Film Festival (2012), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2012), Migrating Forms (New York, 2010), Arsenal–Institute for Film and Video Art (Berlin, 2009), Rencontres Internationales (Paris, 2004 and 2006) and Pleasure Dome (Toronto, 2003). From 2009 to 2012, Kelly was Programming Director and Curator of Trinity Square Video (Toronto). He holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto (2005).
Curated by Jesse Pires