Events > Book Launch

19 Jun. 2019

Launch - Second Thoughts by Angie Keefer

Time
7-9 pm

I half hold that my life is a fine ride as long as I don’t attempt to navigate. The least critical way to describe this outlook is “bemused fatalism,” and as coping mechanisms go, there’s much to be said for keeping that faith, but so far it hasn’t proved compatible with ambitious ideas like writing a book, though this may turn out to be the first page of a first chapter, in which case I’ve changed my life and overruled fate with you as my witness.
-Angie Keefer

Join us at Art Metropole on Wednesday, June 19 2019 from 7-9pm for the Toronto launch of Second Thoughts ,a selection of writing from 2008 to 2018 by artist Angie Keefer, presented in partnership with Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art.

Second Thoughts is a compilation that traverses numerous disciplines from physics to philosophy, incorporating biographical elements and running parallel to Keefer’s visual practice.

Without directly addressing her own visual work, the book shadows the artist’s research, capturing her thoughts, travels, and encounters across a broad spectrum of subjects, including octopuses, protons, pictographs, poets, grammar, economy, love, loss, and politics.

At nearly 550-pages, Second Thoughts is long in scope but precisely constructed. Keefer leads readers down vividly articulated paths, documenting her thought processes in an exacting manner that reveals writing itself as a process of formulating the world. Accumulated knowledge is reconfigured through the pacing and cadence of each sentence.

Keefer worked closely with designer Scott Ponik to present this selection of writing as a unified whole while framing each individual text with its own synopsis and postscript. Though all of the pieces have been published previously, many were significantly updated, amended, and rewritten for this edition. Second Thoughts includes an introduction by Maxine Kopsa and a short text co-written with Lucy Skaer. The title is pulled in part from Keefer’s 2017 solo exhibition FIRST CLASS, SECOND THOUGHTS, INTERMINABLE SWELL at Plug In ICA.

Doors at 7pm.

Books will be available for sale at the event, and afterwards in store and online.

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