Tag: Jeanne Randolph

Canada

Dr. Jeanne Randolph is a psychoanalyst, cultural critic, writer, and performance artist. One of Canada’s foremost cultural theorists, she is the author of the influential book Psychoanalysis & Synchronized Swimming (1991), as well as Symbolization and Its Discontents (1997), Why Stoics Box (2003), Ethics of Luxury (2007), Shopping Cart Pantheism (2015) and My Claustrophobic Happiness (2020). Randolph’s most recent exhibition, Prairie Modernist Noir: The Disappearance of the Manitoba Telephone Booth, happened in May 2020 at Paul Petro Contemporary Art in conjunction with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. She is also known for her curation and as an engaging lecturer, performance artist, and musician. Randolph has spoken on topics ranging from the aesthetics of Barbie to the philosophy of Wittgenstein in universities and galleries across Canada, England, Australia, and Spain. Parking Lot Pandemic (2021) is Randolph’s second exhibition at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, where she has also given readings and launched her last two books.

On September 26, 2021, twenty-six Toronto artists (of a certain generation), on the invitation of Keith Cole, assembled at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto for a High Tea. The guest of honour? Dr. Jeanne Randolph. One of Canada’s foremost cultural thinkers, Randolph is a mercurial character. She is a psychoanalyst, curator, critic, writer, musician, and a performance artist. HIGH TEA with Keith Cole and Jeanne Randolph was, what some theorists or academics might call a work of “social engagement.” For Cole, Randolph and the audience / participants assembled, the jury is out still on whether or not it was even a performance. Perhaps it would be more accurate to think of that afternoon as an event of community (rather than a ‘community event’). The people gathered in the room formed a snapshot of the Toronto arts community from a particular moment, a bit out of focus and dispersed, but collectively felt. Being in the room meant acknowledging the performance of time, of memory and of community. Pinkies up!

Image (above) © Keith Cole, High Tea, 2021. Photo Henry Chan.
Image (below) © Keith Cole, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist.