WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA.- The Winnipeg Art Gallery presents Situation Comedy: Humour in Recent Art, on view through September 10, 2006. During the past ten years, humor has turned up with increasing frequency in contemporary art, serving as both a means of entertainment and an extremely effective critical device. Situation Comedy presents more than sixty works—video and sound installations, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs—by younger as well as more established contemporary artists working primarily in North America and Europe.

In a time of widespread political upheaval, artists are injecting a healthy dose of comedy, both light-hearted and dark, into their work. In images dealing with pranks, cruelty, and embarrassment, they utilze the leveling power of humor to break down barriers of taste and to question authority at every turn. They employ parody and satire, slapstick, and practical jokes to establish an immediate rapport with viewers, and to encourage laughter in museum environments that are too often considered sacrosanct and austere.

Situation Comedy is co-curated by Dominic Molon, Pamela Alper associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Michael Rooks, curator at the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by the curators and an excerpt from David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day.