Video: Artist Talk with Paul Zacharias | STAGES Speaker Series
On February 25th, 2023 Plug In ICA announced an artist talk by Paul Zacharias, as part of the STAGES Speaker Series in anticipation of his temporary public artwork for the STAGES biennial in August 2023.
Paul Zacharias received his BFA at the University of Manitoba in 1999. He has exhibited his work across Canada and internationally. He has worked for 20 years in film as a Scenic Artist on more than fifty films working in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. From 2014 to 2019 Zacharias was owner and director of LANTERN, a successful contemporary art gallery in Winnipeg. In 2019 he closed the gallery to focus solely on his art practice.
“While I was directing LANTERN we ran across clients who desired large, macho, expensive looking artworks. The smart subtle prairie artists we carried were too quiet for them. They wanted big price tags and exotic international validation. As a commercial gallery owner one can’t help but think about wealth; what it wants, where it might be heading and where it came from. As time went by a reactionary series of works formed in my head. It began with the desire to create art that checks all those boxes. I even toyed with the idea of creating a fake artistic iden-tity and a body of work to sell to these guys. Ethical issues and time constraints kept that idea in dreamland. In the end I closed the gallery but the fake artist haunted me, and I set about making these works in earnest.”
Zacharias’s most recent artworks are about desire, violence, wealth, machismo, and challenging colonial historical narratives.
Acknowledgements
We are on Treaty 1 Territory. Plug In ICA is located on the territories of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. Our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.
Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without their continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support
For more information on this program and STAGES biennial, please contact: info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043