Events

This summer, Toronto's most idiosyncratic secondhand bookshop, The Monkey's Paw, hosts an unprecedented site-specific group art show: The Monkey's Paw Section Label Project. At the invitation of co-curators Stephen Fowler and Kerri Reid, 13 local artists will respond visually to the cultural content of an entire bookstore by creating (very small) section labels for all 52 subject categories throughout the shop.

Who:
Stephen APPLEBY-BARR
Katie BETHUNE-LEAMEN
Diane BORSATO
Shary BOYLE
Nicole COLLINS
Nicholas DI GENOVA
Kristan HORTON
Michael MARANDA
Olia MISHCHENKO
Jenn MURPHY
Lauchie REID
Derek SULLIVAN
Jacob WHIBLEY
(All participating artists are Monkey's Paw customers, and bring with them first-hand knowledge of the shop's aesthetic philosophy and intellectual bent. In style, they range from literalist illustrators to austere conceptualists; but all share a demonstrated fondness for whimsy, pathos, and subversion.)

Where/When:
The Monkey's Paw is located at 1229 Dundas St. West (between Ossington Ave. and Dovercourt Rd., in the heart of Toronto's "Little Portugal"). The Section Label Project will be installed in the shop from July 23 to August 10, 2008. A public reception will be held at the shop on Friday, July 25.

Why:
The Monkey's Paw differs from other bookshops in a number of ways, not least in its imaginative organization and complete lack of signage. Although the books on the shelves are carefully arranged by subject, the shelves themselves are not labelled. Nothing interrupts the organic flow of one section into the next, and browsing becomes an act of exploration and discovery: "bookshop as narrative."

With the Section Label Project, the artists will interpret, or re-interpret, that narrative. The labels they create will add new dimensions of significance and mystery, and deepen the complexity of the relationship between books, browsers, and environment. They'll look damned cool, too.