Art Metropole

29 Jun. 2006

I AM A BOYBAND by Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

Artist

Benny Nemer

Art Metropole is pleased to announce the launch of Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay’s I AM A BOYBAND, published by Art Metropole in a signed and numbered edition of 200 with accompanying artist poster. Please join us on Thursday, June 29th from 6 to 9 PM, to celebrate the DVD release of this highly acclaimed and sought after work by Nemerofsky Ramsay. The artist will be in attendance. Art Metropole is located at 788 King Street West. Those regrettably unable to attend in person can do so by proxy with Art Metropole’s live streaming WebCam at www.artmetropole.com

Renowned since its appearance in 2002, I AM A BOYBAND sets John Dowland’s 1597 madrigal, ‘Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite’ to an electro-pop beat and features Nemerofsky Ramsay in four different incarnations, each experimenting with the distinct articulations of masculinity found in contemporary boyband music videos. Nemerofsky Ramsay’s self-conscious and deliberate performance reveals the ways in which such overly manufactured gestures of both character and sentimentality fall flat in their expression. Sarah Milroy remarks that Nemerofsky Ramsay’s “performance is all camp glitz, but it’s hard to know precisely what level of irony is intended. Ramsay has such a gorgeous singing voice that you find yourself sucked in depsite yourself.”

I AM A BOYBAND has screened at over 200 film and video festivals worldwide, in gallery exhibitions in Canada, China, England, Germany, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands and has been broadcast on Canadian, German, French and Japanese television. In 2003, I AM A BOYBAND won prizes at the International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen in Germany and the Globalica Media Arts Biennale in Poland.

This limited edition DVD of I AM A BOYBAND is packaged with a 37 cm x 25.5 cm folded poster, signed and numbered to correspond with the DVD. An apt addition to the DVD, the poster features the lyrics and score to Nemerofsky Ramsay’s interpretation of Dowland’s Madrigal.

About the Artist

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is a Montreal-born artist working in video, performance and sound. Since 2000 his work has united song and, self-reflexive performance and lyrics from pop music as tools for examining the untranslatability of emotions into language and the ways in which emotional expression changes shape when mediated by technology and popular culture.

Benny Nemer (b. 1973) is a Montreal-born artist and diarist.

Since 2000 his creative gestures in video, sound and text have contemplated the history of song, the rendering of love and emotion into language, and the resurrection and manipulation of voices – sung, spoken or screamed. Early video work concentrated on critical mimicry of material from popular culture, with references to Madonna, American Idol, Tatu, Françoise Hardy and Kylie Minogue. Recent work focuses on re-examinations of seminal texts, films and video art from queer and art history, working with material by Audre Lorde, Colin Campbell, Rosa von Praunheim, Henri Rousseau and Harry Hay.

Nemer’s work has screened in festivals and galleries across Canada, Europe and East Asia and has won prizes at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, the Kasseler Dokumentarfilm und Videofest and the Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (all in Germany), the Toronto Inside Out Film and Video Festival as well as first prize at the Globalica Media Arts Biennale in WrocÅ‚aw, Poland. His work is part of numerous private collections as well as the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

(from wikipedia)

Images

1: I AM A BOYBAND by Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay.
2: Artist Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay chats it up with his fans.
3: Ann Dean discusses the work of Miles Collyer with Rosemary Heather.
4: Alynne Lavigne and friends chat it up.
5: Dan talks with Stephanie Rogerson.
6: Miles Collyer and Tonik Wojtyra look at a book.
7: Natalie Matutschovsky rocking the yellow scarf with smile.
8: Checking things out.
9: Watching the video up for grabs.

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