The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art presents Vancouver artist Pierre Leichner’sThey say she is bipolar and he’s got OCD: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Re-Revised and Related Texts.
Inspired by the imminent release of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM) and as a precursor to Mental Health Week, both taking place in May, They say she is bipolar and he’s got OCD: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Re-Revised and Related Texts is a unique exhibition exploring themes of mental health through a collection of paper sculptures.
Pierre Leichner is an artist researcher with thirty years of experience as an academic psychiatrist. In his exhibition, They say she is bipolar and he’s got OCD: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Re-Revised and Related Texts, Leichner uses his skills as both an artist and a psychiatrist as he carves, sculpts and alters mental health diagnosis texts to create sculptures that investigate questions surrounding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and related psychiatric books. He combines sculpture books (livres detournes) and paper cast objects (recuperated paper), while documenting the process through photography, video and sound.
This exhibition coincides with the launch of the next DSM (V) in 2013, a text that often stands as the singular authority on shaping psychological language and thought in North America, and increasingly internationally. Discouraged by the unquestioned and unbalanced use of modes of intervention by health-care providers and the diminishing of humanness in healthcare, Leichner address biological, psychological, social/cultural, political and spiritual issues using a multi-sensorial and interdisciplinary approach.
Please join us for an Opening Reception on Friday April 5 from 7-9pm at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art and for an Artist Talk and paper crane building workshop at the Okanagan Regional Library – Main Branch on Saturday April 6 at 1pm. Both events are free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend.
The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art is an artist-run centre located in Kelowna at the Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Avenue. Call 250-868-2298, check www.alternatorcentre.com, or e-mailinfo@alternatorgallery.com for more information.
