Janice Kerbel

The work of London-based Canadian artist Janice Kerbel often makes use of existing systems of organizing and presenting information, borrowing from and modifying the conventions of various disciplines to explore imaginary situations. Kerbel's projects have taken diverse forms, ranging from an exhaustively researched manual for robbing a branch of a London bank for Bank Job in 1999 (published as 15 Lombard Street in 2000) to Deadstar (2006), a detailed map of an invented "ghost town" inspired by a residency in Wyoming, for which the artist studied town planning, local topography, and ghost stories. More recently, she has worked with various forms of narration, creating a radio play for BBC Radio in 2006, commissioned by the London public art organization Artangel, as well as projects such as Ballgame (Innings 1-3) (2009), a sound installation featuring a recording of a sports commentator narrating a fictional baseball game.

In 2011, Kerbel was commissioned by London's Chisenhale Gallery and the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe to create Kill the Workers!, described by the artist as "a play for stage lights." For this work, Kerbel used what is typically a purely technical element of theatrical productions—stage lighting—as the sole means to present a dramatic narrative.

Kerbel has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including solo shows at Tate Britain in 2010, Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery in Ontario in 2009, the Kunsthalle Cologne in 2008, the Moderna Museet Stockholm in 2006, and the Norwich Gallery of Art in 2003, as well as group exhibitions at The Banff Centre, KW Berlin, the ICA London, Kunsthalle Wien, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, De Appel Contemporary Arts Centre in Amsterdam, Artists Space, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Baltic in Newcastle.