Mass Appeal : The Art Object and Hip Hop Culture
Curated by Franklin Sirmans | Circulated by Gallery 101, Ottawa

May 13 - June 7

Curated by Franklin Sirmans (New York, NY) and featuring Edgar Arceneaux, Davide Bertocchi, Iona Rozeal Brown, Jonathan Calm, William Cordova, Nicola Di Caprio, Luis Gispert, Nikki S. Lee, Adrian Piper, Nadine Robinson, Keith Piper and Kehinde Wiley.

Franklin Sirmans, a curator, critic and writer based in New York, has gathered together artists whose work incorporates the strategies of hip hop culture for the exhibition Mass Appeal: The Art Object and Hip Hop Culture.

He states: "Although graffiti can be looked upon as a crucial element of expression in hip hop culture, the conceptual strategies of hip hop - sampling and appropriation, a cannibalist¹s penchant for mixing and remixing to make the new - have become the hallmark of a new generation of contemporary artists". In Mass Appeal, hip hop provides the framework for artists whose strategies lean towards appropriation, cutting and pasting, mixing and matching.

The artists in Mass Appeal are emerging and established artists on the international scene. The high calibre of work, some of which will spill out from the Ballroom Gallery and be placed in the media centre and in the Club, will engage a broad audience in a dialogue regarding the challenges and successes of appropriation.