Canada’s leading contemporary art gallery The Power Plant (231 Queens Quay West) in collaboration with Max Mara presents Power Ball: Appetite for Excess on Thursday, June 4, 2015, raising vital funds for its exhibitions and public programs throughout the year.

The Power Plant is thrilled to announce its partnership with luxury brand Max Mara as the Presenting Sponsor of the party this year, complete with an innovative brand installation. “The Power Plant is proud to partner with Max Mara, a company that has shown its steadfast support for the arts internationally and now for the very first time, here in Toronto,” said Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant. “We are delighted to share the Power Ball occasion with them and all of our supporters and are truly grateful for their support in our institution.”

This year’s Power Ball theme “Appetite for Excess” investigates the fine line between decadence and debauchery through visual art, music, fashion and food. From the art installations and performances to the food and drinks, every corner of The Power Plant will expose a multitude of thought-provoking excesses.

“We are extremely enthusiastic to be presenting this year’s Power Ball,” says Michael Liebrock, 2015 Power Ball co-chair, joined by Justine Deluce and Philippe Meyersohn. “Power Ball 2015 promises to be bigger and bolder than ever. With phenomenal masterpieces from some of the world’s brightest and most inventive, this year’s theme of excess will be sure to saturate all the senses.”

The evening will commence at 7 PM with a once in a lifetime Food Performance by renowned American artist Jennifer Rubell, notorious for her large-scale, food-centric works. The Food Performance, titled So Sorry, is inspired by the artist’s first visits to Toronto, and generously supported by The Drake Hotel. Guests of the performance will be pulled between competing desires and obligations, finding pleasure, intimacy, sustenance, human contact, deep emotion and sensual engagement in every direction. So Sorry will be supported by pioneering chef Grant Van Gameren, creator of one of the city’s most influential restaurants, Bar Isabel and recently Bar Raval as well as a coffee performance from Toronto coffee master Sam James, owner of the innovative and prolific Sam James Coffee Bar. The work will also include the world premiere of actress and writer Winsome Brown’s one-woman performance, This Is Mary Brown.

At 9PM, partygoers can also experience The Power Plant’s art-filled gallery spaces, including a commissioned project from Toronto-based art collective 8-eleven; a site specific installation by Montreal-based artist Karen Kraven whose works set up unexpected encounters between sculptures and images; and a light sculpture by Orest Tataryn, a practicing artist, designer and curator who uses light as his expressive medium. Guests can expect signature cocktails developed by Diageo’s team of mixologists with brands Ciroc, Grand Marnier, Johnnie Walker Gold Label, and Tanqueray No. 10. Catering will be provided by Parts & Labour and executed under the creative mind of chef Matty Matheson.

Setting the standard as the most influential, vibrant and original contemporary art party since its inception in 1999, Power Ball has grown to become the gallery’s largest annual fundraiser, attracting a crowd of more than 1,500 guests including artists, fashionistas, celebrities, financers and more. For ticket information, please visit:  http://bit.ly/1NLfYa6

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Jennifer Rubell

Jennifer Rubell creates participatory artwork that is a hybrid of performance art, installation, sculpture, and happenings. The pieces are often staggering in scale and sensually arresting, employing a wide range of media, both durable and ephemeral.  Her food performances at museums around the world are legendary, and have come to define the medium. Viewers are encouraged to partake in the work, violating the traditional boundaries of art institutions and engaging senses usually forbidden in or absent from museum and gallery contexts.

Some of Rubell’s notable previous participatory performances include Old-Fashioned, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The de Pury Diptych, Saatchi Gallery, London; Icons, Brooklyn Museum; three commissioned food performances for Performa, the New York performance-art festival; Made in Texas, Dallas Contemporary; and Landscapes, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland. Rubell, 44, received a B.A. from Harvard University in Fine Arts. She lives and works in New York City.

8-eleven

8-eleven is a collective of artists and non-artists running a gallery, a sculpture garden, a sauna, a music venue and a performance space. It was formed in 2014 in Toronto. 8-eleven adopts diverse structural elements from a number of institutional platforms to commission and present new projects, multiples, performances and texts. Since its founding, the collective had commissioned and executed projects by Nadia Belerique, Brad Tinmouth, Brad Phillips, Bridget Moser, Laurie Kang, Walter Scott, Rosa Aiello, Daniel Joyce, Lili Huston-Herterich, Jordan Loeppky-Kolesnik, Katie Bethune Leamen, Maryse Lariviere, and Sona Safaei-Sooreh, working in collaboration with several artist run centres, agents and collectives. Currently the collective counts Cameron Lee, Christine Atkinson, Xenia Benivolski, Stephanie Fielding, Sean Procyk, Simon Schlesinger, Sarah Kilpack and Sona Safaei-Sooreh among its members. In addition to programming exhibitions, the collective collaborates to program and develop site specific projects workshops, performances, events and readings in the project space it holds in as well as offsite locations, in an effort to establish a new type of artist collective / collaborative presentation model.

Karen Kraven

Karen Kraven’s works exploits the illusion and attraction found in such pursuits as sports, hunting, fishing, and playing card games. These motifs take the guise of everyday items, handmade surrogates and decoys. Kraven received an MFA from Concordia University (Montreal) where she lives and works. Recent solo exhibitions include Razzle Dazzle Sis Boom Bah, Darling Foundry, Montreal (2014) and Institute for Contemporary Art, Maine College of Art Portland (2015),  A Mucker and a Grinder, Parisian Laundry, Montreal (2014), and As Above, So Below, Centre Clark, Montreal (2013). Her work has also been shown at Centre Dare-Dare, Montreal (2010), Leonard & Ellen Bina Gallery, Montreal (2011) and Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Mississauga (2011). From 2013-2016, she will have a Montreal Artist’s Creation Studio at the Darling Foundry, Montreal, and upcoming exhibitions at Mercer Union and 8-eleven, Toronto.

Orest Tataryn

Orest Tataryn is a Toronto based light sculptor, designer, collaborator and consultant.  He was a founding member of the guerilla neon collective called SKUNKWORKS / Outlaw Neon. Orest’s mandate seeks to elevate the status of neon through his artistic pursuits where he explores colour relationships, text and form.

About The Power Plant

The Power Plant is Canada’s leading public gallery devoted exclusively to contemporary visual art. It is a vital forum for the advanced artistic culture of our time that offers an exceptional facility and professional support to diverse living artists while engaging equally diverse audiences in their work. The Power Plant pursues its activities though exhibitions, publications and public programming. It fulfills its mandate by generating: exhibitions that represent the range of advanced practice in visual arts; publications that increase knowledge of contemporary art; lectures and symposia that encourage debate and further understanding; interpretative tools that invite visitors to question, explore and reflect upon their experiences; programming that incorporates other areas of culture when they intersect with visual art.

For more information about exhibitions and public programs at The Power Plant, please contact:

Charles Bolduc
Head of Marketing & Communications
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery
416-973-4927
[email protected]

 For more information visit:
www.thepowerplant.org

 Like The Power Plant on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/ThePowerPlantTO

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@ThePowerPlantTO

 Join the conversation about Power Ball:
#PowerBallTO

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Available for Interviews:
Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant
Select participating artists

 SPONSORS

 Presenting Sponsor

Partnering Sponsor
ONEX

 Food Performance Sponsor
The Drake Hotel

 Sponsors
TD Bank Group
Remington Homes

 Travel Sponsor
Porter

 Volunteer Program Sponsor
Manulife Financial

 Spirit Sponsor
Ciroc
Grand Marnier
Johnnie Walker
Tanqueray No. Ten

 Beer Sponsor
Kronenbourg 1664

 Catering
Parts & Labour

 Media Partners
Blog TO
Flare Magazine
Next Issue
NOW Magazine
Proud FM
Toronto Star
View the Vibe

 Event Production
Candice & Alison Event Group

 Creative
Monnet Design Inc.

 Printer
Annan & Sons

 Public Relations
Pennant Media Group

 In Kind Sponsors
Adrian Armstrong
Bar Isabel
Bar Raval
Demarco-Perpich Flowers
Exclusive Affair Rentals
Fogo Island Inn
Ikonica
Luxe Furniture Rentals
Sam James Coffee Bar
TicketBreak
W Hotel
Westbury National Show Systems Ltd.

For media inquiries please contact:
Pennant Media Group
Kevin Pennant [email protected]
Amira de Vera  [email protected]
Toronto 416.596.2978
USA 855.596.2978