Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
DRAKE HOTEL UNDERGROUND
In the Drake Hotel’s Underground bar on Tuesday night, Brooklyn – based artist Jayson Musson was screening a new instalment of his online video work. He had the at-capacity venue, plus the overflow in the bar upstairs watching a live feed of his talk, laughing out loud for most of the 2 hour presentation. “Damn, Toronto, you really like slideshows,” he said to the applauding audience when he took the stage.
Photo: Yoojung Mia Kim
His series which can be found at www.youtube.com/hennessyyoungman, originated from his fascination with language, humour, and reverse anthropology. His character, Hennessy Youngman, aka Mr. Museums, aka the Pedagogical Pimp, aka Hennyrock, has become very popular online amongst art students, artists, and anyone even loosely connected to the art world, since he began this project, mostly as a personal joke, in May 2010. Youngman hosts a series of ‘webisodes’ called Art Thoughtz, where he tackles many contemporary issues in art and culture like beauty, institutional critique, and how to avoid the pitfalls of repeating the media and gestures of Bruce Nauman. Most are heavy topics to approach for any critic, but Youngman is confident in his delivery of articulate, searing and mostly comical insights into art history and culture criticism. Youngman is a hip hop loving, ridiculous bling sporting, Bronx- bred character which is meant to operate as juxtaposition with the content of his videos. It has a clever humour and it works well.
Keltie MacNeill