Jillian McDonald

Last Name: 
McDonald
First Name: 
Jillian

I teach art at Pace University in New York City, where I also curate and co-direct the Pace Digital Gallery. My critical writing focuses on performative art in temporary or unexpected places, and curated projects include Ebay: Buy or Sell or Buy, an online exhibition whose works intervene in the online auction house and invite visitors into momentary relationships with the artists. "My conscious exhibition strategies engage an audience comprised of a very general public that is not necessarily expecting art or gathered in established arts venues. I interrupt the flow of quotidian public exchange, inviting strangers into momentary relationships. I create websites that infiltrate and participate in online fan culture, offer advice to strangers from storefronts, and find reasons to enter into the homes of strangers. Sylvie Fortin (Art Papers Magazine, Sept / Oct 2005) writes of my practice, "relationships are her medium, fleeting encounters her material"." My work has been shown recently at The Whitney Museum's Artport; Year Zero One in Toronto; Manifestation d'Art Internationale de Québec; 404 International Festival of Electronic Art in Argentina; BananaRAM in Italy; The Sundance Online Film Festival in Park City, Utah; The Cleveland International Performance Art Festival; La Biennale de Montréal; ISEA 2004 in Talinn, Estonia; and the Centre d'Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie in France. Recent solo and two-person shows included vertexList in Brooklyn, TPW (presented at The Drake Hotel) and YYZ in Toronto, Video Pool in Winnipeg, and Edge Media in Newfoundland. I have received grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, Soil New Media, Turbulence, The Gunk Foundation, NYSCA, The Experimental Television Center, Thirdplace.org, and Pace University. I have lectured in North America and Europe about my work and have attended numerous residencies including DAIMON, Sagamie, and La Chambre Blanche in Québec; Em-Media in Calgary; and Harvestworks in New York. Recently, I have happily discovered playing music, backpacking, rock climbing, and running half marathons with Beckley Roberts. Some of my favourite people are strangers.