Belcher nailed a distorted colour photograph of tree bark to a single six-inch-by-six-inch beam offcut hanging on the exterior wall, foretelling the uncanny forest that filled the gallery. The installation was a continuation of Belcher\u2019s iconic Softwood (Nafta)<\/em> (2018\u200a\u2013<\/em>\u200a19) series that recontextualized Canadian softwoods as artworks, allowing him to elude American import fees and challenge economic absurdities. Fifteen samples of softwood beam offcuts spanned the space, with two distinct groupings situated on opposing walls. Colour photographs with varying levels of distortion, carefully folded into individual forms, were neatly nailed to the end grains and edges of each beam. The prints shifted between wood-grain and bark patterns and spanned from muted greys to vibrant purples. The scale of the works was intimate, never protruding more than eight inches from the wall. When Belcher began the softwood series in 1982, he shipped editions to galleries in New York City and Chicago; because they were classified as art, they avoided proposed tariffs and functioned as both performance and sculpture. At Joys, the works lived domestically, shifting their dynamic and altering the narrative. The act of showing the collection in a laneway garage in Toronto, forty years after its inception, became inherently spiteful. In this setting, the series\u2019 probing game of semantics developed a sense of pride in its continuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"Alan$
Alan Belcher
<\/strong>Nafta (#49)<\/em>, 2019, installation view, Joys, Toronto, 2025.
Photo: Philip Leonard Ocampo, courtesy of Joys, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Alan$
Alan Belcher
<\/strong>Nafta (#54)<\/em>, 2019, installation view, Joys, Toronto, 2025.
Photo: Philip Leonard Ocampo, courtesy of Joys, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Resting on a one-foot plinth facing the gallery\u2019s entrance was Brooklyn-based Steffani Jemison\u2019s Broken Fall (Organic)<\/em> (2008). The one-minute-and-twelve-second monochrome video, playing in a loop on a CRTV, depicts a young black man\u2019s upper body clinging to an unseen tree branch. It is wintertime, bare tree limbs sway softly in the background, a sliver of a building peeks through gaps between trunks and branches. His environment feels shrouded in a bitter, dry cold. As the video progresses, so does the tension of gravity\u2019s pull, continuously building as the subject\u2019s expression remains forbearing. After one minute, the scene reaches a climax as the man succumbs to gravity and falls out of the camera\u2019s view. The performance demands patience. As tension builds, one can only wait, craving the stimulation of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Steffani$
Steffani Jemison
<\/strong>Broken Fall (Organic)<\/em>, 2008, installation view, Joys,
Toronto, 2025.
Photo: Philip Leonard Ocampo, courtesy of Joys, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jemison\u2019s piece reimagines Bas Jan Ader\u2019s video work of the same title from the 1970s. Ader\u2019s original speaks to labour and fate, with an uncropped frame depicting the entire subject\u2019s body and the creek he hangs above. Jemison chooses to home in on the young man\u2019s composed expression at the point of tension rather than on the event itself. Broken Fall <\/em>speaks to performative masculinity and the complexities of existing in North America as a part of the African diaspora, exploring the cultural enforcement of strength and situational aptitude and focusing on pressures placed on hegemonized populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discontent with the United States\u200a\u2014\u200aor, rather, a longstanding critique of the imperialist ego-driven paradigm that lingers there\u200a\u2014\u200awas present throughout the space. The show conveyed messages that remain contemporarily relevant as Patience <\/em>intertwined social and geopolitical performance. Imagining the decline of these contentions feels impossible as legislation takes one step forward and two back in a circular, ever-changing palimpsest. Performativity becomes a response to these discomforts, a rebuke to power structures, and a way to confront tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joys,<\/strong> Toronto<\/br>September 6\u200a\u2013\u200aSeptember 20, 2025<\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"author":6506,"featured_media":273385,"template":"","categories":[131],"numeros":[7754],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[7202],"artistes":[7787,7823],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-273412","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compte-rendu","numeros-116-immersion-en","auteurs-owen-kosmala-en","artistes-alan-belcher-en","artistes-steffani-jemison-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/273412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=273412"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=273412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}