Shangri-Lost at Roberta Pelan / Toronto

Shangri-Lost

Jesse Harris, Shawn Kuruneru, and Jimmy Limit


Organized by COOPER COLE

April 8th - May 8th, 2016 
















Hi Jesse, Shwan and Simon,
Do you remember 2007?  I do, I mean I remember a feeling.  The feeling lasted more than one year, maybe 2006-2009, but 2007 was the year of the first shangri lost show and I definitely had the feeling then.  It was at a point where I didn't do dishes at home because I did dishes as a job, and why would you do them for free after getting paid to do them all night.  I was a single guy, sort of grown up, and I only really needed enough money to buy a 40 but sometimes I didn't have enough for that.  Sometimes I would skip my hot dog soup so I could afford one.  It sounds problematic now, but at the time I didn't get hangovers, I was the skinniest I had ever been and nothing really mattered that much.   Looking back at the art I made in this period I feel weird that is was so dark, like really intense dark murder cult stuff.  I mean, I thought it was cool and no one else really thought about it at all, so it was fine.  It was more about the sincerity I saw in these dark subcultures that was lacking from my own life/art that interested me.  I think the art we were all making was an extension of how we were living or how we wanted to live; a sort of extended adolescence that has become common people in their 20s.  Le Gallery wanted Shawn to do a solo show but he convinced them it would be a better idea to have me and Jesse show too, and it probably was, I mean it was more fun anyways.  There was pizza delivered to the opening and no one talked about the work except someone asked if I was a satanist.  I'm not writing this to say, hey remember when we were young before internet on cell phones or I had kids, or Jesse had a baby on the way or Shawn lived in New York City with a bunch of house plants that are thriving.  I'm saying it because it happened and for some reason it's happening again, and because it is happening again it is an excuse for introspection.  Happy sad feelings for the past were reasons we drank so much, or maybe just the sad feelings, but I don’t really drink that much anymore so writing this email made sense.  I mean, a lot of what I’m saying you already know, but maybe this will be used as the press release and there are lots of other people who don’t know this stuff.  History is repeating all around us, and by that I mean personal histories along with big global histories.  The same mistakes made by whole countries, presidential primaries and austerity measures, are matched by the same mistakes made by kids drinking too much, or not spending enough time thinking about the art they are making.  I don’t know how much any of us thought about this show either though.
Jimmy 
Jesse Harris (b. 1981, Toronto, Canada) graduated with a BA (Honours) from the University of Guelph in 2007. Recent and forthcoming solo and group exhibitions include, Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada; Tomorrow, Toronto, Canada; The Journal, Brooklyn, USA; Side Effects Gallery, Brooklyn, USA; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; Plug in ICA, Winnipeg, Canada; amongst others. Harris lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Shawn Kuruneru (b. 1984, Toronto, Canada) received his BFA from Concordia University in Montreal in 2006. He has had solo exhibitions at ribordy contemporary in Geneva, Blackston Gallery in New York, David Petersen Gallery in Minneapolis, and Night Gallery in Los Angeles. Kuruneru currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Jimmy Limit (b. 1982, Toronto, Canada) received his BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design. He has exhibited at Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Estonia; Art Metropole, The Power Plant, Cooper Cole Gallery, and is represented by Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto, Canada. Limit lives and works in St. Catherines, Ontario