Slideshow for presentation at NSCAD Portable and Alternative Galleries class taught my Michael Eddy and Michael McCormack, Summer 2017

1. Alopecia Gallery
NSCAD Portable and Alternative Galleries Workshop Summer
2017

2. Hello, I’m Gordon Isnor, dilettante
gallerist

3. • Mobile art gallery
• Started the gallery around 1995
• Exhibition space = hole in beard

5. • Name for Alopecia Gallery comes from
the skin condition Alopecia
• Alopecia is a condition of hair loss
anywhere on the body
• Male pattern baldness is the most
common form of Alopecia

6. Dogs get alopecia

7. • Alopecia in my opinion is not
well understood by western
medicine
• It is treated with cortisone by
western doctors

8. Cortisone doesn’t promote peace of mind or good health

9. Circa 1995-1996 artists:
• Sandy Plotnikoff
• Amy Baker
• Michael Fernandes
• Darrin Heaton

10. Sandy Plotnikoff “Pizza Show”

11. • Seven packets of Land O Lakes Butter
• One per day
• Would acne be produced?
• Sandy later did readymades of grease stained pizza
boxes

12. Michael Fernandes
7 Things You Would Not Do
Ambiguous “chance” style parameters led way to
loose exhibition
Largely existed as a poster

13. Darrin Heaton TS Eliot show
Band aids spelled out TS Eliot
over the course of a week

14. Gallery went dormant circa summer 1996 after a
trip to a Chinese herbalist in New York City.

15. • Hannah Jickling prompted the gallery’s resurrection for
an Or Gallery archive of mobile gallery projects, There’s
A New Beard in Town
• Toronto artist Paige Gratland exhibited her “Sontag”
beard

16. • The Sontag
• 100% Real Human Hair

17. Toronto artist Julia Baird produced a month’s worth of
phrase-bearing stickers

18. After a show by Toronto artist Julia Baird,
the gallery once again went into hiding

19. Michael McCormack and Michael Eddy fomented plans
to bring Alopecia Gallery out of hiding for the World
Portable Gallery Convention

20. Syracuse-based artist Duke & Battersby exhibited at
Alopecia Gallery for WPGC 2012

21. Thoughts
• Finding work small enough
• Finding work that considers the space intelligently
and creative is an issue
• Mounting the work is always a factor
• Durability is tough

22. • Duration and location of exhibition is always a
consideration
• Having an art gallery on your face…
• “If I go to parties or social events, my general inclination
is to leave very quickly.” - Visual Art News interview re:
World Portable Gallery Convention

24. • The art can be irrelevant, buried under the gimmickry of
the gallery itself
• It requires a clever artist to get beyond that
• Sandy’s butter show was a great example of an artist
transcending the novelty of the space while also working
with it in an interesting way

25. A component of the gallery is the
conversation that can ensue as a result
viewer curiosity and questions

26. As part of the Portable Gallery Convention, we
did a presentation at WWII in Montreal

27. The status of the gallery is up and down as a
result of the uncertainty of the hair loss and
my waxing and waning interest.

28. If you have an idea for an exhibition at the gallery, one
that you think addresses the space in an interesting
way, feel free to get in touch!

29. But wait,
there’s more!

30. Built with Spaghetti

31. Why isn’t the web more laden with
random, experimental, subversive, art,
music index.html files and sites?
It feels like textarea prison walls where
Facebook et al can spy have gained
near complete control of our sense and
practical use of internet

33. It’s easy

34. Submit by pull request

37. Thanks for listening,
good luck with your galleries!