Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art

Transcription

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39 Exhibition Essays & 55 Artists
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39 textes d’exposition & 55 artistes
. 02 . C ACC . epub
Académie
Contributors
Contributeurs
Mojeanne Behzadi
Marie-Hélène Busque
Eleanor Dumouchel
Adrienne Johnson
Philipp Dominik Keidl
Jessica Kirsh
Pamela Mackenzie
Hannah Morgan
Tara Ng
Victoria Nolte
Lucile Pages
Marie-Eve Sévigny
Barbara Wisnoski
Editor
Éditeure
Loren Lerner
Published by
Publié par
Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art Academy
Académie du Centre de l’art contemporain canadien
.i.
Shary Boyle, Everything Under the Moon, 2012. Collaborative performance with musician Christine Fellows, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto.
. ii .
Copyright 2014 by Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute
for Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University /
Le droit d’auteur 2014 par l’Institut de recherche en art canadien
Gail et Stephen A. Jarislowsky, Université Concordia
ISBN 978-1-77185-283-8
Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art:
Thirty-Nine Exhibition Essays and Fifty-Five Artists /
Art contemporain canadien et mobilisation universelle :
trente-neuf textes d’exposition et cinquante-cinq artistes.
Edited by / sous la direction de Loren Lerner
Free e-publication, available via the CCCA Academy
(Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art) Academy / E-publication en libre accès via l’Académie du Centre de l’art
contemporain canadien: http://ccca.concordia.ca/academy
design
Pata Macedo
copy-editing / Révision des textes
Mark Clintberg, Eve Majzels
translation / Traduction
Translation Services, Concordia University /
Services de traduction, Université Concordia
deposited with / Dépôt légal
Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec
. iii .
Contents
Sommaire
xiForeword
xxiiiAcknowledgments
xxiv Avant-propos
xxxviiiRemerciements
Space & Geography
Espace et géographie
02
The Mapping, Making and Meaning of Space:
The Works of Kate Brown and Kay Burns
“Belonging” in Habitats: The Shells of David
Altmejd and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
29
Nature! Nature! Nature!: Art, Give Us An Answer!
Pamela Mackenzie
14
. iv .
44
54
72
86
Suprahuman Agency in the Landscapes of
Sarah Anne Johnson and Charles Stankievech
Barbara Wisnoski
Dioramas contemporains:
Karine Giboulo et Jeff Thomas
Lucile Pages
Mirror, Mirror on the Gallery Wall: Reflectors
in the Art of Ken Lum and Daniel Barrow
Mojeanne Behzadi
Christos Dikeakos and Benoit Aquin:
Exploring the Relationship between Indigenous
Peoples and the Canadian Landscape within
an Enviro-political Context
Tara Ng
Mobility
Mobilité
107
Interpolate/Exchange: Fuzzy Communications
of the Intercultural Encounter Featuring Works
by Deanna Bowen and Stan Douglas
Adrienne Johnson
118Displaced/Dispersed:
Pat Badani and Marlene Creates
Hannah Morgan
131
Travelling with Cameras:
Mile Hoolboom and John Greyson
.v.
150
163
Arni Haraldsson and Christos Dikeakos:
Beyond the Tourist Image
Tara Ng
Les yeux grands fermés: Analyse de photographies
d’espaces intérieurs de Angela Grauerholz et
Lynne Cohen
Marie-Eve Sévigny
Identities
Identités
181
Ken Lum and Germaine Koh: Connections
Mojeanne Behzadi
195
SCULTURE CLUB and Scott Rogers:
Hacking the Void
Eleanor Dumouchel
206
224
240
Among Worlds: Experiencing Global Nomadism
and the Third Culture Kid in the Works of
Pat Badani and Jinny Yu
Victoria Nolte
Beautiful Monsters: Representing Fear in
the Work of David Altmejd and Shary Boyle
Jessica Kirsh
L’art de construire la réflexion sociale: le travail
d’Angela Grauerholz et Jerszy Seymour comme
terrains de rencontre
Marie-Eve Sévigny
. vi .
Histories
Vécus
266
Histoires présentes: Napachie Pootoogook
et Jeff Thomas
Lucile Pages
284
Transcendence?: Intersubjectivity, Responsibility and
Canadian Identity Featuring Works by June Clark
and Tim Whiten
Adrienne Johnson
300
Arriving: Narratives of Adaptation and Resilience
Hannah Morgan
312
Convergences: Familial Memories, Self-Identity,
and Migration in the Works of Dipna Horra
and Isabelle Pauwels
Victoria Nolte
329
Flickering Memories: Chuck Samuels and
Mike Hoolboom
Politics & Activism
Politique et activisme
341
Globalization, Fear and Insecurity:
Loving the “Other” in the Works of
Deanna Bowen and June Clark
Adrienne Johnson
. vii .
362
At the Heart of Coalition: John Greyson
and Trevor Anderson
372
Punk’d: The Works of BGL and Kay Burns
382
Theatre and Objecthood: The Anarchistic
Interventions of Geoffrey Farmer and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
395
Aesthetic Worldmaking: Ecology and the
Senses in the Work of Sarah Anne Johnson
and Penelope Stewart
Barbara Wisnoski
415Traces
Hannah Morgan
Economy
économie
432
Extreme Transformations:
China’s Path to Modernization
Tara Ng
447
New Age Spirituality in the Art of Tim Whiten,
Lauren Hall and SCULTURE CLUB
Eleanor Dumouchel
. viii .
460
Finding Beauty in the Everyday:
The Works of BGL and Zeke Moores
471
Green! Green! Green!: How Banal!
Pamela Mackenzie
483
Infinite Pleasure and Its Discontents: The Visceral
Pattern Installations of Jennifer Angus and
Penelope Stewart
Barbara Wisnoski
Materialities
Matérialité
497
À l’origine, la matérialité: la mondialisation
culturelle à travers les projets de Philippe Malouin
et Jerszy Seymour
Marie-Eve Sévigny
515
533
546
Savoir (-) tout petit : Les miniatures de
Karine Giboulo et Shary Boyle
Lucile Pages
Relic Creation: The Spiritual Art of
Tim Whiten and Sylvia Safdie
Eleanor Dumouchel
Shary Boyle and Daniel Barrow:
Fantasies Projected
Mojeanne Behzadi
. ix .
560
577
Material Hybridity, Global Fantasy: Envisioning
New Art Forms by Dipna Horra and Jinny Yu
Victoria Nolte
Death, Rebirth and New Life:
The Ascension of the Plastisphere
Pamela Mackenzie
.x.
Foreword
***
It has been argued that the phenomenon of globalization emerged after
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and following the dissolution of established
political, ideological, and cultural belief systems that had manifested
after World War Two. Since then, discourses connected with Cold War-era
geopolitical blocs, the so-called First, Second, and Third Worlds, have been
increasingly questioned because of improved telecommunications and
transport infrastructures that enable the fast cross-border flows of people,
finance, goods, ideas, values, culture, and art.1
Current production, exhibition, and exchange of artworks is less dominated
by Western institutions, scholarship, and artists than it was in the 1980s. The
formation of a new global civil society and the geographical expansion of
museums and biennales since the end of the Cold War has led to growing
international profiles for art from the Middle East, South America, Asia, and
. xi .
Africa. The inclusion of ethnographic museums in art historical discourse is an
important parallel development.2 The new, globally oriented scope of the art
world has disrupted notions and categories of art that privilege the West, and
fostered the need to integrate new theoretical and analytical frameworks for
the study of what scholars, curators, critics, dealers, collectors, and museum
visitors refer to as global art.3
Broadly described, global art reflects the new spatial, temporal, and cultural
perceptions of art that has emerged because of the economic, institutional,
and aesthetic transformation of the art world. Yet, seeking a stable definition of
what constitutes global art seems somewhat counter-productive in the study
of the new relationships, ruptures, and identities entailed in the continuous
migration of artists and art within a growing global network. Global art
consists not of artworks that are particularly popular around the world, or that
follow a certain global aesthetic pattern, or that are present in global canons.
Instead, global art stands in opposition to heuristic and analytical structures
and master narratives of Western art historical scholarship, which are too
limited for the study of art from both local and global perspectives.4
A vast array of publications have responded to the emergence of global
art as an art historical paradigm. However, while the probability and
potentialities of a global art history have generated a number of key texts
that offer a wide variety of ideas for interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks
and methodologies, the emergence of global art has also cast doubt on art
history’s analytical competence and heuristic proficiencies. In his editorial
introduction to the anthology Is Art History Global?, art historian James Elkins
self-critically evaluates the worldwide competence of art history as we know
. xii .
it. He presents “five arguments against the ideas that art history is, or could
become, a single enterprise throughout the world” as a plea for the integration
into the discipline of local and region-specific art historical methods, forms,
and questions. His text also extends an appeal to expand art scholarship by
reading “widely and continuously, outside any specialization.”5
The uncertainty of the future development of the discipline becomes
also evident in Jonathan Harris’s editorial introduction to the anthology
Globalization and Contemporary Art, in which the art historian reminds the
reader about art history’s loss of its hegemonic status. Emphasizing that
globalization “is not a finally agreed quantity either historically or within its
likely future effects within the art world,” Harris explains that globalization is
best understood as a practical concept “most useful as an heuristic –“trial and
error”– analytic construct.”6 The thirty-three essays collected in the anthology
offer exemplary applications of this analytic construct named ‘globalization’.
They present a wide array of case studies that discuss the sociopolitical
contexts of art production and discuss local perspectives on art within
broader global inclinations.
The authors of the essays in Art and Activism in the Age of Globalization, on
the other hand, embrace the current phase of transition in the discipline
of art history. They are less concerned with the examination of theoretical
frameworks than they are with the development of a form of global art
activism. Edited by Lieven De Cauter, Ruben De Roo and Karel Vanhasebrouck,
the anthology proliferates a new form of “constructive activism” that is able
to “create openings, possibilities in the ‘closedness’ of a system”, including the
academy.7 Their claim is that art as a form of political subversion has settled
. xiii .
for easy provocation instead of addressing concrete political problems. This
is why the authors introduce the neologism “subversivity” to describe cases
where artists return to the street - where they can put the finger on the
destructive, unjust, and inhuman aspects of globalization; ultimately, the book
ends by suggesting the reader pursue this type of disruption. Being self-aware
of the proclivity for the “radical academy” to undermine itself, they advise the
reader either to burn the book or their brain.8
The most cohesive research on global art has been produced at the ZKM
| Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. In 2006, the
museum established the research project GAM – Global Art and the Museum
and published three seminal studies on the cultural, institutional, and
economic networks of global art: Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global
Perspective,9 The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, Museums,10 and Global
Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture.11 With different emphases,
these anthologies analyze how the convergence of concepts of “global,”
“art,” and “museum” shaped the production, exhibition, and reception of
art within the academy and beyond. Arguing that global art “often escapes
the arguments of art history, as it no longer follows master narrative and
contradicts modernity’s claim to be or to offer a universal model,”12 the
scholars associated with GAM frame the museum as the main site of the art
world’s transformation. As Hans Belting explains, contemporary art museums
have become the stage for the presentation of art “without history in terms
of Western modernism”13 by presenting global art and its inherent symbolic
and ideological challenge to “modernity’s cherished ideals of progress and
hegemony”.14
. xiv .
Recognizing the increasing significance of global art as an analytical paradigm,
this ecatalogue, Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art: Thirty-Nine
Exhibition Essays and Fifty-Five Artists contributes to the discourse on global art
from a Canadian perspective. The curatorial statements collected here are
based on research conducted by graduate students for the interdisciplinary
seminar Envisioning Virtual Exhibitions at Concordia University’s Department
of Art History in Montreal. Under the supervision of Dr. Loren Lerner, the
students investigated how globalization and increasing mobility of artists and
artworks have impacted Canada’s field of contemporary art. They researched
the work of Canadian and Canada-based artists who work and exhibit their
artworks in multiple locations both inside and outside of Canada. Working at
the intersection of the local and the global, their objective was to reveal how
the global’s social, political, cultural, and aesthetic connections are reflected
in contemporary Canadian art. Simultaneously, the participants explored
how the global’s broad cultural, geographical, and temporal perspectives on
Canadian art could be translated into virtual exhibitions in order make their
findings accessible to a diverse audience outside the physical space of the
white cube.
The CCCA Canadian Art Database, since 2013 permanently housed at Concordia
University, served as the main resource for this endeavour. Over twelve weeks,
each student developed three exhibition proposals with a concrete theme
and focus on transnational Canadian art. In the first part of the class, students
curated a virtual exhibition with the works of artists who were already part
of the CCCA Database. For the second exhibition the students researched
Canadian artists and artists active in Canada who were not part of the CCCA
Database, and with their curatorial statements in hand, recommended to the
. xv .
CCCA that these artists be included in their repository. The third and final
exhibition project consisted of an exhibition with one artist from the first and
second exhibition, and a design for an online exhibition. Rich and diverse in
content and form, the students’ curatorial statements and exhibition concepts
draw attention to the current state of mind in contemporary Canadian art,
and embrace the World Wide Web as an alternative exhibition space.
This online publication is structured in seven sections: Space and Geography;
Mobility; Identities; Histories; Politics and Activism; Economy; and Materiality. The
choice of categories and the assignment of the essays were based on a variety
of criteria. First, these themes represent the world’s new interconnectedness
and interrelation, as they refer to those aspects in everyday life – inside and
outside the art world – irreversibly affected by globalization. Together, they
form a loose yet important net of reference points that capture the last two
decades’ pivotal changes on people moving to, leaving from, or living in
Canada. Second, none of the categories could be an exclusive art historical
concept or discourse. More open categories would enable the reader to
approach the exhibitions from various angles, and to use them as a bridge
between research in art history and similar projects in the humanities
and social sciences. Third, these categories nevertheless had to be deeply
embedded in art historical debates. Accordingly, they facilitated a wide range
of foci for the study of art in relation to locale, medium, genre, and subject
that represent the variety of global influences manifested in the expansion of
Canada as a cultural and geographical entity.
The publication begins with exhibitions on Space and Geography. As the work
demonstrates, globalization has deeply disrupted our ideas of time and space,
. xvi .
and has inspired artists to re-conceptualize conventional measurements
of time and space in their works, not only in terms of the geographical or
imaginary borders, but also in relation to institutional and communal spaces,
where alternative geographies and temporalities are presented and integrated
into public life.
Suggesting the need for a new cartography of the world, the second section,
Mobility, offers insight into the migrations of artists across national, cultural, and
personal borders. The exhibitions shine light on the destructive effects that
mobility can have on art and artists. Their exhibitions expose the disruptive
nature of tourism, the challenges inherent in the experience of migration, and
the related problems of intercultural exchanges and encounters.
The instability of formerly stable geographical, political, and ideological
frontiers and the migration of peoples, ideas, and habits have created new
notions of nation, religion, and ethnicity. In Identities, exhibitions explore how
artists address, challenge, and negotiate present, past, and future cultural
identities of individuals and groups in global cultures and societies in and
outside Canada.
The examination of one’s own identity is closely related to the questioning of
personal, local, or national identities in the face of new interconnected global
histories. The fourth section, Histories, features exhibitions that show how
artists have interrogated, appropriated, opposed, rewritten, and erased history
in favour of their own points of view, memories, and experiences.
. xvii .
The rejection of authoritative historiography is only one of the many political
actions that artists deploy to protest against the social injustices ignored
by globalization’s supporters. As the exhibitions outline in the fifth section,
Politics and Activism, Canadian artists engage in political discourses concerning
racism, homophobia, the environment, and migration with works oscillating
between anarchism, empathy, and razor-sharp irony.
One of the most recurring topics in the work of many Canadian artists is the
inequality of opportunity and the uneven distribution of wealth inherent to
globalization. The exhibitions in the sixth section, Economies, explores who
is excluded from the benefits of economic growth, how industrialization is
changing cityscapes and landscapes, and how ways of life are threatened and
determined by global economies.
Finally, the seventh and last section in this collection – Materialities – is dedicated to the material and immaterial character of global art. The exhibitions
explore how artists incorporate, appropriate, transform, and reinterpret objects, images, and ephemera produced, distributed, and consumed around
the globe.
Together, the envisioned virtual exhibitions presented in Global Engagements
in Contemporary Canadian Art: Thirty-Nine Exhibition Essays and Fifty-Five
Artists capture the increasing transnational character of art created in, about,
or artists connected to Canada. By integrating new transnational approaches
with established paradigms within Art History, the exhibitions aim to
establish new perspectives on the expanding range of themes, subjects,
and forms of contemporary Canadian art. Deliberately leaving the physical
. xviii .
and institutional space of the museum behind, we hope to stimulate further
enquiries on virtual exhibition practices and their potentialities for the study
of the social, historical, political, artistic and cultural conditions of the global
art world.
Notes
1 “The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989,” ZKM | Museum
of Contemporary Art, accessed January 6, 2013, http://www.
globalartmuseum.de/site/act_exhibition.
2 Jonathan Harris, “Introduction: The ABC of Globalization and
Contemporary Art,” Third Text 27, no. 4 (2013): 439-441; Anne Ring
Petersen, “Identity Politics, Institutional Multiculturalism, and the
Global Artworld,” Third Text 26, no. 2 (2012): 195-204.
3 Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg, “From Art World to Art
Worlds,” in The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds,
eds. Hans Belting, Andera Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel (Cambridge:
The MIT Press, 2013).
4 Mareike Bracht, Caroline Marié, and Monica Juneja, “Kunsthistoriker
im Gespräch: Die Global Art History hinterfragt den Kanon,” Artefact
(blog), posted September 27, 2010, accessed January 6, 2013,
http://www.artefakt-sz.net/kunsthistoriker-im-gespraech/
die-global-art-history-hinterfragt-den-kanon.
5 James Elkins, “Art History as a Global Discipline,” in Is Art History
Global?, ed. James Elkins (New York; London: Routledge, 2007), 5.
7 Jonathan Harris, “Globalization and Contemporary Art:
A Convergence of Peoples and Ideas,” in Globalization and
. xix .
Contemporary Art, ed. Jonathan Harris (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell,
2011), 3.
8 Lieven De Cautier, Ruben De Roo, and Karel Vanhaesebrouck, Art &
Activism in the Age of Globalization 8. (Rotterdam: NAi, 2011), 9, 322.
9 Peter Weibel, Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global Perspective
(Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007).
10 Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg, and Emanoel Araújo, eds., The
Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums (Ostfildern: Hatje
Cantz Verlag, 2009).
11 Hans Belting, Jacob Birken, Andrea Buddensieg, Peter Weibel, eds.,
Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture (Ostfildern: Hatje
Cantz Verlag, 2011).
12 Hans Belting, “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate,”
in The Global Art Museum: Audiences, Markets, and Museums, eds.
Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag,
2009), 69.
13 Belting, “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate,” 48.
14 Ibid., 39.
Bibliography
“The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989.” ZKM | Museum of
Contemporary Art. Accessed January 6, 2013.
http://www.globalartmuseum.de/site/act_exhibition.
. xx .
Belting, Hans, Andrea Buddensieg, and Emanoel Araújo, eds.,
The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums. Ostfildern:
Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2009.
Belting, Hans. “Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical
Estimate.” In The Global Art Museum: Audiences, Markets, and
Museums, ed. Hans Belting and Andrea Buddensieg, 1-27.
Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2009.
Belting, Hans, Jacob Birken, Andrea Buddensieg, Peter Weibel,
eds. Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture.
Belting, Hans, and Andrea Buddensieg. “From Art World to
Art Worlds.” In The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art
Worlds, ed. Hans Belting, Andera Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel.
Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2013.
Bracht, Mareike, Caroline Marié, and Monica Juneja.
“Kunsthistoriker im Gespräch: Die Global Art History hinterfragt den
Kanon.” Artefact (blog). posted September 27, 2010. Accessed
January 6, 2013.
http://www.artefakt-sz.net/kunsthistoriker-im-gespraech/
die-global-art-history-hinterfragt-den-kanon.
De Cautier, Lieven, Ruben De Roo, and Karel Vanhaesebrouck.
Art & Activism in the Age of Globalization 8. Rotterdam: NAi, 2011.
Elkins, James. “Art History as a Global Discipline.” In Is Art History
Global?, ed. James Elkins. New York; London: Routledge, 2007.
. xxi .
Harris, Jonathan. “Globalization and Contemporary Art:
A Convergence of Peoples and Ideas.” In Globalization and
Contemporary Art, ed. Jonathan Harris. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Harris, Jonathan. “Introduction: The ABC of Globalization and
Contemporary Art.” Third Text 27, no. 4 (2013): 439-441.
Ring Petersen, Anne. “Identity Politics, Institutional Multiculturalism,
and the Global Artworld.” Third Text 26, no. 2 (2012): 195-204.
Weibel, Peter. Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global Perspective.
. xxii .
Acknowledgments
Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art: Thirty-Nine Exhibition
Essays and Fifty-Five Artists / Art contemporain canadien et mobilisation
universelle : trente-neuf textes d’exposition; cinquante-cinq artistes is the first
e-publication of the CCCA Academy. The thirteen authors were students in
a Fall 2013 graduate seminar in curatorial practice, taught by Loren Lerner, a
professor of Art History at Concordia University in Montreal.
We would like to thank the following people who contributed to this class
project and helped to create this e-publication: The Masters in Art History
students in the Envisioning Virtual Exhibitions seminar who conceived the
exhibitions and wrote the thirty-nine texts, Mojeanne Behzadi, Marie-Hélène
Busque, Eleanor Dumouchel, Adrienne Johnson, Jessica Kirsh, Pamela
Mackenzie, Hannah Morgan, Tara Ng, Victoria Nolte, Lucile Pages, MarieEve Sévigny and Barbara Wisnoski; and Philipp Dominik Keidl, a doctoral
student in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, who
also wrote the introduction to this publication; Mark Clintberg, editor of the
essays; and Eve Majzels, copy editor of the French and some of the English
texts; Pata Macedo, designer and educator, who created the publication; Martha Langford, Research Chair and Director, Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky
Institute for Studies in Canadian Art and Professor, Department of Art History;
and, most importantly, the fifty-five artists selected by the students whose
works engage with numerous global issues.
. xxiii .
Avant-propos
***
D’aucuns ont avancé que le phénomène de la mondialisation s’est manifesté
après la chute du mur de Berlin, en 1989, et après la dissolution des doctrines
politiques, idéologiques et culturelles professées après la Seconde Guerre
mondiale. Depuis, les discours liés aux blocs géopolitiques de l’époque de
la guerre froide, soit les pays industrialisés, les pays émergents et les pays du
tiers-monde, ont de plus en plus été remis en question. En effet, l’amélioration
des télécommunications et des infrastructures de transport a permis à un
flux de personnes, d’instruments financiers, de biens, d’idées, de valeurs, de
pratiques culturelles et d’œuvres d’art de traverser rapidement les frontières1.
Comparativement aux années quatre-vingt, la production, l’exposition
et la circulation des œuvres d’art sont aujourd’hui moins dominées par les
institutions, la pensée ou les artistes occidentaux. Depuis la fin de la guerre
froide, la formation d’une société civile universelle ainsi que l’expansion
. xxiv .
géographique des musées et des biennales favorisent l’internationalisation
de l’art issu du Moyen-Orient, d’Amérique du Sud, d’Asie ou d’Afrique.
Parallèlement, l’inclusion des musées ethnographiques dans le discours sur
l’histoire de l’art constitue une avancée importante2. Ouvert davantage sur
l’international, le monde de l’art revêt une portée inédite. Dès lors, les notions
et les critères esthétiques qui privilégiaient l’Occident sont mis au rancart.
Se crée ipso facto le besoin de fournir de nouveaux cadres théoriques et
analytiques pour l’étude de ce domaine qu’érudits, conservateurs, critiques,
marchands, collectionneurs et visiteurs de musées désignent sous le vocable
d’« art planétaire »3.
La transformation esthétique, institutionnelle et économique de l’univers
artistique a fait émerger des façons inédites de percevoir l’art sous l’angle
culturel, temporel ou spatial. Pour l’essentiel, l’art planétaire se veut le reflet de
ces points de vue innovants. Cela dit, la recherche d’une définition figée de
ce qu’est l’art planétaire a quelque chose de contre-productif dans l’étude des
nouvelles relations, ruptures et identités inhérentes à la migration incessante
des artistes et de leurs œuvres au sein d’un réseau mondial en pleine expansion.
L’art planétaire ne se réduit pas à des créations artistiques qui connaissent
une grande popularité aux quatre coins du monde ou qui incarnent quelque
archétype universel de l’esthétique ou encore qui répondent à des canons
internationaux. La notion d’art planétaire s’oppose plutôt aux métarécits
ainsi qu’aux structures heuristiques et analytiques qui façonnent l’érudition
occidentale en histoire de l’art, mais qui se révèlent par trop circonscrits pour
qui entend étudier l’art dans une perspective tant locale que mondiale4.
. xxv .
L’émergence de l’art planétaire en tant que paradigme traditionnel de l’art a
suscité la publication d’ouvrages variés sur la question. En effet, la probabilité
et les potentialités d’une histoire de l’art planétaire ont inspiré bon nombre de
textes fondamentaux, où foisonnent les propositions de méthodologies et
de cadres théoriques interdisciplinaires. Toutefois, cette émergence s’est par
ailleurs doublée d’une remise en cause de la compétence analytique et des
capacités heuristiques associées à l’histoire de l’art. Dans le texte engagé qu’il
a rédigé en guise d’introduction à l’anthologie Is Art History Global? (« l’histoire
de l’art est-elle universelle? »), l’historien de l’art James Elkins procède à une
évaluation autocritique de la compétence universelle de la discipline telle que
nous la connaissons. Ainsi, il présente cinq arguments contredisant la notion
qui veut que l’histoire de l’art constitue une démarche solitaire à l’échelle du
monde – ou pourrait le devenir. Il poursuit en faisant l’apologie de l’intégration
dans cette branche du savoir de méthodes, de formes et d’interrogations
connexes liées à une région ou à une localité. Enfin, il en appelle à un essor
de l’érudition artistique, et ce, grâce à la lecture continuelle de documents qui
ne se restreignent pas à une quelconque spécialité, mais qui sont au contraire
éclectiques5.
L’incertitude associée au développement futur de la discipline apparaît
également évidente dans l’introduction rédactionnelle que Jonathan Harris a
écrite pour l’anthologie Globalization and Contemporary Art (« mondialisation
et art contemporain »). Dans ce texte, l’historien de l’art rappelle à la mémoire
du lecteur la perte du statut hégémonique de l’histoire de l’art. Insistant
sur le fait que la mondialisation ne constitue pas une quantité convenue,
que ce soit sur le plan historique ou sur ses effets probables au sein de
l’univers artistique, Harris explique que cette internationalisation est mieux
. xxvi .
appréhendée sous la forme d’un concept pratique et plus utile en tant que
construction analytique heuristique – un processus d’essais et d’erreurs,
pour ainsi dire6. Les trente-trois essais que réunit l’anthologie exemplifient
parfaitement les applications de cette construction analytique que l’on
désigne sous le terme de « mondialisation ». Ils présentent un vaste éventail
d’études de cas, qui traitent des contextes sociopolitiques de la production
artistique et abordent les perspectives locales sur l’art dans le cadre plus large
des tendances mondiales.
Par ailleurs, les auteurs des essais que l’on trouve dans Art and Activism in the Age
of Globalization (« art et activisme à l’ère de la mondialisation ») se réclament
de la phase de transition que traverse actuellement l’histoire de l’art en tant
que discipline. Ils sont moins préoccupés par l’examen des cadres théoriques
que par l’essor d’une forme d’activisme liée à l’art planétaire. Publié sous la
direction de Lieven De Cauter, de Ruben De Roo et de Karel Vanhaesebrouck,
l’ouvrage multiplie les renvois à une nouvelle forme d’« activisme constructif »
susceptible d’ouvrir des perspectives, des possibilités, dans l’espace clos d’un
système, notamment l’académie7. Selon eux, l’art, est une en tant que forme
de subversion politique, se contente de cultiver la provocation facile plutôt
que d’aborder les problèmes politiques concrets. Dans la foulée, les auteurs
emploient le terme « subversivité » pour décrire ces situations où des artistes
descendent dans la rue afin de dénoncer les aspects destructifs, injustes et
inhumains de la mondialisation. Du reste, l’ouvrage se conclut en suggérant au
lecteur de produire une telle perturbation. Bien conscients de la propension
de l’« académie radicale » à se miner elle-même, les auteurs lui conseillent soit
de brûler leur livre, soit de se brûler la cervelle8.
. xxvii .
Le Centre d’art et de technologie des médias, ou ZKM, de Karlsruhe a mené
les travaux les plus cohérents qui soient en matière d’art planétaire. En 2006,
le musée a en effet mis en œuvre un projet de recherche intitulé GAM –
Global Art and the Museum (« l’art planétaire et le musée »). Il en a résulté la
publication de trois études majeures sur les réseaux culturels, institutionnels et
économiques de l’art planétaire : Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global
Perspective9 (« l’art contemporain et le musée : une perspective mondiale »); The
Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, Museums10 (« l’univers de l’art planétaire :
auditoires, marchés et musées »); et Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art
and Culture11 (« études mondiales : cartographie de l’art contemporain et de la
culture »). Offrant diverses variantes, ces anthologies analysent la manière dont
la convergence des concepts de « mondialisation », d’« art » et de « musée »
a façonné la production, l’exposition et la réception d’œuvres d’art, et ce, non
seulement au sein de l’académie, mais au-delà. Soutenant que l’art planétaire
échappe souvent aux querelles que connaît l’histoire de l’art – étant donné
qu’il ne répond plus à un métarécit et qu’il contredit la revendication d’une
certaine modernité à incarner ou à proposer un modèle global12 –, les érudits
qui ont participé au projet GAM conçoivent le musée comme le haut lieu de
la transformation de l’univers artistique. Pour Hans Belting, les musées d’art
contemporain constituent aujourd’hui le théâtre où est présenté un art sans
antécédents en termes de modernisme occidental13. Les musées exposent
l’art planétaire et, en définitive, le défi symbolique et idéologique inhérent
qu’il pose aux idéaux de progrès et d’hégémonie que chérit la modernité14.
Reconnaissant l’importance croissante de l’art planétaire en tant que
paradigme analytique, Art contemporain canadien et mobilisation universelle :
trente-neuf textes d’exposition; cinquante-cinq artistes / Global Engagements
. xxviii .
Artists contribue à étoffer le discours sur ce courant artistique – ne seraitce qu’en l’appréhendant dans une perspective canadienne. Les énoncés de
conservation colligés dans ce cybercatalogue se fondent sur des travaux
effectués par des étudiants des cycles supérieurs dans le cadre du séminaire
interdisciplinaire Envisioning Virtual Exhibitions (« imaginer des expositions
virtuelles »), qu’a organisé le Département d’histoire de l’art de l’Université
Concordia à Montréal. Sous la direction de la Pre Loren Lerner, ces étudiants se
sont penchés sur l’impact qu’ont eu la mondialisation et la mobilité croissante
des œuvres d’art et de leurs créateurs dans le domaine de l’art contemporain
au Canada. Ils ont analysé le travail d’artistes canadiens – de souche ou
d’adoption – qui exercent leur art et présentent leurs œuvres en divers lieux,
aussi bien au Canada qu’à l’étranger. Postés au carrefour des points de vue
national et international, ils se sont fixé pour objectif d’expliquer la nature
du rayonnement sur l’art contemporain canadien des rapports mondiaux en
matière de société, de politique, de culture et d’esthétique. Parallèlement, ils
ont exploré la manière dont pouvaient se traduire, en termes d’expositions
virtuelles, les thèses universelles sur les aspects culturel, géographique et
temporel de l’art canadien. Ils entendaient ainsi rendre leurs découvertes
accessibles à un auditoire éclectique, hors de l’espace muséal proprement
dit – le fameux « cube blanc ».
Installée en permanence à l’Université Concordia depuis 2013, la base de
données sur l’art canadien du CACC a servi de principale ressource pour les
participants au projet. De fait, durant douze semaines, chacun d’eux a élaboré
trois propositions d’exposition, orientées et thématisées sur l’art canadien
transnational. Dans un premier temps, les étudiants ont organisé une
. xxix .
exposition virtuelle mettant en scène les œuvres d’artistes figurant déjà dans
la base de données du CACC. Ensuite, en vue d’une deuxième présentation,
ils ont effectué des recherches sur des artistes canadiens ou exerçant leur
art au Canada, mais dont la fiche signalétique n’était pas consignée dans
ce référentiel. S’appuyant sur un énoncé de conservation de leur cru, ils
ont recommandé au CACC de verser ces éléments d’information à sa base
de données. Enfin, le troisième et dernier projet d’exposition portait sur un
artiste retenu pour les première et deuxième manifestations, ainsi que sur la
conception d’une cyberexposition. Riches et variés tant dans leur contenu
que dans leur forme, les énoncés de conservation rédigés par les étudiants,
de même que leurs concepts d’exposition ont, d’une part, attiré l’attention
sur l’état d’esprit qui règne actuellement dans le milieu de l’art contemporain
canadien et, d’autre part, transformé le Web en un espace d’exposition inédit.
Sept sections composent la présente cyberpublication : Space and Geography
(« espace et géographie »); Mobility (« mobilité »); Identities (« identités »);
Histories (« vécus »); Politics and Activism (« politique et activisme »);
Economy (« économie »); et Materiality (« matérialité »). À l’instar du choix
des subdivisions, l’affectation des textes repose sur une variété de critères.
Premièrement, les thèmes retenus représentent deux aspects modernes de
notre monde et de l’univers artistique : l’interconnectivité et l’interrelation,
considérés dans l’optique d’une quotidienneté irréversiblement influencée
par la mondialisation. Cette thématique tisse un réseau élastique mais
néanmoins crucial de repères marquant les changements clés qui, au
cours des deux dernières décennies, ont touché les gens d’ici, les nouveaux
arrivants ainsi que les immigrants. Deuxièmement, nulle catégorisation
n’aurait pu suffire à désigner un seul et même concept ou discours relatif
. xxx .
à l’histoire de l’art. Les subdivisions existantes, plus génériques, permettent
donc au lecteur d’aborder les expositions sous différents angles et de s’en
servir pour jeter un pont entre travaux de recherche en histoire de l’art et
projets de nature similaire en lettres ou en sciences sociales ou humaines.
Troisièmement, lesdites subdivisions s’inspirent toutefois fortement des
débats qui interpellent les historiens de l’art. À qui veut procéder à l’étude
de l’art en lien avec le lieu, le médium, le genre et le sujet, elles offrent
toute une série de questions ciblées et reflètent les nombreuses influences
internationales qui se manifestent dans le rayonnement du Canada en tant
qu’entité géographique et culturelle.
D’entrée de jeu, l’ouvrage traite d’expositions axées sur l’espace et la
géographie. Il démontre que la mondialisation a profondément bouleversé
notre notion du temps et de l’espace, qu’elle a inspiré aux artistes la
reconceptualisation des mesures temporelles et spatiales conventionnelles.
Si cette innovation se perçoit dans les œuvres d’art, il convient de souligner
qu’elle ne se limite pas aux frontières géographiques ou imaginaires, mais
qu’elle vise également l’espace institutionnel et l’espace commun, là où se
présentent – avant d’être intégrées à la vie publique – les temporalités et les
géographies autres.
La deuxième section, qui porte sur la mobilité, souligne la nécessité de
cartographier à nouveau le monde. Elle s’attarde aux migrations artistiques,
au franchissement des limites nationales, culturelles et personnelles. Les
expositions connexes lèvent le voile sur les effets destructeurs que peut
produire la mobilité sur l’art et sur l’artiste. Par exemple, elles illustrent
l’action perturbatrice du tourisme, les enjeux intrinsèques de l’expérience
. xxxi .
migratoire de même que les problèmes liés aux rencontres et aux échanges
interculturels.
Nation, religion, ethnicité… Des notions inédites ont émergé de la mouvance
des frontières géographiques, politiques et idéologiques – jusque-là stables
– et de la migration des personnes, des idées et des mœurs. Dès lors, les
expositions articulées autour du thème identitaire nous montrent comment
les artistes abordent, remettent en cause et traitent les identités culturelles
passées, actuelles ou futures des individus et des groupes, et ce, dans une
perspective aussi bien sociale qu’idéologique et canadienne qu’étrangère.
Inévitablement, dans un contexte de parcours parfois inexplorés, souvent
internationaux, mais surtout interreliés, l’examen de la dimension identitaire
d’une personne donnée suscite la remise en question de l’identité
individuelle, locale ou nationale. Orientée sur les vécus, la quatrième section
vise les expositions où des artistes sondent, assimilent, contestent, réécrivent
ou gomment l’histoire afin de mieux partager leurs points de vue, leurs
souvenirs et leurs expériences.
Le rejet de l’historiographie officielle figure parmi les nombreux gestes
politiques que font les artistes pour dénoncer les injustices sociales – iniquités
dont se désintéressent au demeurant les tenants de la mondialisation.
Comme en témoignent les expositions qu’englobe la section sur la politique
et l’activisme, les artistes canadiens prennent part aux débats politiques sur
le racisme, l’homophobie, l’environnement et la migration en réalisant des
œuvres qui oscillent entre l’anarchisme, l’empathie et l’ironie décapante.
. xxxii .
Inhérentes à la mondialisation, l’inégalité des chances et la répartition
asymétrique de la richesse constituent assurément des éléments récurrents
dans le travail de bon nombre d’artistes d’ici. Portant sur l’économie, tout
comme les expositions qu’elle met en scène, la sixième section se préoccupe
de ceux et celles qui ne profitent pas des retombées de la croissance
économique, de l’effet de l’industrialisation sur l’évolution du paysage –
notamment la physionomie des villes – ainsi que des menaces et limites que
posent les économies mondiales à l’égard de nos modes de vie.
Pour clore l’ouvrage, la septième section traite de la matérialité et de
l’immatérialité de l’art planétaire. Les expositions qui y sont colligées
dissèquent la manière dont les artistes intègrent, s’approprient, transforment
et réinterprètent les objets, les images et les choses éphémères que l’on
produit, distribue et consomme de par le monde.
Somme toute, les expositions virtuelles imaginées pour Art contemporain
canadien et mobilisation universelle : trente-neuf textes d’exposition; cinquantecinq artistes / Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art: Thirty-Nine
Exhibition Essays and Fifty-Five Artists saisissent le caractère de plus en plus
transnational d’artistes attachés d’une manière ou d’une autre au Canada
et de l’art qui se crée au pays ou qui s’en inspire. Intégrant de nouvelles
approches empreintes de transnationalité aux paradigmes traditionnels
de l’histoire de l’art, ces expositions s’appliquent à tracer des perspectives
originales au regard de la variété grandissante des thèmes, des sujets et
des formes qu’adopte l’art contemporain canadien. Délaissant à dessein
l’espace muséal tant dans sa dimension physique qu’institutionnelle, nous
espérons susciter l’investigation des pratiques associées aux expositions
. xxxiii .
virtuelles et de leurs potentialités aux fins de l’étude des conditions sociales,
historiques, politiques, esthétiques et culturelles qui gouvernent l’univers de
l’art planétaire.
Notes
1 ZKM | Musée d’art contemporain, « The Global Contemporary: Art
Worlds after 1989 » – consulté le 6 janvier 2013 au
www.globalartmuseum.de/site/act_exhibition.
2 Jonathan Harris, « Introduction: The ABC of Globalization
and Contemporary Art » dans Third Text, vol. 27, no 4, 2013,
p. 439-441; Anne Ring Petersen, « Identity Politics, Institutional
Multiculturalism, and the Global Artworld » dans Third Text, vol. 26,
no 2, 2012, p. 195-204.
3 Hans Belting et Andrea Buddensieg, « From Art World to Art Worlds »
dans The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds, Hans
Belting, Andrea Buddensieg et Peter Weibel (dir.), Cambridge, The
MIT Press, 2013.
4 « Kunsthistoriker im Gespräch: ‘Die Global Art History’ hinterfragt den
Kanon » dans Artefact – blogue mis en ligne le 27 septembre 2010 et
consulté le 6 janvier 2013 au www.artefakt-sz.net/kunsthistoriker-imgespraech/die-global-art-history-hinterfragt-den-kanon.
5 James Elkins, « Art History as a Global Discipline » dans Is Art History
Global?, James Elkins (dir.), New York et Londres, Routledge, 2007, p. 5,
p. 23.
. xxxiv .
7 Jonathan Harris, « Globalization and Contemporary Art: A
Convergence of Peoples and Ideas » dans Globalization and
Contemporary Art, Jonathan Harris (dir.), Malden, Wiley‑Blackwell,
2011, p. 3.
8 Lieven De Cauter, Ruben De Roo et Karel Vanhaesebrouck, « Art &
Activism in the Age of Globalization » dans Reflect #8, Rotterdam,
NAi, 2011, p. 9.
9
Ibid., p. 322.
10 Peter Weibel, Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global Perspective,
Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007.
11
The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums, Hans Belting,
Andrea Buddensieg et Emanoel Araújo (dir.), Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz
Verlag, 2009.
12
Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture, Hans Belting,
Jacob Birken, Andrea Buddensieg et Peter Weibel (dir.), Ostfildern,
13 Hans Belting, « Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate »
dans The Global Art Museum: Audiences, Markets, Museums, Hans
Belting et Andrea Buddensieg (dir.), Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag,
2009, p. 69.
14
Ibid., p. 48.
15
Ibid., p. 39.
. xxxv .
B ibliography
Belting, Hans, Andrea Buddensieg et Emanoel Araújo (dir.).
The Global Art World: Audiences, Markets, and Museums, Ostfildern
Belting, Hans. « Contemporary Art as Global Art: A Critical Estimate »
dans The Global Art Museum: Audiences, Markets, Museums, Hans
Belting et Andrea Buddensieg (dir.), Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag,
2009.
Belting, Hans, Jacob Birken, Andrea Buddensieg et Peter Weibel (dir.).
Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture, Ostfildern,
Belting, Hans, et Andrea Buddensieg. « From Art World to Art
Worlds » dans The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds,
Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg et Peter Weibel (dir.), Cambridge,
The MIT Press, 2013.
Bracht, Mareike, Caroline Marié et Monica Juneja. « Kunsthistoriker
im Gespräch: Die Global Art History hinterfragt den Kanon » dans
Artefact – blogue mis en ligne le 27 septembre 2010 au www.
artefakt-sz.net/kunsthistoriker-im-gespraech/die-global-art-historyhinterfragt-den-kanon.
De Cauter, Lieven, Ruben De Roo et Karel Vanhaesebrouck. « Art &
Activism in the Age of Globalization » dans Reflect #8, Rotterdam,
NAi, 2011.
Elkins, James. « Art History as a Global Discipline » dans Is Art History
Global?, James Elkins (dir.), New York et Londres, Routledge, 2007.
. xxxvi .
Harris, Jonathan. « Globalization and Contemporary Art:
A Convergence of Peoples and Ideas » dans Globalization and
Contemporary Art, Jonathan Harris (dir.), Malden, Wiley-Blackwell,
2011.
Harris, Jonathan. « Introduction: The ABC of Globalization and
Contemporary Art » dans Third Text, vol. 27, no 4, 2013. p. 439-441.
Ring Petersen, Anne. « Identity Politics, Institutional Multiculturalism,
and the Global Artworld » dans Third Text, vol. 26, no 2, 2012,
p. 195-204.
Weibel, Peter. Contemporary Art and the Museum: A Global Perspective,
Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007.
ZKM | Musée d’art contemporain. « The Global Contemporary: Art
Worlds After 1989 » dans Global Art and the Museum – consulté le
6 janvier 2013 au www.globalartmuseum.de/site/act_exhibition.
. xxxvii .
Remerciements
Première publication électronique de l’Académie du Centre de l’art contemporain canadien (CACC), Art contemporain canadien et mobilisation universelle : trente-neuf textes d’exposition; cinquante-cinq artistes / Global Engagements
Artists est l’œuvre de treize auteurs. À l’automne 2013, ces derniers participaient tous au séminaire d’études supérieures sur les pratiques de conservation qu’animait Loren Lerner, professeure d’histoire de l’art à l’Université
Concordia de Montréal.
Nous désirons remercier les personnes suivantes pour leur précieuse contribution au présent projet d’études et leur collaboration féconde dans la
conception de la publication électronique qui en a résulté.
Mojeanne Behzadi, Marie-Hélène Busque, Eleanor Dumouchel, Adrienne
Johnson, Jessica Kirsh, Pamela Mackenzie, Hannah Morgan, Tara Ng, Victoria Nolte, Lucile Pages, Marie-Eve Sévigny et Barbara Wisnoski, étudiantes à
la maîtrise en histoire de l’art, participantes au séminaire Envisioning Virtual
Exhibitions (« imaginer des expositions virtuelles »), conceptrices des expositions et rédactrices des trente-neuf textes d’accompagnement, ainsi que
Philipp Dominik Keidl, doctorant en études cinématographiques à l’École
de cinéma Mel-Hoppenheim et auteur de l’avant-propos de la publication;
Mark Clintberg, directeur de la rédaction, de même qu’Eve Majzels, réviseuse
du corpus français et de certains textes rédigés en anglais;
. xxxviii .
Pata Macedo, graphiste, éducatrice et conceptrice de la publication;
Martha Langford, titulaire de la chaire de recherche et directrice de l’Institut
de recherche en art canadien Gail et Stephen A. Jarislowsky, et professeure
au Département d’histoire de l’art;
et, tout spécialement, les cinquante-cinq artistes choisis par les étudiants et
dont les œuvres abordent de nombreux enjeux mondiaux.
. xxxix .
Space and Geogr aphy | Espace et géogr aphie
Space & Geography
Espace et géographie
The Mapping, Making, and Meaning of Space:
The Works of Kate Brown and Kay Burns
“Belonging” in Habitats:
The Shells of David Altmejd
and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
Nature! Nature! Nature!: Art,
Give Us An Answer!
Pamela Mackenzie
Suprahuman Agency in the Landscapes
of Sarah Anne Johnson and
Charles Stankievech
Barbara Wisnoski
Dioramas contemporains:
Karine Giboulo et Jeff Thomas
Lucile Pages
Mirror, Mirror on the Gallery Wall: Reflectors
in the Art of Ken Lum and Daniel Barrow
Mojeanne Behzadi
Christos Dikeakos and Benoit Aquin:
Exploring the Relationship between
Indigenous Peoples and the Canadian
Landscape within an Enviro-political Context
Tara Ng
.1.
The Mapping, Making,
and Meaning of Space:
The Works of Kate Brown
and Kay Burns
Marie- Hélène Busque
***
Cartography, the science of making maps, is a tool for understanding and
thinking about the world. If we consider the ubiquity of the Global Positioning
System (GPS) and Google Maps, one could even argue that the map precedes
the territory. Indeed, we perceive and understand the world through maps - the
organization of spaces in an orderly manner, with clear visual configurations.1
Moreover, the new globalized world and its representation through maps and
photography has resulted in an emerging discourse of an interconnected and
integrated world.2 But space is produced not only by maps - it is also a social
construct. One of the pioneers of human geography, French philosopher
.2.
and sociologist Henri Lefebvre suggests that spaces are “fashioned, shaped
and invested by social activities.”3 Geographical data, like architectural and
urban planning elements, is not sufficient to adequately define space.4
Further developed by another French philosopher and historian, Michel de
Certeau, the social production of space implies that one’s engagement and
narration of a geographical reality is key to its social mapping. Indeed, Certeau
refers to place5 as a geographical point that one is aware of, but that one
has not physically navigated.6 Once the individual walks this street, or enters
that building, the place becomes space.7 Certeau summarizes his theory by
stating that “space is a practiced place.” Streets, neighbourhoods, parks, and
other places designed by urban planners and architects are only transformed
into space once pedestrians engage with these sites. Thus, like cartographers
translating physical places into graphic spaces, we participate in the human
mapping of territories by transforming places into experiences. Territories
come to exist through our own experience of them.
In their artwork, Kate Brown and Kay Burns address the questions of social
space and place by reappropriating the tools and grammar of cartography
to map different territories. Using diverse strategies and mediums the artists
interpret spaces according to their personal experiences. Brown’s pieces are
marked by the Canadian landscape, which becomes a space that she inhabits
physically and imaginatively. Burns is interested in the relationship between
people and space in Canada as she addresses questions related to human
geography. Notwithstanding the Canadian context of their works, their
exploration of the phenomenon of cartography has global significance since
they highlight the importance of engaging with and owning space as part
of the process of building one’s identity. Connecting oneself to urban and/
.3.
or rural spaces is a simple yet meaningful act, which has personal and social
implications. As such, situating one’s existence in the world is of paramount
importance in contextualizing, individualizing, and locating oneself in relation
to others. In fact, the works in this exhibition have an even greater worldly
significance if we consider the postmodern context of globalization and its
resulting transnational flows of culture, politics, and economics.
Kate Brown, Mapping of the East River, Manhattan, 1992.
Velvet, burlap, velvet imprint of riverbed, steel cable and pylons. Installation view.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=20943&title=Mapping+of+t
he+East+River%2C+Manhattan+%28installation%29&artist=Brown%2C+Kate&link_id=1909.
.4.
Kate Brown, Mapping of the East River, Manhattan, 1992.
Velvet, burlap, velvet imprint of riverbed, steel cable and pylons. Installation view.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=20943&title=Mapping+of+t
he+East+River%2C+Manhattan+%28installation%29&artist=Brown%2C+Kate&link_id=1909.
In her work, Brown considers two-dimensional representations of space as
spaces in and of themselves. Working in a variety of media – including mixed
media paintings, installations, and time-based projections – she studies the
memory of spaces in how they imprint themselves in one’s own being. In
1991, while pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at the New York School of Visual
Arts she created a series of installations along the coast of the East River in
Manhattan, which she documented in a series of photographs. She hung
a velvet and burlap “hammock” with steel cables and pylons in different
locations along the river in an attempt to mark the boundary between
earth and water. Brown also placed a black velvet imprint of the riverbed
impregnated with tar above or below the hammock. Rather than applying
.5.
colour to the surface of the cloth, she chose to have the tar extract pigments
from the velvet.8 In Brown’s view, the resulting abstract motifs represent
the shapes found in the river and its surroundings. With this performance
the artist physically mapped the spaces of the East River, and invested them
with a gesture of personal belonging by mounting a hammock-like object
reminiscent of a bed or a cocoon. The juxtaposition of the domestic form of a
hammock/bed onto the impersonal landscape suggests Brown’s endeavour
to transform place into space.
Kate Brown, Spatial Translations/Mother of Pearl Stanza (Rond), 1991.
Oil stick, graphite, paper sewn to burlap bag.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=20925&title=Spatial+Transla
tions%2F+Mother+of+Pearl+Stanza&artist=Kate+Brown&link_id=1909.
.6.
Kate Brown, Spatial Translations/ Birch Bark Stanza (Voir), 1991.
Oil stick, graphite, paper sewn to burlap bag.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=51913&title=Spatial+Translat
ions%2F+Blood+Cedar+Stanza+%28Rond%29&artist=Kate+Brown&link_id=1909.
During her studies in New York City, Brown found herself longing for Canadian
landscapes. The natural environment of Canada imbedded in her psyche is
not only made of rocks and trees, but also of memories. Indeed, Canadians,
according to Brown, have a very special relationship to landscape. A vast
country with a relatively small population, the nation allows its citizens to
metaphorically “own” land. As she found herself drawing designs of birch bark
.7.
on the walls of her apartment, it was clear to the artist that Canadian nature
was surfacing from her inner consciousness. In 1991, she created a series
of forty drawings on burlap bags titled Written in the River. She would take
burlap bags from the local coffee shop and paint onto them organic forms
and words that reminded her of the Magnetawan River in Ontario, near her
cabin. These artworks thus combine two spaces and two times: New York
and the Magnetawan River, past and present, urban and rural. Using colours
reminiscent of the inside of a freshwater mussel’s shell and cedar roots, the
work acts like an organic, multi-medium representation of the river, as a
cartographic metaphor for any river.
Kay Burns, Acoustic Mapping: Urban [Montréal], 2003-04.
5:10 min., audio recording.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=fr&mkey=59322&title=Acoustic+Mappi
ng%3A+Urban%2C+%5BMontreal%5D&artist=Kay+Burns&link_id=5312.
.8.
Kay Burns, Acoustic Mapping: Urban [Whitehorse], 2003-04.
5:28 min., audio recording.
•
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=fr&mkey=59323&title=Acoustic+Mappi
ng%3A+Urban%2C+%5BWhitehorse%5D&artist=Kay+Burns&link_id=5312.
Newfoundland-based artist Burns’s work is mostly site-specific and consists
of audio, imagery, locative media, performance art, and installation. As
a member of the Ministry of Walking, she participates in individual and
collective art explorations through the practice of walking.9 Burns focuses
on relationships between people and place, site and memory. She explains
that walking “functions as a kind of hybrid between micro-geography and
human geography addressing attributes of a particular site and human
interrelationships.”10 Acoustic Mapping: Urban explores the auditory experiences
of walking in a city. The recordings represent a one-mile walk in eight cities
in Canada, and they document the dialogue between people and urban
.9.
space. The raw audio material is then modified: it is fragmented, laid over
other excerpts, repeated and/or replayed at different speeds and pitches. The
sound tracks are accompanied by a composite image made from various data
that reference each location’s geophysical coordinates: the number of steps in
each walk, photo documentation of the action, city maps showing the path of
the walk, and an artefact from the place. While the audio recordings represent
a specific city like Montreal or Whitehorse, these sounds could have been
recorded in any city or rural town in the world. Her Acoustic Mapping series
highlights the shared characteristics of urban and rural realities.
Kay Burns, Ode to Walking, 2006.
5:00 min., video.
http://s878.photobucket.com/user/yaksnrub/media/documentation/ode.mp4.html.
. 10 .
In the video poem titled Ode to Walking, Burns gives meaning to walking as
a way of mapping space. Here the artist considers walking as a personal way
to engage with and use space. The video records a walking performance, and
evokes the social power an individual has in creating a new kind of mapping
and narration of space. As the most basic mode of transportation walking is
the means par excellence to narrate and engage with a place, and to transform
it into space. A walk is meditative, personal, and customizable. The video also
addresses the difference between walking through urban versus suburban
locations. In the voice-over of the video, Burns explains that she prefers
suburban places since cities have predetermined paths for walkers, whereas
suburbia allows for more mobility.
The works of Brown and Burns show that maps and other graphic
representations of space are not the only ways of mapping territories. Both
artists explore concepts of human geography and the relation between
space, people, and memory. Interacting with the works of these two artists,
the viewer can become more aware of his or her relation to space and realize
the importance of spatial engagements.
Notes
1 Guillaume Monsaingeon, “Mappamundi,” Mappamundi: Art et
cartographie (Marseilles: Parenthèse, 2013), 12.
2 John Rennie Short, Yeong-Hyun Kim, “Introduction,” Globalization
and the City (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), 12.
. 11 .
3 Henri Lefebvre, “Social Space,” The Production of Space, trans. Donald
Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991), 73.
4 Ibid., 77.
5 In the French version, de Certeau uses the word “lieu.”
6 Michel de Certeau, “Chapter IX: Spatial Stories,” The Practice of
Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988), 117.
7 In the French version, de Certeau uses the word “espace.”
8 Kate Brown, “Artist Statement,” accessed October 20 2013,
http://www.katebrown.ca/.
9 The Ministry of Walking is a collective that started in Calgary and
now has members all across Canada. Their mission is to give value
to the experience of walking and use it in their everyday life, work,
and artistic practice. The Ministry offers a series of organized walks, a
wander guide, and other various projects.
10 Kay Burns, “Kay Burns,” accessed October 20 2013,
http://www.kayburns.ca/Home.html.
. 12 .
Bibliography
Brown, Kate. “Artist Statement.” Accessed October 20 2013.
http://www.katebrown.ca/.
Burns, Kay. “Kay Burns.” Accessed October 20 2013. http://www.
kayburns.ca/Home.html.
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven
F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald
Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1991.
Ministry of Walking. “The Ministry of Walking.” Accessed December
17, 2013. http://www.ministryofwalking.ca/.
Monsaingeon, Guillaume. Mappamundi: Art et cartographie.
Marseilles: Parenthèse, 2013.
Rennie Short, John, Kim, Yeong-Hyun. Globalization and the City.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.
. 13 .
“Belonging” in Habitats:
The Shells of David Altmejd
and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
***
“One must live to build one’s house, and not build one’s house to live in.”1
– A mollusk’s motto, as described by Gaston Bachelard
In their art practices, David Altmejd (b. 1974, Montreal) and Luis Jacob (b. 1970,
Lima, Peru) have been preoccupied with building their own versions of homes
and habitats, providing new ecospheres for humans, animals, insects, and
other types of organic matter. Whether exposing the internal organs of the
body or modifying children’s playgrounds, they call upon the viewer to engage
with the work, either through visceral or participatory responses. These new
environments cause us to question our sense of belonging in the city – “beingthere”2 – or in the world at large - “being-in-the-world.”3 Altmejd’s and Jacob’s
artwork reformulates our notion of culture as a bounded, homogeneous, and
. 14 .
unified whole that too often simplifies experience into functionalist means
and ends. Both of these artists seek to blur the divide between the civilized
anthropologist-outsider and those being studied, accounting for variations,
nuances, and exceptions in regards to public norms and traditions.
In his book The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard discusses the implications
and geometries of a shell - including its role as a hiding mechanism, as a place
for repose, and/or as an object of fear and curiosity. In this exhibition, Altmejd’s
Plexiglas vitrines and Jacob’s geodesic domes function as “shells”, in that they
insinuate form as the habitat of life. This selection of works contains a tension
between interior and exterior, physically and metaphorically breaking through
preconceived notions of structure and space. The shell is a welcome image in
our current endeavors to re-establish a holistic engagement with nature and
each other, regardless of our geographic location or institutional affiliations.
As Abbé de Vallemont explains: “when it is a matter of nature, we rarely find
ourselves on familiar ground.”4
David Altmejd’s The Vessel (2011) is an example of his recent experiments
with large-scale vitrines, some over thirty feet in length, evoking new modes
of display. Minerals, chains, and threads are meticulously assembled in a
symmetrical fashion, whereby their materiality takes on a delicate grace that
reaches beyond their material form. The Vessel signifies a dematerialized body,
and represents the artist’s marvelous interpretation of the human nervous
system. The piece functions as a visual interpretation of decentralization,
redistribution, and reconstitution, wherein “property itself has become a more
social endeavor.”5 After investigating the problematic nature of postmodern
discourses such as New Internationalism, institutionalized multiculturalism,
. 15 .
SPACE and GEOGR APHY | ESPACE et GÉOGR APHIE
and identity politics, wherein exclusion is masked by inclusion, Anne Ring
King has claimed that there is no such thing as global art or “worldviews.”6
She argues that an art coming from everywhere would in fact mean nowhere.
David Altmejd, The Vessel, 2011.
Plexiglas, chain, plaster, wood, thread, wire, acrylic paint, epoxy resin, epoxy clay, acrylic gel,
granular medium, quartz, pyrite, assorted minerals, adhesive, wire, pins, and needles,
260.4 × 619.8 × 219.7 cm. Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York.
http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/david-altmejd/images.
All of the figurative elements displayed in the vitrine of The Vessel suggest dispersion, over-complicated networks, and decomposing matter. For instance,
at the heart of the vitrine are plaster hands and arms that are fused together
in a form resembling a fleet of swans; the heads of these birds are molded out
of clay, and their beaks are crafted out of castings of the artist’s fingers. Giant
hands at the sides of the vitrine claw at the base of the piece. Finally, the rear
of the piece features a decapitated head – a recurring motif in Altmejd’s body
. 16 .
of work – suggesting an Ourobouros. A seemingly infinite quantity of handpainted threads bind all these forms together. There is a strong tension brewing within the vitrine: a series of cracks and fissures are visible in the Plexiglas
casing, and gobs of glue have been integrated to affi x these broken seams.
These creatures have withdrawn into their shell but are preparing a way out
- a temporal explosion.7 Thus, the figures depicted in this piece are changing
and transforming themselves. Altmejd, in his typical fashion, tries to convey
everything about life, death, and the between, but the monsters he creates
are unable to contain themselves, breaking through the glass headfirst.
David Altmejd, The Orbit, 2012.
Plexiglas, mirror, chain, metal wire, thread, acrylic paint, epoxy resin, epoxy clay, acrylic gel,
synthetic hair, artificial eyes, plaster, adhesive, wire, 73 x 260 3/4 x 74 in.
Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York.
http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/david-altmejd/images.
. 17 .
“A creature that comes out of its shell suggests daydreams
of a mixed creatures half-fish, half-flesh, half dead, half alive,
half stone, half man.”8 – Bachelard
The Orbit (2012), like The Vessel, is a large Plexiglas vitrine. However, in this
work, Altmejd wanted to incorporate architectural elements so that the
objects in the piece would not just float inside an invisible frame.9 He
employed different types of surfaces to construct space, both real and infinite,
symbolizing new means of order, classification and knowledge. He realized
that his chosen surface materials have limitations, evident in the holes made
by materials trying to break through.10 The artist does not see these ruptures
as destructive, but rather constructive in that they allow new ways of going
through space. This represents a radical potential for self-transformation. The
myriad of reflections and penetrations in this work are the result of objects
spontaneously erupting, creating a threshold of disturbing, interiorized zones
between fantasy and reality.
As David Norr explains in relation to this work, the word “orbit” defines the
“gravitationally curved path around an object, an extended field of force.”11
In biology, the term is used to describe an eye socket. Although the eye links
the body to the world, “the orbit without the eye,” Altmejd states, “is just
meat.”12 The artist describes the “supermateriality” of this piece, which features
fractured array of fruits, chains, thread, glass, oozing fluids, and strange body
parts. In these formal decisions, the artist demonstrates a close attention to
complexity and detail, allowing room for improvisation and chance in the
ways that materials respond to one another.13 Though grotesque, his work is
laced with cheeky, romantic, campy, and surreal elements. His treatment of
. 18 .
matter bears reference to philosopher Paul Valéry’s statement that: “a crystal,
a flower or a shell stands out from the usual disorder that characterizes most
perceptible things.”14 Altmejd believes that we should relate to art like we
relate to nature, in that sculpture can function not just as communication, but
secretion of new meaning.15
Luis Jacob, Flashlight, 2005.
Temporary public art installation, Toronto Sculpture Garden. Courtesy Birch Libralato Gallery, Toronto.
http://www.birchlibralato.com/artists/?work=718.
Jacob has been experimenting with imagery of the house and the home
for over ten years. Perhaps inspired by his emigration from Peru to Canada,
. 19 .
he became interested in the development of a sense of belonging in one’s
dwelling place, and he often appropriates key methods of do-it-yourself
culture, such as graffiti and postering. Flashlight (2005) is an interactive space
intended for viewer inhabitation and use, which opens up the philosophical
and cultural possibilities of the social, and activates our individual and
collective relationships to nature.16 The message “EVERYBODY’S GOT A LITTLE
LIGHT UNDER THE SUN”, which is written in LED signage and references lyrics
from the Parliament song “O Flash Light,” hovers above a children’s geodesic
climbing dome. Above the dome hovers a mirror ball. Both the sign and the
mirror ball are powered by two different sources: solar panels are installed
to capture energy from the sun; alternately, bicycle pedals are attached to
electrical generators to transform the muscle power of participants into
electricity.17 These power sources are contingent both on the climate’s
variations and the activities of the garden’s visitors. The playground – and the
playful behavior it elicits, from spontaneous dance to blowing bubbles – can
be observed from a nearby platform equipped with 1960s inspired chairs.
As Jacob proposes, “At a time like today marked by oil wars, electrical blackouts, increasing disillusionment about the sustainability of our manners of
consumption, and a fiercely contested socio-political realm that is redefining
the meaning of democracy under global capitalism, FLASHLIGHT can be
seen as a utopian proposition for what may well be an as-yet-untapped
form of power functions as [sic] a utopian proposal.”18 This piece establishes
a relationship between the installation as a whole and the aspirations for
self-transcendence and social union embodied in Funk culture from the
1970s, which the inclusion of a Parliament lyric and the modification of a
children’s playground into a discotheque both represent. The piece proposes
. 20 .
that human interaction is a source of power parallel to the natural power
of the sun - under which we are all equal.19 Art today often fails to engage
in a dialogue of equality with ‘others’ and instead harvests its control over
meaning production.20 Flashlight invites a group action that reconfigures
the aesthetic as an experiential form that gathers knowledge of the social,
whether between individual or collective subjects.
Luis Jacob, Noam Gonick, Wildflowers of Manitoba, 2007.
Video installation, PVC tubing, 126 x 168 in. Courtesy Birch Libralato Gallery, Toronto.
Jacob collaborated with Noam Gonick to create Wildflowers of Manitoba
(2007), which is intended to offer a vision for a better world. This artwork
looks back to 1960s utopian models and the flourishing of Canadian dreams
. 21 .
for self-sustaining architecture.21 The two artists ventured into the woods for
a week, and emulated pagan rituals inside of Gonick’s cabin near Beaconia,
Manitoba – home to Winnipeg’s nude beach. They lived like hippies on a
commune, sharing tasks, and holding minimal personal property. The footage
was presented in a furnished geodesic dome, acting as the interior foil to
Flashlight. The films feature four young men living off the grid in an idealistic
survivalist camp on the shores of Lake Winnipeg during the summer of 2006.
The loosely scripted scenes establish a naturalist idyll seemingly removed
from modernity. Like wildflowers, the male subjects are intimately tied to a
seductive meadow that is bordered by abandoned railway tracks and virgin
beaches. Staged for the camera, the set and subjects evoke a distant, more
innocent era where alternative, collective lifestyles flourished. The music by
visionary seventies Québécois rock band Harmonium suggests the potential
for sexual and political freedom. Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob’s young male
subjects perform homosocial activity to achieve spiritual transcendence.
While an intense presence is projected by each body on screen, the subjects
lose their theatrical pretense when dwarfed against the Canadian landscape
of water, sky, rocks and bush. The artists are looking to the past in search of models to unify a crumbling
society, comparing and connecting “the industrial world” with other
alternative models.22 The visitor to this artwork is invited into its architectural
habitat, or “shell,” to dream, repose and reflect in solitude; the film’s projections
feed into his/her visions and fantasies. According to Gonick, the piece had
a strong resonance for children and elders, possibly due to their affinity for
imagination and nostalgia.23 Wildflowers of Manitoba tempts us to consider
that another world is possible, relating to Bachelard’s observation that, “nature
. 22 .
obtains too quickly the security of a shut-in life, but the dreamer is unable
to believe that the work is finished when the walls are built, and thus it is
that shell-constructing dreams give life and action to highly geometrically
associated molecules.”24
The shells of David Altmejd and Luis Jacob offer alternative means of shelter,
protection and refuge. The viewer engages with the work either viscerally
or physically, co-existing with other organisms in an attempt to represent
universal meaning. The tense interplay between exterior and interior
complicates our understanding of “systems” – whether the human nervous
system, legal system, or solar system – offering alternative modes of ordering
the universe.
Virtual Exhibition
Drawing from the ideas of Angela Dimitrakaki, I envision this virtual
exhibition from the perspective that art institutions can be laboratories for
experimentation with the social.25 This exposition will act as a democratic
space where cultural translation may freely take place, a possibility encouraged
through its availability online. Web users from all over the world can visit the
space, and freely navigate through the selected works. This mode of viewing
will help rethink art’s position in present-tense capitalism. Institutions are
being threatened by the more all-encompassing industries of entertainment
and education, which disassociate property from consumption, and art from
culture.26 What is interesting in the context of this exhibition is that visitors will
be unable to buy the artworks but will instead consume its immaterial effects.
Art becomes life.
. 23 .
The homepage will be clean and simple, and the splash page will display
only the exhibition title. On the left, tabs will lead to the curatorial statement,
biographies of the artists, video interviews, Bachelard’s chapter on shells,
and short summaries of each of the four works. Sub-tabs will offer visual
accompaniment for each artwork. For the pieces by Altmejd, The Vessel
and The Orbit, the user will have the freedom to virtually zoom-in and walk
around the work – much like the navigation functions on Google Maps –
enabling him/her to inspect every detail. For Wildflowers, a video recording
will provide the perspective of how the viewer was supposed to see the work
– lying down inside the dome, watching the projections above. To maintain
Flashlight’s collaborative, playful value, an online game will be available on the
site. The web user may select an avatar that will be able to interact with other
users who are visiting the page at that time. He/she will have several options
to chose from, including “blow bubbles,” “dance,” “climb dome,” “sit on chair,”
and so forth. In addition, the lighting will change according to real-time, being
as the original work was installed outside. The user will also be able to activate
the LED sign and mirror ball by clicking repeatedly on the pedals of a virtual
bicycle.
Notes
1 Gaston Bachelard, “Chapter 5: Shells,” in The Poetics of Space (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1994), 106.
2 John Tresch, “Technological World-Pictures: Cosmic-Things and
Cosmograms,” Isis 98, no. 1 (2007): 87.
3 Tresch, 89.
. 24 .
4 Bachelard, 118.
5 Paddy Johnson, “David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen Gallery,” Art Agenda
(2011): http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/david-altmejd-at-andrearosen-gallery/.
6 Anne Ring Peterson, “Identity Politics, Institutional Multiculturalism,
and the Global Artworld,” Third Text 26 (2012): 202.
7 Bachelard, 111.
8 Ibid., 109.
9 David Norr, “David Altmejd: The Orbit,” MOCA Cleveland, posted in
2012, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.mocacleveland.org/
exhibitions/david-altmejdthe-orbit.
10Ibid.
11Ibid.
12Ibid.
13Ibid.
14 Bachelard, 104.
15Norr, http://www.mocacleveland.org/exhibitions/david-altmejdtheorbit.
16 “AGO Podcast #7 – Swing Space: Luis Jacob Artist Talk,” Art Gallery of
Ontario, posted in 2006, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.ago.
net/ago-podcast-7-swing-space-luis-jacob-artist-talk.
17 Luis Jacob, “Flashlight: Artist Statement,” Toronto Sculpture
Garden, posted in 2005, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.
torontosculpturegarden.com/LuisJacob.htm.
. 25 .
18Ibid.
19Ibid.
20 Peterson, 197.
21 Tammy Thorne, “Nuit Blanche features Wildflowers of Manitoba,”
University of Toronto, posted in 2008, accessed February 8, 2014,
http://www.news.utoronto.ca/nuit-blanche-features-wildflowersmanitoba.
22 “Wildflowers of Manitoba | MOCCA | Museum of Contemporary
Canadian Art, Toronto,” Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art,
posted in 2007, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.mocca.ca/
blog/exhibition/wildflowers-of-manitoba/.
23Ibid.
24 Tresch, 84.
25 Tammy Thorne, “Nuit Blanche features Wildflowers of Manitoba,”
University of Toronto, posted September 23, 2008, accessed
February 8, 2014, http://www.news.utoronto.ca/nuit-blanchefeatures-wildflowers-manitoba.
26 Bachelard, 115.
27 Dimitrakaki, 318.
28 Ibid., 309.
. 26 .
Bibliography
“AGO Podcast #7 – Swing Space: Luis Jacob Artist Talk.” Art Gallery of
Ontario (2006): http://www.ago.net/ago-podcast-7-swing-space-luisjacob-artist-talk.
“Wildflowers of Manitoba | MOCCA | Museum of Contemporary
Canadian Art, Toronto.” Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.
Posted in 2007. http://www.mocca.ca/blog/exhibition/wildflowersof-manitoba/.
“Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob: Wildflowers of Manitoba / Wilde
Gallery, Berlin / Interview.” Vernissage TV. Posted March 3, 2008.
http://vernissage.tv/blog/2008/03/03/noam-gonick-and-luis-jacobwildflowers-of-manitoba-wilde-gallery-berlin-interview/.
Bachelard, Gaston. “Chapter 5: Shells.” In The Poetics of Space. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1994, 105-136
Balzer, David. “David Almejd: Modern Myths.” Canadian Art (2011):
http://www.canadianart.ca/reviews/2011/03/31/david_altmejd/.
Dimitrakaki, Angela. “Art, Globalization and the Exhibition Form.”
Third Text 26 (2012): 305-319.
Jacob, Luis. “Flashlight: Artist Statement.” Toronto Sculpture
Garden. Posted in 2005. http://www.torontosculpturegarden.com/
LuisJacob.htm.
Johnson, Paddy. “David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen Gallery.” Art Agenda
(2011). http://www.art-agenda.com/reviews/david-altmejd-at-andrearosen-gallery/.
. 27 .
Norr, David. “David Altmejd: The Orbit.” MOCA Cleveland. Posted
in 2012. http://www.mocacleveland.org/exhibitions/davidaltmejdthe-orbit.
Peterson, Anne Ring. “Identity Politics, Institutional Multiculturalism,
and the Global Artworld.” Third Text 26 (2012): 195-204.
Thorne Tammy. “Nuit Blanche features Wildflowers of Manitoba.”
University of Toronto. Posted in 2008. http://www.news.utoronto.
ca/nuit-blanche-features-wildflowers-manitoba.
Tresch, John. “Technological World-Pictures: Cosmic-Things and
Cosmograms.” Isis 98, no. 1 (2007): 84-99.
. 28 .
Nature! Nature! Nature!:
Art, Give Us an Answer!
Pamel a Mackenzie
***
This exhibition aims to critically address the prevailing attitudes towards the
environment in our emerging global society. It focuses on how scientific and
artistic representations of nature discursively frame the relationship between
the subject and its world. This exhibition reveals that human activity is
popularly understood as a quality that is removed, and often fundamentally
distinct, from natural processes. Equally, there is a tendency for nature to be
considered as a given - as something that is always already there, and that
exists in some kind of balance. By this logic, humans act upon this otherwise
stable and self-sustaining natural world, throwing off its regular, smooth
operation. Within this framework, we are implored to care for Mother Nature,
a fragile entity that is hypothesized to be struggling against our destructive
activity in order to maintain its intrinsic order. Certainly some parts of this
view seem to be correct: our global ecosystem is certainly fragile, and human
. 29 .
beings are having such a massive impact on the globe that many ecologists
contend that we have entered a new geological era – the anthropocene,
named for our anthropocentric species.1
However, despite this popular way of conceiving of the world we are doing
a terrible job taking responsibility for, or even taking seriously, the increasing
threat to the current environment. This specific environment is the only one
which is capable of sustaining what we commonly understand to be the
“natural order.” There is a cognitive dissonance between what we believe
to be true – that our environment is fragile and requires sensitive handling
and attention if we expect it to continue sustaining its natural order and our
species – and how we choose to act on these beliefs – by continuing to
undertake large and immensely destructive projects such as, the Alberta oil
sands. This displays a malfunction somewhere in our line of reasoning, or in
our system of beliefs concerning the environment. Taking into account the
potential lifespan of our species, it seems clear that if we wish to survive, then
we need to do more than simply continue sorting our recycling or buying
energy-saving light bulbs.
Because of the pressing weight of this issue, many potential solutions to our
frankly irresponsible attitude towards the environment have been introduced
from every imaginable angle, and by many different sources: from young
activists and academics, to corporations who sell dubious commodities
designed to act as forms of penance for the consumer.2
Some have suggested that in order to save the world we need to learn how to
be more empathetic as a species. From this perspective, our preoccupation
. 30 .
with gadgets and our decreasing face-to-face interaction with others has
caused us to become emotionally dysfunctional. We no longer care about
one another, and cannot even manage to be considerate to our immediate
community of peers, let alone be considerate to the future generations of
people whose lives depend on our actions today.3 Others have said that the
solution is, in fact, that we need to be less empathetic, since empathy clouds
our judgement and makes us unable to properly conceive of the long-term
dangers that our activities present to the world. Instead, these thinkers argue,
we need to take a pragmatic, analytical look at the current situation and come
up with a rational plan of action that may not seem like all that much fun
immediately, but will ultimately benefit future generations of people whose
lives depend on our actions today.4
These arguments are rhetoric at best, and sophistry at worst, and do not do
justice to the complexity of the issue at hand. Clearly, many factors contribute
to our confused attitude towards nature: some of these are ethical, some
are political, and many are economical. The inaccurate concept of nature
underlies these various considerations. This is not to argue for a “right” way to
approach or conceive of nature, but rather to point out that there does seem
to be a problem with the way we employ and understand what nature is and
how we as a species relate to it.
In the interest of exploring this theme, this virtual exhibition looks at
contemporary artistic production that is explicitly dealing with “the natural,”
especially in relation to the natural sciences. The selected works express and
challenge our basic assumptions and tendencies regarding how we envision
and categorize nature; looking at representations of nature in art can provide
. 31 .
us with valuable insights and opportunities regarding how we imagine and
act in relation to the natural. Using art as a tool for analyzing and understanding
scientific concepts and practises can deepen our understanding in those
areas, and contribute to introducing new agendas for both art and science.5
The artists in this exhibition all employ differing understandings of the natural
and present them in varying media, each taking a critical position concerning
reductive scientific discussions of nature and the world.
Neil Tenhaaf’s In Vitro (The Perfect Wound) (1991) is composed of four long
horizontal florescent lightboxes, mounted on a wall one on top of the other.
Each rectangular box is divided into six equally sized sections, creating the
impression of twenty-four separate compartments, each of which holds a
curious arrangement of scientific beakers. The work resembles a scenario in
a science lab, featuring shelving with a collection of specimens suspended in
jars waiting to be examined. The colours are subdued hues of red, and brown,
with a faint and somewhat sterile purplish glow. This choice of colour creates
a sort of uneasiness in the viewer and gives the piece an eerie quality. Each
beaker portrayed contains a portion of the human body, showing how the
probing of scientific analysis results in the fragmentation of individual parts
from the whole.
. 32 .
Neil Tenhaaf, In Vitro (The Perfect Wound), 1991.
Four fluorescent lightboxes, Duratrans transparencies, 153.8 x 125.8 x 20.2 cm. Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada.
ccca.concordia.ca/artists/detail_image.html?languagePref=en&mkey=65051&link_id=378.
. 33 .
In Vitro functions as a critique of scientific practices that, in their reductive view
of the world, fail to account for the interactive nature of biological processes.
Examining each component of a system in isolation leads to this fragmentation
of parts, each framed individually through the tools and methodologies of
scientific analysis, but this method lacks any vital movement, and renders the
functioning system impotent. This view of nature – as something that can be
dissected and catalogued in the interest of obtaining knowledge, reduced to
description rather than viewed as active and irreducible – leads to problems in
understanding global processes and dealing with complex systems in nature.
Jeannie Thib, Terra Incognita (I), 1993. Linocut on kozo paper, ink, 250 x 200 cm.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=64658& title=Terra+Incogni
ta+%28l%29&artist=Thib%2C+Jeannie&link_id=956.
. 34 .
Jeannie Thib’s Terra Incognita (I) also deals with dissection and anatomy. This
linocut image features a medical diagram of a nude female. It includes an
array of odd, almost floral representations of the internal organs. Each organ is
shown outside the nude female figure and labelled as a separate component
of the organic body. Upon examining the image closely, one will notice that
these depictions of organs are somewhat strange and unfamiliar. The organs
are unlike the images in medical textbooks today. This is because, according
to Thib, they are based on anatomical illustrations from European treatises of
the Middle Ages, and on ancient Chinese manuscripts that date from before
dissections were regularly performed.6 These illustrations are therefore not
particularly useful for surgical purposes. However, the artist contends that
“...coupled with the fragmentary nature of the information provided, [this
artwork] undermines the authority of the empirical, scientific model. The work
proposes a geography of the body as an unmapped territory, a region known
only in the imagination.”7
While there is some validity to the claim that the descriptive scientific process
used in today’s mainstream medicine fails to account for the entire functioning
of different biological systems, nevertheless many people would prefer to visit
a modern hospital than to have their blood let or be diagnosed as having too
much black bile. Surely an illustration such as this one by Thib, which lacks
the refinement and accuracy of today’s medical understandings of the body,
reminds viewers of the advantages of modern medicine.
. 35 .
Carl Taçon, Jeannie Thib, Field Study, 2006.
Indiana Limestone, 16 in x 16 ft x 4 in. Toronto, Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=70977
&title=Field+Study%2C+%3Ci%3E%5Ba+collaboration+with+Artist+Jeannie+Thib%5D%3C%2Fi%3E&art
ist=Ta%C3%A7on%2C+Carl&link_id=1615.
Field Study, by Carl Taçon and Jeannie Thib, represents traditional natural
imagery through the form of limestone relief sculpture. The work, which
runs along the wall at eye level, resembles the frieze of an Ancient Greek
temple. The artists intend for the piece to educate children at the Bloorview
Kids Rehabilitation facility about the environmental issues facing the natural
ravine site adjacent to the building. There are two registers in the frieze. The
top register depicts botanical forms carved in high relief, while the bottom
register shows abstracted scientific diagrams of natural processes relating to
plant growth. The rhythmical composition creates an overall sense of balance
and movement.
. 36 .
The juxtaposition of these two ways of viewing nature – first through familiar
descriptive imagery, and then using abstracted geometrical diagrams to
show movement and growth – offers a reflective look at natural processes.
If we consider the lower register of the sculpture to show the ideal form of
nature, viewed in abstraction and with the pretence of reliable descriptive
accounts of general movement and growth, and then take the top register to
refer to the real world of strange, irregular, abnormal growth of actual plants,
we can recognize the break between the structural, conceptual ideal, and
the actual expression of these forms in nature. Field Study can be viewed as a
critique of the scientific approach to the natural, which attempts to describe
and normalize growth patterns in plant specimens that are depicted as fairly
unruly and irregular natural forms.
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, The Blue Rock, 1999.
Fibreglass and Astroturf, 48 x 36 x 30 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=66717&title=
The+Blue+Rock&artist=Borins%2C+Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel&link_id=11020.
. 37 .
The Blue Rock (1999) by Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins is a large, strange
rock, made out of lightweight fibreglass and covered in blue Astroturf.8
Commonly used to mimic grass, Astroturf is far more affordable and requires
much less upkeep than actual grass.
The Blue Rock has a somewhat rough, furry texture. Although its scale is not
immediately apparent from this picture, it is also fairly large: four feet long and
almost three feet high. Undoubtedly, this object would look out of place in
most contexts, especially if placed in what we typically understand to be a
natural setting, such as a forest. The artists claim that The Blue Rock is meant to
function “as an expression of the prevalent North American desire to integrate
the synthetic within the realm of the real.”9 The synthetic here refers to that
which is manmade, in contrast with the real, presumably referring to the
concrete existence of material things formed by natural processes.
This interesting distinction may also be problematic. What leads us to perceive
this critical divide between the manmade and the natural? Certainly, some of
the things we make become integrated with the natural world in a negative
sense, as is evident through many alterations in global ecosystems caused by
manmade products. By synthetic, do we mean materials that are produced
only through human technology? Perhaps there are more useful definitions
of the synthetic.
Rather than view The Blue Rock as expressing a desire to integrate the synthetic
with the real of nature, we can reframe this piece as an example of a new
object, formed through the activity of human beings, that now has an
autonomous natural existence. A continuum that includes both the activity of
. 38 .
natural processes and the productivity of man has a permanent effect on the
global environment. The world is indifferent to how new objects come about,
or how they are incorporated into its structure and processes.
Maybe we can strive to understand ourselves as extensions of the natural
world, as being one with the material universe. This would not mean that
we are obligated to fall into step with some natural order, or to preserve the
globe in some arbitrary posited state of normalcy, or to become passive
secondary actors in the unfolding of global environments. We should view
nature more sincerely, as we see ourselves: fragile, unstable, unreliable, prone
to error and abnormality, and, in a sense, receptive to creative forces.10 This
exhibition suggests we should be critical of reductive scientific claims, of our
desire to preserve, and of our unwillingness to consider human by-products
as natural objects. The selected works encourage us to remain sceptical about
facile “solutions,” or distinctions between the natural and the artificial, as these
could create roadblocks to realizing the affective potential of human activity.
Notes
1 Joseph Stromberg, “What is the Anthropocene and Are We in It?”
Smithsonian Magazine (January 2013), accessed October 1, 2013,
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/What-is-theAnthropocene-and-Are-We-in-It-183828201.html.
2 In his discussions of popular manifestations of ideology, Slavoj
Žižek, a philosopher and social critic, often uses the example of the
commodification of the compulsion to “save the world” or “make
a difference” by the Starbucks franchise. In this marketing scheme,
. 39 .
Starbucks promises to donate money to a certain cause for every
coffee that you buy or for every time you “check in” to a franchise
on Facebook. Does this not give the impression that Starbucks is
holding the forest hostage? It is as though they were saying, “Yes,
we can donate 75,000 dollars to the forest, the money is here, and if
you really care about those 5000 trees, you’d better go visit your local
Starbucks! No guarantees they’ll be saved otherwise!” This is a familiar
form of advertising in North America, and it is one of the most sinister
and least useful methods of effecting real change as it encourages
people to feel that they are doing their part, while their negligible
contributions serve only to assure them that, yes, they care about the
environment and are doing their part to “save” it. For more of Žižek
on this subject, check out Žižek’s Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.
3 Jeremy Rifkin, “The Empathic Civilization,” Ted: Best of the Web; RSA
Animate (August 2010), accessed October 2013, https://www.ted.com/
talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization.
4 Paul Bloom, “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy,” The
New Yorker (May 20th 2013), accessed October 1, 2013, http://www.
newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/05/20/130520crat_atlarge_
bloom?currentPage=all.
5 Stephen Wilson, Art + Science Now (London: Thames and Hudson,
2010), 16.
6 Jeannie Thib, “Terra Incognita,” CCCA, accessed October 1, 2013, http://
ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=
64659&title=Terra+Incognita+(ll)&artist=Jeannie+Thib&link_id=956.
. 40 .
7 Ibid.
8 Astroturf is the fake grass that covers sports fields, which first came
into use in 1964. “Astroturf: History Timeline,” Astroturf.com, accessed
October 1, 2013, http://www.astroturf.com/about-us/historytimeline/.
9 “Blue Rock.” CCCA Canadian Art Database, accessed
October 1, 2013, http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image.
html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/big/m/marmanborins/
marbor057.jpg&cright=&mkey=66717&link_id=.
10 Perhaps we can follow Žižek’s argument that “the lesson of ecology
is that we should go to the end here and accept the non-existence
of the ultimate big Other, nature itself with its pattern of regular
rhythms, the ultimate reference of order and stability.” Slavoj Žižek,
“Censorship Today: Violence, or Ecology as a new Opium for the
Masses,” lecture transcript, lacan.com (EBSCO Publishing, Inc.),
accessed October 1, 2013, http://www.lacan.com/zizecology2.htm.
Bibliography
“Astroturf: History Timeline.” Astroturf.com. Accessed October 1, 2013.
http://www.astroturf.com/about-us/history-timeline/.
“Blue Rock.” CCCA Canadian Art Database. Accessed October 1, 2013.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.htmllanguagePref=en&
mkey=66717&title=The+Blue+Rock&artist=Borins%2C+Jennifer+Mar
man+and+Daniel&link_id=11020.
. 41 .
“Cassini Probe sees plastic ingredient on Titan moon.” BBC News:
Science and Environment. October 1, 2013.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24348667.
Bloom, Paul. “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy.” The
New Yorker, May 20, 2013. Accessed October 1, 2013.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/
atlarge/2013/05/20/130520crat_atlarge_bloom?currentPage=all.
Hadot, Pierre. The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the Idea of Nature. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2006.
Lewontin, Richard. “Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA.” CBC
Massey Lectures, 1991. Accessed October 1, 2013.
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey-archives/1990/11/07/1990-masseylectures-biology-as-ideology/.
Marris, Emma. Rambunctious Garden. London: Bloomsbury, 2011.
Morton, Timothy. Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental
Aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Rifkin, Jeremy. “The Empathic Civilization.” Ted: Best of the Web; RSA
Animate. Posted August 2010. Accessed October 1, 2013. https://
www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civilization.
Stromberg, Joseph. “What is the Anthropocene and Are We in It?”
Smithsonian Magazine. Posted January 2013. Accessed October 1,
2013. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/What-is-theAnthropocene-and-Are-We-in-It-183828201.html.
. 42 .
Thib, Jeannie. “Terra Incognita.” CCCA. Accessed October 1, 2013.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref
=en&mkey=64659&title=Terra+Incognita+(ll)&artist=Jeannie+T
hib&link_id=956.
Wilson, Stephen. Art + Science Now. London: Thames and
Hudson, 2010.
Žižek, Slavoj. “Censorship Today: Violence, or Ecology as a new
Opium for the Masses.” Lecture transcript. lacan.com. EBSCO
Publishing, Inc. Accessed October 2013. http://www.lacan.com/
zizecology2.htm.
. 43 .
Suprahuman Agency in
the Landscapes of Sarah
Anne Johnson and Charles
Stankievech
Barbar a Wisnoski
***
The Arctic polar region is an immense, ice-covered ocean with a unique
and fragile ecosystem. In an era of climate change and destabilized weather
patterns, this region has gained heightened geopolitical significance. Canada
is but one among eight circumpolar nations concerned with Arctic territorial
and resource sovereignty, and environmental conservation.
Although it covers almost 40% of Canada’s landmass, this remote, inhospitable
landscape is home to less than 1% of its population. Yet the idea of the North is
a key element in Canada’s national identity. Canadians’ self-representation as a
. 44 .
“northern people” permeates historical and contemporary narratives through
art, politics, and pop culture.1 The ineffable beauty and sense of immeasurable
scale of the Arctic has inspired its symbolic role as both pristine utopia and
literal end of the earth.
In this exhibition, Sarah Anne Johnson (b. 1976, Winnipeg) and Charles
Stankievech (b. 1978, Okotoks) draw on their experiences of the Arctic from
research expeditions and artist’s residencies. The artists create representations
of landscapes that turn on the dual meaning of real and imagined spaces.
Documentary photography and video footage of the landscape provide the
raw material for their artworks; the landscape is a backdrop whose neutral,
almost abstract quality lends itself to being rearticulated as a conflicted
space. There is a kind of aesthetic seduction at work in their representations
of the Arctic that, paradoxically, eerily allude to doom and catastrophe. In
both of these art practices, humans are either absent but implicit, or present
but dwarfed by a vast landscape that asserts its awesome presence. While
one Arctic journey may not produce a large ecological footprint, Johnson
and Stankievech each tell a tale of global environmental politics and human
intervention that leaves its mark.
Explosions (2011), from the Arctic Wonderland series, presents a surreal
photographic landscape in which amusing starbursts in an array of pleasing
colours and patterns decorate a dusky sky. Diluted paint has been hand
applied on to a chromogenic print, and the pigment drips down, staining
the water below with a gesture of sloppy exuberance. Fireworks are perhaps
best observed while in mind-altering states, but in this work suggests absurd
indulgence rather than drug-induced transcendence. Utopia is not just
. 45 .
beyond the next colourful explosion. The celebration depicted in Explosions is
oddly compelling, but the fireworks’ interruption of a serene horizon may give
the viewer an uneasy feeling. Simultaneously sublime and silly, this landscape
functions as a perfect metaphor for the short-sighted pursuit of instant,
ephemeral gratification.
Sarah Anne Johnson, Explosions, 2011.
Chromogenic print, photo retouching dyes, 71 x 106 cm.
http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=4411.
. 46 .
Sarah Anne Johnson, Explosions Panorama, 2013.
Chromogenic print and photospotting ink, 76 x 228 cm.
http://www.saulgallery.com/artists/sarah-anne-johnson/arctic-wonderland#15.
In the larger format of Explosions Panorama (2013), the fireworks take a less
dominant role in the pictorial field and become peripheral to the quietly
magnificent panoramic view. Here the frivolous charms of the fireworks are
more subtly rendered, and hence this representation is less convincing and
more restrained. We see the fireworks more clearly as being a blatant stain
on the landscape, which induces an urge to return the Arctic to ecological
harmony by simply wiping the pretty blemish away, thus leaving the lone
figures to quietly contemplate the grandeur of nature without the crass
superfluity of a quick visual thrill.
. 47 .
Sarah Anne Johnson, Black Box, 2011.
Chromogenic print, photospotting and acrylic inks, gouache and India ink, 71 x 106 cm.
http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_artwork_exhibit_display.asp?ArtworkID=4327&Exhibit
ID=221.
As if on a pilgrimage to Mecca, a ragged line of people trail off into the distant
Arctic horizon, drawn in the direction of a mysterious, Kaaba-like black box.2 In
contrast to the festive atmosphere of Explosions, the incongruous architectural
element in Black Box (2011) has a strange, menacing quality. Johnson subtly
magnifies the landscape’s sublime materiality by contrasting it with her handpainted black monolith. The box’s curvilinear top echoes the mountains’
contours, but its otherwise sharp edges belie the object as being humanmade. Also recalling the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space
Odyssey, an object that triggered cognitive leaps in apes and humans when
touched, this domineering black box is the ultimate alien presence in the
Arctic landscape.
. 48 .
Charles Stankievech, Loveland, 2011-2013.
Installation with HD video, soundtrack by Tim Hecker,
fluorescing emeralds, and 1901 science fiction novel The Purple Cloud.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2012/05/24/ohcanada/.
With Loveland (2011-2013), Charles Stankievech creates an immersive video
experience that simulates standing in a desolate Arctic landscape. The viewer
is completely enveloped in the seemingly boundary-less quality of the wallsized projected video. At one point, a purple cloud – a colour associated
with spiritual fulfillment – comes rushing toward the camera, then past it,
growing and then subsiding, until the viewer is once again left standing in
the minimalist space. The smoke is both beautiful and supernaturally sinister.
Where does it come from? Is it harmful? And why does it keep coming back?
. 49 .
Like Johnson, Stankievech suggests an Arctic sublime that is less innocent
than its traditional Burkean version, one that refers to culture rather than
nature, that is, a technological sublime. Loveland’s purple smoke pays visual
and conceptual homage to colour-field painter Jules Olitski’s 1968 painting
Instant Loveland,3 but in Stankievech’s artwork, the seductive effect of purple,
produced by a type of coloured smoke grenade used in army exercises to
disguise movement, connects an ethereal northern landscape with its
militaristic uses.
Charles Stankievech, The Soniferous Æther of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond, 2012.
35mm film installation, 10:18 min. loop. Still.
http://www.stankievech.net/projects/aether/.
. 50 .
The Soniferous Æther of The Land Beyond The Land Beyond (2012) is an audiovisual installation produced during Stankievech’s artist residency at Alert
Wireless Station, the northernmost permanent settlement on earth, operated
by the Canadian Armed Forces. The film consists of looped, time-lapsed, black
and white still images of a continually dark, starry, moon-like landscape and
contrasting images of the uninhabited interior of the Station. Accompanied
by an industrial yet otherworldly soundtrack produced by electronic musician
and sound artist Tim Hecker, this piece conveys a deeply unfamiliar, unheimlich
space that Stankievech defines as “at the threshold of the terrestrial and the
celestial.”4 Even the evidence of inhabitants in the interior shots seems to
suggest an abandoned, lifeless place. The Soniferous Æther poetically uses real
documentary footage to evoke a fictional space, a land of the technological
sublime, both anachronistic and futuristic. Not the North of the Canadian
imagination, this unearthly frontier injects idyllic Arctic fantasy with a historical
and political dimension that undermines utopian dreams of landscapes of
untouched splendour.
Understandings of the high Arctic are enriched by Johnson’s and Stankievech’s
portrayals of these extreme landscapes within a global framework.
Furthermore, through aesthetic means these artists contend that the outpost
is not just a barometer of the effects of global environmental exploitation.
The Arctic, as Stankievech describes, “define[s] and locate[s] the centre.”5 The
process of searching for the “centre” informs our understanding of ourselves –
a process that Johnson calls our “search for a better world.”6
. 51 .
Notes
1 “The Idea of North” is also the title of a sound documentary work
by internationally-recognized musician Glenn Gould, part of his
“Solitude Trilogy” commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation (CBC) in celebration of Canada’s centennial year in 1967.
2 The Kaaba is the black cube building housing Al-Masjid al-Haram,
Islam’s most sacred mosque and pilgrimage destination.
3
The Purple Cloud, the second element in the installation, refers to an
obscure, apocalyptic 1901 science-fiction novel set in the Arctic and
featuring poisonous purple smoke. The third element, displayed
alongside the novel in a vitrine, is comprised of fluorescent-lit
emerald stones.
4 Charles Stankievech, “Northern Scene” [interview], CBC Radio, posted
Friday April 26, 2013, accessed November 18, 2013, http://www.cbc.
ca/player/Radio/Local+Shows/Ontario/All+in+a+Day/ID/2381913477/.
5 Robert Enright, “Outposting,” Border Crossings, 126, posted May 2013,
accessed November 18, 2013, http://bordercrossingsmag.com/
article/outposting-edgings-towards-art-and-science-an-interviewwith-charles-stanki.
6 Robert Enright and Meeka Walsh, “The Ages of Johnson: An
Interview with Sarah Anne Johnson,” Border Crossings, 27, no. 3
(August 2008): 58.
. 52 .
Bibliography
Enright, Robert. “Outposting.” Border Crossings 126, no. 4 (2013).
http://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/outposting-edgingstowards-art-and-science-an-interview-with-charles-stanki.
Accessed November 18, 2013.
Enright, Robert. and Meeka Walsh. “The Ages of Johnson: An
Interview with Sarah Anne Johnson.” Border Crossings 27, no. 3
(2008): 58-72.
Neal, Alan. “Northern Scene – Charles Stankievech” [interview].
All in a Day. CBC Radio. April 26, 2013. http://www.cbc.ca/player/
Radio/Local+Shows/Ontario/All+in+a+Day/ID/2381913477/
. 53 .
Dioramas contemporains :
Karine Giboulo et Jeff
Thomas
Lucile Pages
***
Le diorama est une expression visuelle à la fois courante et très ancienne.
Pourtant, sa définition, ayant beaucoup suscitée de controverse au fil des
siècles, reste pour le moins floue. Son étymologie provient des mots grecs dia,
à travers, et horama, vision;1 littéralement, à travers la vision, ou par la vision.
Quelques unes des plus vieilles apparitions du diorama sont conservées au
Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York. Il s’agit de petites reconstitutions
d’environnement en bois peint placées à l’intérieur de tombes égyptiennes.2
Plus tard, au Moyen-âge, apparaît la crèche. En 1822 pourtant, une invention
de Louis Daguerre transforme le concept du diorama. Daguerre peignait des
deux côtés de larges toiles translucides servant de décors sur les scènes de
théâtres, et les animait ensuite grâce à un jeu d’éclairages laissant apparaître
. 54 .
progressivement le versant des toiles. Très en vogue au 19ème siècle, les
dioramas de Daguerre étaient reproduits en miniature, et vendus à la sortie
des théâtres. L’apparition de la photographie fera cependant disparaître le
terme pendant quelques décennies, jusqu’en 1930, où il fut réemployé de
façon générale à toute représentation en modèle réduit, à des fins éducatives,
ou divertissantes. La décennie suivante voie l’apparition des dioramas dans
les musées d’histoire naturelle, dans lesquels des reproductions de taille réelle
d’animaux, d’hommes et de végétaux sont disposés devant une peinture
en trompe-l’œil. Des maisons de poupées aux mises en scènes muséales
en passant par les reconstitutions miniatures historiques, le diorama est un
concept large qui a subit beaucoup de transformations. Néanmoins, une
constante semble se profiler à travers toutes ses formes, la représentation en
trois dimensions de scènes réalistes ou imaginaires. Son aspect statique est
l’un de ses plus beaux attraits, en ce qui lui octroie, en plus de sa dimension
spatiale, une dimension temporelle, par l’élaboration d’une narration complexe
figée dans le temps. Aujourd’hui, sur la scène artistique, le diorama est une
pratique en expansion.3
L’œuvre de Karine Giboulo (née en 1980) est un très bon exemple de ce
genre. Ses représentations tridimensionnelles à l’aspect bédé de notre
monde contemporain soulèvent des questions aussi controversées que
la mondialisation, les relations coloniales et postcoloniales, et la société de
consommation. Pour cette exposition, j’ai choisi de mettre les dioramas de
Giboulo en relation avec les photographies de Jeff Thomas (né en 1956),
mettant en scène de petites figurines d’«indiens» devant des panoramas de
villes ou de constructions. Pour Giboulo, il s’agit de redécouvrir des facettes
. 55 .
de l’histoire nord américaine oubliée (volontairement?) en se réappropriant la
formule dioramique, son système de représentation et son iconographie.
Karine Giboulo, City of Dreams, 2013.
Argile polymère, acrylique, plexiglas et matériaux divers, vue d’exposition, Artmûr.
http://artmur.com/artistes/karine-giboulo/city-of-dreams/.
C’est après une résidence d’artiste à Mumbai en 2013, que Karine Giboulo
réalise l’une de ses plus récentes œuvres, City of Dreams. Il s’agit d’une ville
en suspension, reliée par des passerelles à deux points d’encrages, une mine
et un champ. De ses deux environnements ruraux et industriels migrent des
populations, contraintes par les conséquences économiques néfastes de la
désindustrialisation, à transporter avec eux leurs biens et trouver des logements de fortunes dans cet espace surpeuplé. L’urbanisation fulgurante des
pays du sud est un phénomène planétaire très inquiétant. Depuis 2010, pour
. 56 .
la première fois dans l’histoire de l’humanité, plus de la moitié de la population mondiale vit en ville, une population qui doublera d’ici 2050.4 Surchargé,
l’environnement urbain tel que nous le connaissons ne peut absorber une
si grande population. C’est pourquoi, depuis les années 70, l’apparition de
bidonvilles a lentement transformé les grandes villes du sud, les étendant sur
des surfaces si vastes qu’il est aujourd’hui nécessaire de clarifier le concept de
périphérie.5 En se réappropriant la ville, ces habitants démunis se confrontent
à la richesse urbaine, et la côtoient désormais quotidiennement.
Si le thème de l’œuvre soulève des questions aussi importantes que dramatiques, elle ne manque certainement pas d’humour. Surplombant les routes
encombrées trône une piscine, autour de laquelle se prélassent les fameuses
marmottes, personnages récurrents dans le travail de l’artiste. Métaphore de
la société occidentale, ces bêtes douillettes et bedonnantes illustrent à merveille les populations de l’ouest, insouciantes et consommatrices. Mais elles
sont également un moyen de “critiquer sans pointer” affirme l’artiste, pour
qui l’occidental n’est pas nécessairement un homme blanc. 6 Ailleurs, quatre
personnages accroupis dans une décharge trient des détritus. Rien de très
drôle pourrait-on penser. Mais l’ironie de l’artiste n’est jamais très loin, car
un peu plus loin, dans une galerie d’art à l’abri des rues bondées, ces quatre
mêmes personnages réapparaissent, photographiés cette fois. Magnifiée, leur
tragique condition de vie est devenue le sujet principal d’une œuvre d’art,
observée nonchalamment par une riche amatrice.
Une autre référence au marché de l’art se cache également dans la multitude
de détails de l’œuvre. Une des très célèbres sculptures de Jeff Koons est
introduite sur une voiture surchargée et tirée à bout de bras par un homme
. 57 .
pieds nus. Ces clins d’œil au monde de l’art contemporain ne sont pas anodins.
Comme le dit l’artiste, les sculptures de Koons sont si populaires qu’elles
incarnent presque des marques, au même titre que les voitures Mercedes.7
Dans le contexte de City of Dreams, le marché de l’art apparaît comme une
source de plus de consommation, et perd alors sa valeur immatérielle.
Karine Giboulo, What is My Name?, 2013.
Plexiglas, argile polymère, peinture acrylique et matériaux divers, vue d’exposition,
McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Courtoisie de l’artiste.
. 58 .
Karine Giboulo, What is My Name? (détail), 2013.
Plexiglas, argile polymère, peinture acrylique et matériaux divers, vue d’exposition,
McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Courtoisie de l’artiste.
Si Karine Giboulo s’intéresse particulièrement aux pays du sud, pensons aux
bidonvilles en Haïti de Village Démocratie (2010-2012), ou encore aux usines
chinoises de All you can eat (2007), sa toute dernière œuvre, What is My Name?
. 59 .
(2013), se penche cette-fois sur un problème national, les écoles résidentielles
autochtones du Canada. Instaurées en 1820, elles ne furent fermées que dans
les années 1980. Considérés comme génocide culturel, les pensionnats pour
amérindiens visaient à « civiliser » les jeunes autochtones, les arrachant de
leurs familles et les isolant de leurs villes natales pour mieux les acculturer.
Tenues par des représentants de l’église catholique, elles étaient chargées
d’inculquer la foie chrétienne, les valeurs occidentales et le savoir-vivre des
« blancs ». En plus de l’interdiction de parler leur langue et de mentionner leur
culture, beaucoup d’enfants furent victimes d’abus, psychologiques et sexuels.
What is Your Name? symbolise cette pratique révolue. Suspendue aux branches
d’un arbre, un cube transparent accueille une école, dont l’architecture, divisée en quatre pièces, aborde les thèmes mentionnés ci-dessus. Au pied de
l’arbre, une scène de vie traditionnelle de campement est représentée par
quelques personnages, supervisées par des soldats anglais. Leur position renforce les racines culturelles des enfants, isolés eux en hauteur. Contrairement à
l’arbre généalogique, dont les branches traduisent l’évolution générationnelle
des familles, l’arbre de l’artiste traduit lui la cassure culturelle et familiale que
représentaient les écoles résidentielles. La salle de classe, au deuxième étage
de la structure et surplombée par plusieurs crucifix, traduit cette acculturation. Alors qu’au tableau sont écrites deux questions en anglais – “What is
your name?” et “Where do you come from?” – une sœur, maîtresse d’école,
s’apprête à corriger un enfant, debout face à elle, les mains tendues, tandis
qu’elle tient dans sa main un bâton de bois. On peut facilement imaginer ici
que l’enfant se soit risqué à donner son nom dans sa langue maternelle, qu’il
est désormais formellement interdit d’employer.
. 60 .
À côté de la salle de classe, deux sœurs font la toilette de jeunes filles
autochtones, leur coupant les cheveux à grands coups de ciseaux. Au premier étage, un dortoir accueille huit lits, autour desquels sont agenouillés des
enfants, priant, surplombés cette fois par de larges corbeaux noirs, à la charge
symbolique morbide. Mais alors que tous s’adonnent à la prière, le huitième
enfant, allongé dans son lit, et caché par un mur en bois, reçoit la visite du
prêtre, qui s’apprête à le découvrir.
Les dioramas de Giboulo capturent des mondes pour la plupart très éloignés
de la vie des privilégiés. Nous les surplombons pour les contempler dans leur
totalité, tels des dieux omniscients, pourtant impuissants devant eux. Mais le
vrai choc de ces œuvres est esthétique. Leur aspect bédé contraste de façon
radicale avec leur thématique, très souvent dramatique. Pour l’artiste, il s’agit là
d’une volonté de légèreté face aux drames représentés. Son intérêt réside plus
dans sa rencontre avec les personnages, avec leur humanité, que dans une
dénonciation pure. Bien que son travail soit extrêmement détaillé, de façon
presque documentaire, c’est également la joie qu’elle retient de ses multiples
voyages, et qu’elle transmet au travers de son esthétique si singulière. Il s’agit
également pour elle d’une stratégie d’attraction, un moyen de piquer la curiosité des spectateurs pour les pousser à chercher, à regarder, et à parler surtout,
redonnant aux galeries d’art leur convivialité.
Jeff Thomas est un photographe Iroquois. Depuis les années 2000, il met en
scène de petites figurines d’indien dans des photographies qu’il prend à travers le monde. Depuis 2004, il s’est lancé dans une série de photographies sur
le thème des chemins de fer. À la fin du 19ème siècle, des voies ferrées furent
construites aux États-Unis et au Canada ralliant les côtes est aux côtes ouest.
. 61 .
Véritable symboles nationalistes des deux nations en devenir, les chemins de
fer ont toutes fois posé de nouveaux problèmes aux populations autochtones.
Pour Thomas, il s’agit de poser la question du devenir des ces populations,
auxquelles la privatisation de leur terres s’est ajoutée à leur envahissement.8
Jeff Thomas, Indian on Tour, Buffalo Dance, Museum of Natural History, New York City, 2001, 2001-02.
Épreuve couleur, 20 x 30 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=46741&title=Indian+on+To
ur%2C+Buffalo+Dance%2C+Museum+of+Natural+History%2C+New+York+City%2C+2001&artist=Jeff+
Thomas&link_id=2007.
Dans Buffalo Dance (2001-02), la petite figurine, pierre angulaire de la série
Indian on Tour, a été cette fois-ci photographiée au pied du musée d’histoire
naturelle de New York,9 hôte d’une très grande collection de dioramas.
Leur échelle taille réelle, leurs décors basés sur des faits scientifiques et leur
. 62 .
panorama peint en trompe l’œil en font des installations dont le premier but
est éducatif. Ceci étant dit, ces installations maintiennent une représentation
idéalisée de la nature. Ce sont des constructions visuelles et en tant que tels,
il faut nous rappeler que toute représentation en dit plus long sur son auteur
que sur le sujet de son image. Avec cela en tête, je propose de relire l’œuvre de
Jeff Thomas. En photographiant sa figurine devant des bas reliefs d’animaux
des prairies, l’artiste met en avant l’illusion des dioramas, leur décalage avec la
réalité. Ce n’est pas le médium que l’artiste condamne, mais bien sont utilisation
dans une institution intrinsèquement liée au savoir et à la connaissance.
La petite figurine nous rappelle que si pour la plupart, les dioramas représentent des environnements naturels sauvages, quelques hommes furent inclus
ci et là, toujours non occidentaux. L’institution, à travers le diorama, lie donc
primitivisme et sauvagerie aux cultures éloignées de l’occident. L’homme sauvage est réduit au rang d’espèce à étudier, au même titre que les animaux. Une
pratique qui ne parait pas si anodine lorsqu’on se remémore les expositions
universelles internationales de la fin du 19ème siècle, dans lesquelles l’exposition
d’hommes de femmes et d’enfants de cultures éloignées était justifiée par la
soif de savoir du grand siècle industriel. Les musées d’histoire naturelle ont par
la suite perpétué cette pratique en exposant dans leurs locaux ces populations venues d’ailleurs.
. 63 .
Jeff Thomas, Folded Arms, Memory Junction, Brighton, Ontario, 2005.
Épreuve couleur.
http://scoutingforindians.com/tour.html#.
Folded Arms est une photographie de la série Iron Horse, que l’artiste a fait ici
évoluée et intitulée “Where will you go now?” Iron Horse est, en anglais, une
expression pour faire référence aux trains et fut beaucoup utilisée durant les
premières décennies de son apparition, en particulier aux États-Unis. Dans
cette œuvre, un chef «i ndien », si l’on en juge par sa coiffe, se tiens les bras
croisés et la tête haute devant un wagon de train sur lequel est écrit « Memory
Junction ». Memory Junction est un musée d’Ontario, situé à Brighton, ouvert
en 1995. L’institution prend ses locaux dans l’ancienne station de train de la
ville, l’une des trente-deux construites par la Grand Trunk Company en 1857
pour relier Montréal et Toronto.10 Le wagon de train bouche la perspective de
l’image, ne laissant apparaître que la figurine devant lui.
. 64 .
Jeff Thomas a pris soin de déposer au pied de l’indien de petites branches
de bois, donnant ainsi des éléments de décors à la taille de sa petite figurine. La lumière, éclairant le personnage par la droite, lui donne du relief, et
accentue sa tridimensionnalité. Le wagon en arrière plan n’en parait que plus
plat encore. Ainsi, grâce à une composition dans laquelle des objets en relief
sont disposés devant un décors en deux dimensions, Jeff Thomas se réapproprie la mise en scène dioramique des musées d’histoire naturelle. Le médium
photographique pourrait alors être interprété comme métaphore de la vitre
séparant le diorama de ses visiteurs.
Jeff Thomas, Red Robe, Toronto, Ontario, 2008.
Épreuve couleur. Courtoisie de l’artiste.
. 65 .
L’effet se produit également dans l’œuvre Red Robe, de façon encore plus évidente. La photographie offre une perspective en profondeur de la voie ferrée
passant par Toronto. Placée au premier plan de la scène, la figurine indienne
se dresse face à nous, comme pour nous interroger. À ses pieds, un petit socle
recouvert de buissons, accentue encore la tridimensionnalité du jouet. Seuls
les premiers centimètres de la voie ferrée sont laissé net par le photographe,
laissant apparaître de petits cailloux entre les crampons de la voie. Rapidement,
le décor se floute légèrement, pour que seul «l’indien» soit l’objet de notre
attention. C’est une stratégie que l’on retrouve dans les dioramas des musées
d’histoire naturelle dans lesquels seuls les éléments en trois dimensions attirent réellement notre œil, tandis que leur décor peint, dans des couleurs plus
effacées, leur offre un environnement plus ou moins réaliste grâce à l’utilisation d’une perspective en point de fuite. Dans la photographie de Jeff Thomas,
le texte “Where will you go now?” flotte au-dessus de la voie ferrée. La question du devenir des peuples autochtones canadiens est encore une fois posée
par l’artiste; une question qui résonne toujours aujourd’hui lorsque l’on pense
par exemple au Plan Nord du gouvernement québécois pour lequel les enjeux
économiques se réalisent au détriment des populations autochtones.11
Les dioramas privent leurs sujets d’avenir. Statufiés au même titre que des
espèces disparues (pensons aux célèbres dinosaures du musée d’histoire
naturelle de New York), les populations autochtones se retrouvent classées
dans l’histoire, représentantes d’une réalité qui n’est plus, alors que l’occident
devient lui représentant du futur. Une telle logique justifie alors le peu d’égards
qui leur est accordé et les pratiques coloniales qui, malgré tout, persistent
aujourd’hui. En se réappropriant les installations dioramiques, Jeff Thomas
critique également l’idéologie qui les sous-tend.
. 66 .
Karine Giboulo et Jeff Thomas reprennent tous deux les stratégies visuelles du
diorama, quelle que soit sa définition. Ma première réflexion concernant ces
deux artistes était leur esthétique commune. En utilisant des objets à l’aspect
bédé, presque enfantin, les deux artistes se distinguent de l’art activiste. Ils
dénoncent certes, mais ne pointent pas du doigt. Ils créent un décalage entre
leur objet d’étude et sa représentation. Ce contraste leur permet de se distancier de leurs sujets, pour mieux les analyser. Tous deux travaillent de façon
assez similaire. Un temps conséquent de recherche est au préalable effectué,
donnant à leurs œuvres une précision quasiment documentaire. En contraste,
leur esthétique attire l’œil curieux des spectateurs, qui, de leur côté, ne se
doutent de rien. Le jouet, lui, est un lien vers l’enfance. Une période utopique
mais aussi intime, nous renvoyant, en tant que spectateur, à notre propre être.
C’est peut-être ici ce que recherchent inconsciemment les deux artistes. Nous
faire regarder les œuvres à travers les yeux d’enfant, pour qui l’homme est
avant tout un homme, avant d’être le représentant d’une quelconque culture.
Il est également important de mentionner le fait que les deux artistes adoptent
le point de vue de l’Autre. Karine Giboulo déshumanise les occidentaux, et
personnifie les populations qu’elle représente. Il n’est pas question ici de recréer notre société pour en dégager les aspects négatifs, mais de directement
capter le point de vue extérieur, le point de vue de l’autre, pour mieux nous
regarder nous-même. Chez Jeff Thomas, l’utilisation de stéréotypes incarnés
par les figurines d’indiens dans des décors industriels occidentaux renvoie à
notre environnement quotidien, un espace volé aux populations natives. Mais
au lieu de dénoncer, Thomas ne fait que constater. Cet espace pourrait être
celui d’une cohabitation paisible et harmonieuse, un espace de dialogue où
chacun aurait sa place. En revenant sur des évènements historiques, il ne fait
. 67 .
que pointer les erreurs du passé, qui ne cessent de se perpétuer. L’éducation
est un enjeu majeur pour les deux artistes. Savoir c’est comprendre. Alors quoi
de mieux que le jeux pour apprendre?
Exposition virtuelle
Pour mon exposition virtuelle, je prévoie une première page sobre, dans laquelle apparaîtra le titre de l’exposition et les noms des artistes, auxquels seront associés des hyperliens menant vers leurs sites internet personnels. Deux
images des deux artistes seront exposées. En cliquant sur l’une, le visiteur
aurait accès à une présentation sobre de l’exposition; une page pour chaque
artiste, à la façon du site de la galerie ArtMûr. Un premier texte apparaîtra, celui
de ma proposition d’exposition, accompagné des photographies des différents projets. Puis, en cliquant sur les images, une autre page s’ouvrirait dans
laquelle apparaîtra les images nécessaires à la compréhension des œuvres,
accompagnées de textes descriptifs. Des hyperliens dans le texte mèneraient
vers des informations historiques, par exemple sur les dioramas, les relations
coloniales canadiennes et les écoles résidentielles.
Revenons à la page d’accueil du site. En cliquant sur la deuxième image, le
visiteur serait alors emmené vers une exposition virtuelle en trois dimensions.
Les dioramas de Karine Giboulo seraient reproduits, permettant aux visiteurs
de naviguer autour d’eux, de zoomer sur leurs détails, et de les contempler sous
plusieurs angles. Autour des dioramas seraient reproduites les photographies
de Jeff Thomas. Ainsi, en naviguant autour des dioramas, les visiteurs auraient
toujours en vue les œuvres du photographe. Une photographie serait
également reproduite au plafond de la salle imaginaire. Ainsi, lorsque le visiteur
. 68 .
changerait son angle de vue pour un angle en contre plongé, un des projets
de Jeff Thomas serait encore présent dans son champ de vision. Ce principe
reproduirait les dioramas miniatures de Louis Daguerre du 19ème siècle, des
petites boites manipulables. En mêlant la 3D des œuvres de Giboulo avec
la 2D des photographies de Thomas, le visiteur retrouverait le concept des
dioramas muséaux, ainsi que celui des maisons de poupées, l’une des plus
anciennes formes de dioramas.
Notes
1 Karen Wonders, Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of
Natural History (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993), 12.
2 Toby Kamps, Small Worlds: Dioramas in Contemporary Art (La Jolla:
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2000), 7.
3 Ibid., 6.
4 “Global Health Observatory,” World Health Organisation, accédé le 20
avril 2013, http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/
urban_population_growth_text/en/.
5 Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (New York: Verso Publishing, 2006), 37.
6 Conversation privée avec Karine Giboulo, le 28 novembre 2013.
7Ibid.
8 Conversation privée avec Jeff Thomas via courriels.
9 J’ai déjà présenté cette œuvre lors de ma première présentation,
mais sa référence directe au musée d’histoire naturelle ne me
permet pas de l’éviter. Lors de cette présentation, je discutais des
. 69 .
stéréotypes perpétués par les dioramas muséaux et les pratiques
douteuses des musées d’histoire naturelle. Cette fois, je présente
l’œuvre en lien avec l’idéal que représentent les dioramas.
10 “Looking back in Brighton: Memorial Junction Railway Station,”
Northumberlandnews.com, 13 juin 2012, accédé le 15 novembre 2013,
http://www.northumberlandnews.com/community-story/3770146looking-back-in-brighton-memory-junction-railway-station/.
11 Julie Lévesque, “Le Plan Nord: une violation des droits autochtones.”
Mondialisation.ca, le 3 mai 2012, accédé le 15 novembre 2013,
http://www.mondialisation.ca/le-plan-nord-une-violation-desdroits-autochtones.
Bibliographie
Arpin, Marjolaine. “La démesure miniaturisée.” Esse art + opinions 70
(2010): 20-25.
Arpin, Marjolaine. “The Miniature and the Boundless.” Espace Culture
101 (2012): 16-19.
Barnabé, Catherine. “City of Dreams.” Artmur.ca. Accédé le 15
novembre 2013. http://artmur.com/artistes/karine-giboulo/city-ofdreams/.
Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. New York: Verso Publishing, 2006.
“Global Health Observatory.” World Health Organisation. Accédé le 20
avril 2013. http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/
urban_population_growth_text/en/.
. 70 .
Hill, Richard William. “Jeff Thomas: Working Histories.” In Jeff Thomas:
A Study of Indian-ness, édité par Katy McCormick, 9-19. Toronto:
Gallery 44, 2004. Publié conjointement avec l’exposition du même
nom, présentée à Gallery 44, Toronto.
Kamps, Toby, “Small Worlds: Dioramas in Contemporary Art.” In
Small Worlds: Dioramas in Contemporary Art, édité par Toby Kamps,
Ralph Rugoff, et Musée d’art contemporain de San Diego, 6-11.
La Jolla: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2000. Publié
conjointement avec l’exposition du même nom, présentée au
Musée d’art contemporain de San Diego.
Karine Giboulo/Artiste. Accédé le 21 octobre 2013.
http://www.karinegiboulo.com.
Lévesque, Julie. “Le Plan Nord: Une violation des droits autochtones.”
Mondialisation.ca. 3 mai 2012. Accédé le 15 novembre 2013.
http://www.mondialisation.ca/le-plan-nord-une-violation-desdroits-autochtones.
“Looking Back in Brighton: Memorial Junction Railway Station.”
Northumberlandnews.com. 13 juin 2012. Accédé le 15 novembre 2013.
http://www.northumberlandnews.com/community-story/3770146looking-back-in-brighton-memory-junction-railway-station/.
Thomas, Jeff. “Jeff Thomas: A Study of Indian-ness”. Accédé le 18
septembre 2013. http://scoutingforindians.com/biography.html.
Wonders, Karen. Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums
of Natural History. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993.
. 71 .
Mirror, Mirror on the
Gallery Wall: Reflectors in
the Art of Ken Lum and
Daniel Barrow
Mojeanne Behz adi
***
When we confront a mirror image of ourselves, this image confronts us
with self-perceptions and provides us with tangible representations of our
identities. These bright, shiny surfaces contribute to the root of our selfimage, unforgivably casting back to us what we present to them. Powerful
and charged with energy, mirrors possess near-mystical properties that have
made them a never-ending source of fascination. In fact, the idea of reflection
itself is inherent to art making. It is, after all, through self-expression that we
perform our identity beyond what is immediately perceivable.
. 72 .
Throughout history, artists have seen mirrors as rich symbolic objects and
have addressed this in their work. Notably, Spanish painter Diego Velázquez
and Flemish painter Jan van Eyck have included representations of mirrors
in their paintings to create dynamic and layered images which play with
the concept of perception and interact with viewers beyond the borders
of the painting. Mirrors are also significant in vanitas paintings, which
often incorporate reflective surfaces as part of an assortment of objects
symbolizing the inevitability of death and the Christian principle proscribing
the indulgence of earthly pleasures.1 In contemporary art, the use of mirrored
surfaces directly involves viewers by reflecting an image of them. Anonymity
in the exhibition space is threatened as we partake in artworks containing
mirrors. Gallery-goers appear inescapably real and unaltered in the physical
space of the gallery when confronted with artworks of this kind. This physical
site of mirroring is countered by virtual forms of mirroring, including social
spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and related digital media where our personal
identity has entered the public sphere.
Ken Lum (b. 1956) and Daniel Barrow (b. 1971) approach the concept of
mirrors through the performance of identity. These artists use mirrors literally
and metaphorically as a way to address personal and social identities. In the
last two decades, several mirrors have appeared in Lum’s work, and as is
typical of his earlier photographic practice, texts and images are integrated
in these works to give them a social dimension. In fact, the later mirror-based
works encourage us to also see his earlier photo-text works as mirroring
devices similarly engaged with social issues such as racism, poverty, and
other forms of marginalization. Barrow, in comparison, in live performances
with overhead projections and storied animations inspired by biography,
. 73 .
often presents mirrors to refer to the shattered human psyche and dangerous
social experiences. Although the perspectives that these artists take to
reflective surfaces are different, what is consistent between their practices is
the assessment of the contemporary “self” as being in a state of crisis.
Ken Lum, Photo-Mirror: Sunset, 1997.
Maple wood, mirror, photographs, 137.2 x 99.1 cm, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.
http://blog.art21.org/2011/03/14/calling-from-canada-ken-lum-30-year-retrospective-at-vancouver-artgallery/#.Ur4L52RDtKk.
. 74 .
The Photo-Mirrors series (1997) by Lum consists of multiple wood-frame
mirrors hung along the walls of a gallery space. They are placed on the wall
at a height and with proportions reminiscent of portrait paintings. Presented
vertically like a portrait, the viewer becomes a temporary subject of the
work. Along the borders of these mirrors Lum has inserted found family
photographs to evoke a sense of domestic life. The mirrors, located in the
sterile environment of the gallery space, alienate the viewers who, upon
looking at the pictures around the frame, feel disconnected from both the
people represented in the found photographs, and their own reflection. The
convergences of portraits involved in these artworks are destabilized as the
viewer moves around the room. Each mirror is situated in a way that when
the viewer looks in one mirror they can also see their reflection in another,
thus further destabilizing the viewer. It is typical of Lum’s practice to play with
the viewer’s sense of self and to subtly trigger them into feeling somewhat
vulnerable.2
. 75 .
Ken Lum, Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression, 2002.
Installation with mirrors and text, dimensions variable, collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
http://v2stage.publicdesign.ca/work/mirror_maze_with_12_signs_of_depression.
Lum’s Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression (2002) calls to mind the labyrinthlike structures often found in funhouses and amusement parks. The premise
of this artwork is similar to that of such sites: to disorient the participants
who walk through the structure, and to create an obstacle course, therefore
making it difficult to find the exit. In Mirror Maze Lum asks visitors to take a
similar entertaining journey but this time the maze not only confuses the
viewer’s perception of self and space but also adds a psychological layer
to the experience. The artist has included printed phrases on the mirrored
walls that describe a variety of symptoms associated with self-diagnosed
depression. These signs, isolated from one another, can describe the reality
. 76 .
of any given individual. Signs include: “I cry for no reason,” “I’m afraid of doing
something bad,” “I feel hopeless about the future,” “I am sad most of the
time,” “I feel worthless and often guilty,” and “I often feel tense and irritable.”
These sentences appear alongside, and overlap with, the viewer’s reflection,
suggesting an association between the person and these signs. This
constructed maze brings us face to face with psychological vulnerabilities
and the physical manifestations of depression.
Ken Lum, What Am I Doing Here?, 1994.
Chromatic print, aluminium, enamel, sintra, 182.9 x 243.8 cm, private collection, West Vancouver.
http://www.misashin.com/artists/ken-lum/selected-works/.
. 77 .
What Am I Doing Here? is part of a series of photo-text images that Lum first
created in the early 1990s. Using a pictorial format common in billboard
advertising to create a sense of familiarity with the viewer, Lum encourages
us to identify with the person in the photograph and the accompanying
text. The text reads: “What am I doing here? What am I doing here? How’d
I get into this? What am I doing here?” By employing the first person and
repeating the same question three times, Lum draws us into this person’s
narrative, and propels us to empathize with her as a protagonist. Through
this symbolic mirroring device, Lum humanizes his subject and creates a
moment of connection between the viewer and the girl in this picture. The
look of despair on the young woman’s face, her nudity, and the backstage
setting implies that she might be an exotic dancer, but although this is what
the photograph suggests, we are left with a sense of longing for a resolved
narrative - which Lum denies us. It is in this sense that Lum’s work can be
likened to social mirrors that reflect internal states and social complexities.3
. 78 .
Daniel Barrow, Mirror Bouquet, 2012.
Mixed-media collage.
http://viewoncanadianart.com/2013/03/22/daniel-barrow-2013-glenfiddich-prize-winner/14_barrow_
daniel_bouquet/
. 79 .
The mirrors in Mirror Bouquet (2012), a collage by Barrow, are emblematic of
the artist’s macabre, comic-like renditions. Instead of reflecting an image of
a human visage, each mirror is adorned with a pair of red lips. These handheld mirrors, gilded and grotesquely ornate, are also strangely seductive. The
vanitas and memento mori motifs in this work – skulls, wilting vegetation,
and claw-like aging hands – give it a morbid tone reminiscent of sixteenthand seventeenth-century moralistic still life paintings from Northern
Europe. As the title indicates, these mirrors stand in for a bouquet of flowers.
Presumably, the bouquet’s recipient is absorbed in indulgent self-adoration.
In an interview, Barrow explains: “Elementally, mirrors fascinate me because
they are magic framed artworks. Something about the image of a person
holding a hand mirror up to her face, like a second head, branded itself on my
imagination in childhood, and I am consistently drawn back to it.”4
. 80 .
Daniel Barrow, The Face of Everything, 2002.
Live performance with soundtrack by Adam Hart, 45:00 min.
http://www.brettkashmere.com/livecinema.html.
. 81 .
Daniel Barrow, Scott Thorson Trading Card, 2004.
Multiple edition, 7.6 x 10.2 cm. Collection of the artist.
http://danielbarrow.com/tradingcards/5.htm.
Daniel Barrow’s The Face of Everything (2002) is a fictional story narrated and
projected in live performance. It is loosely based on the love relationship of
the famed pianist and vocalist Liberace and his secret lover Scott Thorson. In
this still of the performance, Thorson undergoes cosmetic surgery and other
beautifying rituals to look like Liberace.5 This dreamlike image constitutes a
challenge to the logic of the mirroring device whereby our ability to perceive
our reflection is inextricably linked to our sense of sight. In this image Thorson’s
eyes, blanked out as he faces the mirror, imply a disconnection from his own
identity. Holding a mask that represents his former face, he is undergoing a
radical physical transformation, suggested by the numerous hands altering
. 82 .
his appearance. A trading card Barrow dedicated to Thorson5 explains that he
underwent multiple plastic surgeries in order to look as close in appearance
to Liberace as possible.6
Virtual Exhibition
My design for this digital exhibition echoes the style of a fun fair or amusement
park. This strategy is inspired by Lum’s Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression
and Barrow, who has cited Victorian era magic lantern shows as a major
influence to his performances.7
This exhibition will virtually recreate a physical space, offering a panoramic
view of the gallery space on the website. As with a video game, viewers will
be able to stroll through the virtualized space using a few key commands.
Lum’s Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression will be an interactive work
where the web visitors can click on the entry door to enter the structure.
The viewer’s computer camera will then be activated in order to reflect their
image on the simulated mirror surface. The same technology will be used
for the Photo-Mirrors installation. Another room will include a selection of
the photo-text works by Lum which viewers will be able to magnify to get
a closer look at the images and text. Barrow’s performance piece, The Face
of Everything, will be shown as a video from a pre-recorded performance.
There will be a collection of Barrow’s trading cards placed in a virtual vitrine
that viewers can consult by selecting and sorting through the selection. The
presence of the trading cards will give further insight into the characters
shaped by the artist’s imagination. There will also be a wall of Barrow’s mixed-
. 83 .
media collages including Mirror Bouquet to emphasize the prominence of
mirrors in Barrow’s practice.
Notes
1“Vanitas,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed January 5, 2014,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623056/vanitas.
2 Okwui Enwezor, “Social Mirrors: On the Dialectic of the Abstract and
Figural in Ken Lum’s Work,” in Ken Lum, ed. Grant Arnold (Vancouver:
Vancouver Art Gallery and D&M Publishers, 2011), 73.
3 Ibid., 84
4 Johanne Sloan, “Something Resembling Childhood: Artworks by
Jack Chambers, Daniel Barrow, and Rodney Graham,” in Depicting
Canada’s Children, ed. Loren Lerner (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier
University Press, 2009), 373.
5 Matt Strangel, “Mirror Mirror,” Portland Cityzine, accessed November
30, 2013, http://portland.cityzine.net/author/matt-stangel/.
6 “The Face of Everything: Graphic Performance and Artist’s Talk by
Daniel Barrow,” The Banff Centre, accessed November 25, 2013,
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/Media_Releases/Arts_
WPG/2003/03march27_artists_talk.asp.
7 Daniel Barrow, “Trading Cards,” accessed November 30, 2013,
8 Mike Hoolboom, “After Charlie Brown and Liberace,” in Practical
Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists (Toronto: Coach House
Books, 2007), 168.
. 84 .
Bibliography
“The Face of Everything: Graphic Performance and Artist’s Talk by
Daniel Barrow.” The Banff Centre. Accessed November 25, 2013.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/Media_Releases/Arts_
WPG/2003/03march27_artists_talk.asp.
“Vanitas.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed January 5, 2014.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623056/vanitas.
Barrow, Daniel. “Trading Cards.” Accessed November 30, 2013.
Enwezor, Okwui. “Social Mirrors: On the Dialectic of the Abstract
and Figural in Ken Lum’s Work.” In Ken Lum, ed. Grant Arnold, 61-92.
Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and D&M Publishers, 2011.
Hoolboom, Mike. “After Charlie Brown and Liberace.” In Practical
Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists, 163-172. Toronto:
Coach House Books, 2007.
Sloan, Johanne. “Something Resembling Childhood: Artworks by
Jack Chambers, Daniel Barrow, and Rodney Graham.” In Depicting
Canada’s Children, ed. Loren Lerner, 365-385. Waterloo:
Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2009.
Strangel, Matt. “Mirror Mirror.” Portland Cityzine. Accessed November
30, 2013. http://portland.cityzine.net/author/matt-stangel/.
. 85 .
Christos Dikeakos and
Benoit Aquin: Exploring
the Relationship between
Indigenous Peoples and the
Canadian Landscape within
an Enviro-political Context
Tar a Ng
***
Canadian national identity is inextricably linked to the natural landscape, but
this relationship has always been a complicated one because of our nation’s
colonial history. Indigenous peoples were and continue to be displaced from
their traditional territories as a consequence of European colonization. At the
same time, historical and early modern depictions of the Canadian landscape
. 86 .
tend to conceal any traces of indigenous presence in their works, preferring to
portray Canada as uninhabited, sublime wilderness.1 It wasn’t until the 1960s
that Canadian artists began to create landscape art that addressed social and
political issues.2 The works of Christos Dikeakos (b. 1946) and Benoit Aquin (b.
1963) – two non-indigenous photographers) – continue in this vein, exploring
the enduring relationship of Canadian indigenous peoples to the land within
an enviro-political context. Dikeakos and Aquin examine how the bond
between indigenous peoples and the land has changed over time as a result
of the historical process of European colonization, and the contemporary
phenomenon of global warming, respectively.
Christos Dikeakos’ Sites and Place Names, Vancouver series (1991–1994) is
comprised of panoramic photographs of contemporary urban landscapes in
Vancouver. Overlying each photograph is a sheet of glass sandblasted with
various words in hun’qumi’num – the language of the Musqueam – as well as
in Squamish and English.3 These words indicate the place names given to the
depicted site by the Musqueam and Squamish peoples, as well as the wildlife
and flora there that were an important part of their diet in pre-colonial times.
By superimposing the sandblasted text on the photographs, Dikeakos seeks
to demonstrate the overlapping indigenous and non-indigenous histories
inscribed in the landscape of Vancouver.4 Aquin’s The Great North series (2004)
examines the effects of climate change on traditional Inuit hunting practices
in Nunavik, Quebec. In the spring of 2004, Aquin accompanied hunters from
Kangisujuaq on a five-day hunting trip in Ungava Bay and documented the
very first time that they were forced to travel by canoe to their hunting grounds
because of premature melting of the ice.5 His series reveals the dangers of
hunting amidst increasingly unpredictable ice conditions and, more broadly,
. 87 .
the threat of global warming to the hunting and food-sharing culture of the
Inuit.6 The works in this exhibition invite us to reassess culturally dominant,
non-indigenous conceptions of the Canadian landscape, explore how the
relationship between indigenous peoples and the land has extended from the
past into the present, and consider this relationship in light of indigenous aims
toward sovereignty, self-determination, and custodianship of their traditional
lands and natural resources.7
Christos Dikeakos, sk wachays – hole in bottom, False Creek, 1992.
C-print, glass with sandblasted text, 21 x 41 in; 53.3. x 104.1 cm.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/images/big/d/dikeakos/dik028.jpg
The Musqueam and Squamish peoples inhabited Greater Vancouver before,
during, and after European contact in the last decade of the eighteenth century.8
They relied on the area’s natural resources for their livelihood, engaging in
. 88 .
fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering.9 Over time, the traditional territory
of the Musqueam and Squamish diminished as the settler population grew,
real estate speculation became more aggressive, and the government’s policy
of assimilation was implemented.10 Presently, their reserves constitute but a
miniscule portion of their traditional territory.11
sk wachays (1992) by Christos Dikeakos is a scene of an industrial site in False
Creek, Vancouver, which formed part of the traditional territory of the Coast
Salish peoples. Adjacent to a railroad are colourful cargo containers stacked
on top of one another and cranes lined up in a row. The cranes point upward
towards the word skwachays, the name given to this place by the Salish
peoples. “Skwachays” translates as “hole in bottom,” a phrase that is less
conspicuously placed in the lower right corner of the work.12 The Musqueam
and Squamish benefited from the abundance of wildlife in this area, such as
sturgeon, crab, elk, and waterfowl.13 The wide puddle in the middle ground
may represent the natural landscape that existed here in the past, but its
surface reflects the industrial landscape of the present. Formerly teeming
with wildlife and sources of food, this site was filled in during the early part
of the century to build saw mills and shipping ports and is now stocked with
globally manufactured goods.14 sk wachays thus invites one to consider the
two different types of wealth associated with this site.
. 89 .
Christos Dikeakos, Former site of Expo ‘86, a memory of sturgeon fishing - skwácháy’s “hole in
bottom,” 1992, chromogenic print, etched glass, 21 x 41 in; 53.3 x 104.1 cm, Vancouver Art Gallery.
Christos Dikeakos’ Former site of Expo ‘86, a memory of sturgeon fishing skwácháy’s “hole in bottom” (1992) offers another view of False Creek, a
construction site temporarily covered with water. The words “maple tree” are
superimposed on an uprooted tree resting on its side. This site was formerly
known for its maple trees, but they have since been removed. The uprooted
maple tree may symbolize the depletion of natural resources15 as well as the
displacement of the indigenous peoples who were the original inhabitants of
this area.
The photograph is overlaid with a drawing by Chief August Jack Khatsahlano
(1867–1971), an Aboriginal longshoreman and logger16 who became well
known for collaborating with non-indigenous individuals to record his people’s
oral history.17 The sandblasted illustration, complete with labels, explains how
. 90 .
the Squamish used to fish for sturgeon in this area and offers an indigenous
perspective of the site. There are two individuals sitting in a canoe, one at the
front and the other at the back. The former is carrying a pole and cedar bark
rope, both of which pierce the sturgeon at the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile,
the person at the back of the canoe is managing another length of cedar bark
rope, and the stone drag attached to the end is shown resting at the bottom
of the sea. The sea in Khatsahlano’s drawing is superimposed on the puddle in
the photograph; past and present thus converge, revealing the changing value
and shifting nature of the site over time. Meanwhile, the residential buildings
in the background allude to broader changes in the urban landscape of the
city, that is, the displacement of industry through residential development.18
Christos Dikeakos, kw’a apul lthp (crabapple) vy ul’mux (still water that is not salty), 1992.
C-print, glass with sandblasted text, 21 x 41 in; 53.3 x 104.1 cm.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/images/big/d/dikeakos/dik021.jpg
. 91 .
kw’a apul lthp (crabapple) vy ul’mux (still water that is not salty) (1992) by Christos
Dikeakos offers a pleasant view of a public park at kwa’apulth, now known as
Locarno Beach.19 This image is not unlike promotional images of Vancouver
that celebrate its natural beauty: the sun is shining, the grass is a healthy
green, and the trees are tall and robust. However, the superimposed text
disrupts the coherence of the image, forcing the viewer to question a unified,
singular view of the landscape. In the past, this area was significant to the local
indigenous peoples for its abundant crabapple trees.20 The words “crabapple
tree,” “douglas fir,” “cedar,” and “uyul’mux” occupy the foreground of the image.
A pathway leads the viewer’s eye to the centre of the photograph, where the
word “kwa’apulthp” is nestled between two tree trunks, hovering just above
the horizon line. The arrows next to the words “kwa’apulthp” and “uyul’mux”
give one the sense of viewing a diagrammatic image containing factual
information. According to Dikeakos, this information is intended to narrow
the gap that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge of
particular sites and their histories.21
. 92 .
Benoit Aquin, Untitled, 2004.
29 x 36 in.
http://benoitaquin.com/en/files/gimgs/36_banquisebb.jpg
In Benoit Aquin’s Untitled (2004), a group of four hunters are preparing
to travel across the water to get to the next patch of ice during the spring
goose-hunting season. It is becoming increasingly difficult for Inuit hunters to
reach their hunting grounds because winters are arriving earlier and ending
sooner.22 This means that premature melting of the ice is occurring during
the goose-hunting season, making it dangerous for hunters to travel. It is not
possible for hunters to travel earlier in the season when the ice is more stable
because the geese will not yet have arrived; likewise, they cannot travel later
. 93 .
in the season when the ice has completely melted because the geese will
have already departed.23 In this image, the rapidly melting ice, the resultant
vast stretches of water, and the subsequent adaptations required to continue
hunting activities offer tangible evidence of global warming.
Climate change is threatening the very way of life of the Inuit, as they have
depended on the ice for transportation and food for centuries.24 Further,
hunting is more than simply a form of subsistence. Sheila Watt-Cloutier explains,
“Hunting lies at the core of Inuit culture, teaching such key values as courage,
patience, tenacity, and boldness under pressure – qualities that are required
for both the modern and the traditional world in which the Inuit live.”25 While
the Inuit are adapting to the changing climate, it is becoming increasingly
difficult to do so because of the changing “[c]ycles and movements of
migrating animals, a decrease in the period when it is safe to travel on the land
and on the ocean, reduced access to natural resources, and the destabilization
of trails.”26 Watt-Cloutier argues that those countries constituting the largest
contributors to global warming must take more drastic remedial action, as
failure to do so “constitute[s] a violation of [Inuit] human rights – specifically
the rights to life, health, culture, means of subsistence, and property.”27 . 94 .
Benoit Aquin, Aroya, 2004.
29 x 36 in.
http://benoitaquin.com/en/files/gimgs/36_grand-nord006_v2.jpg
. 95 .
In Benoit Aquin’s Aroya (2004), Aroya, an experienced Inuit hunter, is standing
before a seal that he has just skinned and cut open. Seals are either eaten raw
on the spot or brought back home to be shared.28 In addition to comprising a
large portion of the Inuit diet, seals also serve several other important purposes
in Inuit culture. Tipuula Qaapik Atagutsiak explains, “Amongst all the animals,
the seal is the most useful. Although the seal is really small compared to some
animals, it is extremely useful. It is the most abundant. It is easier to catch than
many other animals. Its blubber is used for food, and for heat. Seal oil is used
to waterproof kamiik [snow boots] and of course for healing.”29 Those who
are unfamiliar with hunting may find it difficult to view such a vivid depiction
of a dead animal. Aquin’s intention is for southern dwellers to recognize the
centrality of hunting in traditional Inuit culture and hence the serious threat
that climate change presents to the Inuit way of life.30
Earlier depictions of Inuit hunters, such as Robert Flaherty’s film Nanook of the
North (1922), portray them as fearless and heroic.31 In this photograph, however,
the skinned seal, with its internal organs on display and its blood staining the
snow, arguably draws more attention than the hunter. That the hunter himself
is studying the seal and has his knife pointed at it further encourages the
viewer to direct his/her attention toward the animal.
. 96 .
Benoit Aquin, Untitled, 2004, 29 x 36 in.
http://benoitaquin.com/en/files/gimgs/36_grand-nord016.jpg.
Benoit Aquin’s Untitled (2004) offers a gloomy depiction of the Arctic landscape
– a striking contrast to the sublime Arctic of the popular imagination. The trail
left by a snowmobile provides a trace of human presence and marks a specific
moment in time in the appearance of the landscape. One wonders whether in
a few years’ time the same scene will depict frozen ice or an expanse of water.
The puddles of water visible on the surface of the ice are signs of premature
melting. The sheer immensity and remoteness of the landscape makes the
. 97 .
danger of travelling in such conditions all the more palpable. In fact, Aquin
and his companions found themselves in a potentially fatal situation when
they were travelling on the ice in the dark one evening and were able to
stop only just in time at the edge of a large hole in the ice.32 The artist’s story
provides a sobering glimpse into the very real dangers confronting Inuit
hunters in northern Quebec.
The works of Christos Dikeakos and Benoit Aquin not only assert the presence
of indigenous peoples in the Canadian landscape but also affirm the enduring
value of traditional indigenous knowledge of the land and indigenous history
in the contemporary context. The works in this exhibition also speak to the
necessity of an ongoing dialogue and collaboration between indigenous
and non-indigenous peoples, as issues such as colonialism, the depletion of
natural resources, and climate change are not simply indigenous issues, but
have broader national and global implications.
Virtual Exhibition
To help the reader visualize my virtual exhibition, I will describe it in relation
to my primary sources of inspiration – the Museum of Modern Art’s Comic
Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making (2007)33 and Henri Cartier-Bresson:
The Modern Century (2010).34
Similar to Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century, the exhibition homepage
would feature the title of the show along with a slideshow of the works in
the exhibition. Once the viewer clicked on the slideshow, a new page would
load showing the curatorial statement in the centre, surrounded by all the
. 98 .
images in the exhibition.35 This would give the visitor the opportunity to see
the visual dialogue among the works. Clicking on any image would take the
visitor to a new page devoted solely to that work. Similar to Comic Abstraction,
the description of the work would appear next to the image, and below this
would be a link to an interview with the artist as well as an expandable list of
other relevant media such as publications, the artist’s website, and additional
artist interviews. For instance, Dikeakos’ works would include the link to a video
of his artist talk at Centre A, Maraya Projects in Vancouver, in 2011, in which
he discusses his more recent work.36 Aquin’s works would include a link to a
talk entitled “An Inuit Perspective on Global Climate Change,” given by Peter
Irniq, Canadian Inuit leader, artist, activist, and former Crown Commissioner of
Nunavut, at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University,
Rhode Island.37
The description of each work would contain hyperlinked text, allowing the
visitor to access other useful websites with pertinent information. For example,
in the description of Aquin’s photograph of the Inuit hunter Aroya standing
before a seal, there would be a link to the Government of Canada’s webpage
discussing the importance of the sealing industry in Canada and the negative
effects of the European Union’s ban on seal products.38
My virtual exhibition would also feature several Web 2.0 features in order to
increase visitor interaction and draw as many visitors as possible. Below each
work would be a comment section allowing visitors to share their thoughts.
There would be the opportunity to share the photographs on Facebook,
Tumblr, Twitter, and other social media sites. Visitors would also be able to
modify the expandable list of links associated with each work.
. 99 .
Notes
1 Leslie Allan Dawn, National Visions, National Blindness: Canadian Art
and Identities in the 1920s (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 3.
2 John O’Brian, Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity,
and Contemporary Art (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,
2007).
3 Grant Arnold, “Shared Terrain / Contested Spaces: New Work
by Fifteen B.C. Artists,” in Topographies: Aspects of Recent B.C. Art
(Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1996), 7.
4 Christos Dikeakos, “Artist Statement,” in Sites & Place Names
(Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery, 1992), 17.
5 Benoit Aquin, in an interview with the author, December 2013.
6 Bruce E. Johansen, The Encyclopedia of Global Warming Science and
Technology, Vol. 1 (ABC-CLIO, 2009), 347.
7 Heather Igloliorte, “The Inuit of Our Imagination,” in Inuit Modern,
ed. Gerald McMaster (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario; Vancouver and
Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010), 41.
8 Keith Wallace, “Sites & Place Names,” in Sites & Place Names
(Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery, 1992), 5.
9“Musqueam,” Musqueam Indian Band, accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.musqueam.bc.ca.
10 Ibid., 12.
11“Musqueam,” Musqueam Indian Band.
12 Wallace, “Sites & Place Names,” 13.
. 100 .
13Ibid.
14Ibid.
15 Arnold, “Shared Terrain / Contested Spaces,” 8.
16 Sean Kheraj, Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History
(Vancouver; Toronto: UBC Press, 2013), 24.
17 See James Skitt Matthews, Conversations with Khahtsahlano, 19321954: conversations with August Jack Khahtsahlano, born at Snauq, False
Creek Indian Reserve, circa 1877, son of Khaytulk and grandson of Chief
Khahtsahlanogh (Vancouver: City Archives, 1967).
18 Arnold, “Shared Terrain / Contested Spaces,” 8.
19Ibid.
20Ibid.
21 Ibid., 12.
23Ibid.
24 Peter Mansbridge and Shiela Watt-Clouthier, “Retreating Arctic Ice,”
CBC News, September 24, 2007, accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/retreating-arctic-ice-1.851014.
25 Sheila Watt-Cloutier, “Climate Change and Human Rights,” Ethics &
International Affairs (Spring 2004), accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/dialogue/2_11/
section_1/4445.html/:pf_printable.
26Ibid.
27 Watt-Cloutier, “Climate Change and Human Rights.”
. 101 .
29 Ilisapi Ootoova et al., “Interviewing Inuit Elders: Perspectives
on Traditional Health,” Vol. 5, ed. Michèle Therrien and Frédéric
Laugrand (Iqaluit: Nunavit Arctic College, 2001), 51, accessed
December 23, 2013, http://www.tradition-orale.ca/english/pdf/
Perspectives-On-Traditional-Health-E.pdf.
31 Kerstin Knopf, Decolonizing the Lens of Power: Indigenous Films in
North America (Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2008), 324. For a
brief discussion of the image of the heroic Inuit hunter in Doug
Wilkinson’s film Land of the Long Day (1952), see Pamela R. Stern,
Historical Dictionary of the Inuit (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 81.
33 Museum of Modern Art, “Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking,
Image-Making,” accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/comic_
abstraction/.
34 Museum of Modern Art, “Henri Cartier Bresson: The Modern
Century,” accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/
henricartierbresson/#/.
35 See http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/comic_
abstraction/flash.html.
36 “Christos Dikeakos Talk at Centre A, Maraya Projects,” Vimeo video,
1:03:56, from a public talk given by Christos Dikeakos at Centre A in
. 102 .
Vancouver on November 9, 2011, posted by “MarayaProjects,”
http://vimeo.com/32042786.
37 “An Inuit Perspective on Global Climate Change,” Vimeo video,
1:07:04, from a talk given by Peter Irnuq at the Haffenreffer Museum
of Anthropology for the Barbara Greenwald Memorial Arts Program
on October 26, 2007, posted by “Haffenreffer Museum of Anthro,”
38 “Seals: Canada’s Seal Hunt,” Government of Canada, accessed
December 23, 2013, http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/eu-ue/
policies-politiques/seals-phoques.aspx.
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Arnold, Grant. “Shared Terrain / Contested Spaces: New Work by
Fifteen B.C. Artists.” In Topographies: aspects of recent B.C. art, 1-44.
Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1996.
Dawn, Leslie Allan. National Visions, National Blindness: Canadian Art
and Identities in the 1920s. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006.
Dikeakos, Christos. “Artist Statement.” In Sites & Place Names, 16-17.
Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery, 1992.
Igloliorte, Heather. “The Inuit of Our Imagination.” In Inuit Modern, ed.
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and Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010.
Johansen, Bruce E. The Encyclopedia of Global Warming Science and
Technology. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
. 103 .
Kheraj, Sean. Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History.
Vancouver; Toronto: UBC Press, 2013.
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North America. Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2008.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/retreating-arctic-ice-1.851014.
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Creek Indian Reserve, circa 1877, son of Khaytulk and grandson of Chief
Khahtsahlanogh. Vancouver: City Archives, 1967.
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Ootoova, Ilisapi and Tipuula Qaapik Atagutsiak, Tirisi Ijjangiaq,
Jaikku Pitseolak, Aalasi Joamie, Akisu Joamie, and Malaija Papatsie.
Interviewing Inuit Elders: Perspectives on Traditional Health, ed. Michèle
Therrien and Frédéric Laugrand. Iqaluit: Nunavit Arctic College, 2001.
Accessed December 23, 2013.
http://www.tradition-orale.ca/english/pdf/Perspectives-OnTraditional-Health-E.pdf.
Stern, Pamela R. Historical Dictionary of the Inuit. Lanham: Scarecrow
Press, 2004.
Wallace, Keith. “Sites & Place Names.” In Sites & Place Names, 5-13.
. 104 .
Watt-Cloutier, Sheila. “Climate Change and Human Rights.” Ethics
& International Affairs (Spring 2004). Accessed December 23, 2013.
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/dialogue/2_11/
section_1/4445.html/:pf_printable.
. 105 .
Mobilit y | Mobilité
Mobility
Mobilité
Interpolate/Exchange:
Fuzzy Communications
of the Intercultural Encounter
Featuring Works by
Deanna Bowen and Stan Douglas
Adrienne Johnson
Displaced/Dispersed:
Pat Badani and Marlene Creates
Hannah Morgan
Mile Hoolboom and John Greyson
Arni Haraldsson and Christos Dikeakos:
Tara Ng
Les yeux grands fermés: Analyse de
photographies d’espaces intérieurs de
Angela Grauerholz et Lynne Cohen
Marie-Eve Sévigny
. 106 .
Interpolate/Exchange:
Fuzzy Communications of
the Intercultural Encounter
Featuring Works by Deanna
Bowen and Stan Douglas
Adrienne Johnson
***
Debate continues concerning reasons for and remedies to intercultural
miscommunications. Whether these manifestations of intercultural static arise
from a lack of empathy, linguistic and/or cultural barriers, preconceptions
and stereotypes, or all of the above and more is uncertain; nonetheless, when
encountering non-European peoples, a dominant trend is for Europeans and
Westerners to pursue a strategic quest for centrality.1 Interpolate/Exchange:
. 107 .
Fuzzy Communications of the Intercultural Encounter unites the archival,
photographic, and video works of Deanna Bowen (b. 1969) and Stan Douglas
(b. 1960) in a trans-historical exhibition exploring the interconnectedness of
our existence – and the obstacles that arise through hegemonic struggles
for power.
Deanna Bowen, sum of the parts: what can be named, 2010.
18:00 min., single channel video, colour, HD.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/sum.html.
Bowen’s sum of the parts: what can be named is an eighteen-minute high
definition colour video of an oral history performed by the artist. The work
“recounts the disremembered history and migration – a migration prompted
by a desire to flee the racialized dehumanizing oppression of Africans
imposed by Jim Crow Laws, of Bowen’s family from its earliest documented
history in Clinton, Jones County, Georgia in 1815.”2 Bowen states that the work
. 108 .
was influenced by Eli Wiesel’s 1989 New York Times article “regarding art, the
Holocaust, and the trivialization of memory.” 3
The somber, documentary styled video opens to Bowen dressed in a plain
black T-shirt, jeans, and a sweater, standing in a non-descript darkened
space. She holds a binder from which she recounts her family’s genealogy.
Intermittently some of Bowen’s words appear on the screen in white Edwardian
Script. Recounting her family’s history, she interweaves her narrative with
sociohistorical details to provide further context for her history. In so doing,
Bowen makes the performance a recounting of our human history. Intensely
personal, yet reaching beyond the specificity of Bowen or even her ancestors,
Bowen’s sum of the parts: what can be named speaks to the broader legacy of
imperialist European colonialism particularly in relation to African peoples.
Bowen’s performance of an oral recounting of her ancestry highlights a key
dynamic dissonance in the European/African encounter – the Eurocentric
prioritization of the written word over oral tradition or history as a measure
of intellect, civility, and humanity. Combined with the scientific racism of the
eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, this hegemonic organization and
understanding of the world, in which the European individual was placed at
top, colluded to seal the African’s inferior image in the collective consciousness.
More than a performance, sum of the parts: what can be named reclaims this
oral tradition.
The second work of Bowen’s for consideration is The Paul Good Papers (2012).
First presented at Toronto’s Gallery 44 from April 5-21, 2012, this interdisciplinary
installation and performance, combines archival press, objects, and interview
. 109 .
materials with performance. The work is based on Bowen’s research into the
third wave Ku Klux Klan in Canada, and it brings to light the connection withand-presence-in our national history.
Deanna Bowen, Paul Good/Robert Shelton Interview, April 5-21, 2012.
Performance and installation.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/PaulGoodPapers.html.
Paul Good was an ABC news reporter who, in 1964, visited the small town
of Notasulga, Alberta, to bear witness to racial integration in the province’s
schools. He documented the brutal violence that accompanied the process
and stayed on to interview key players, including Robert Shelton, the Ku Klux
Klan’s Imperial Wizard. Bowen’s installation features both these recordings,
typically, in different sections of the exhibition space. The performative
. 110 .
aspect of this work manifests through Bowen and actor Russell Bennett’s
re-enactment of Good’s interview with the KKK leader Shelton. During the
initial presentation of this work, Bowen and Bennett would re-enact Good’s
interview with the KKK leader daily in front of a live audience. They video
recorded and photographed the performances.4
Knowledge is power, and words contribute in realizing power. In the right
combinations, words can inspire as easily as they can destroy - destroy people,
objects, places, ideas, hope. In our present moment of history, what does
it mean to repeat the words spoken by the leader of the KKK? Is historical
context even a factor for consideration of our present dynamics with race?
What was it like to hear those words spoken in the first instance? How would
the performance and its reception differ if performed outside the gallery and
in the streets?
Stan Douglas, Nu.tka,1996.
6:50 min, single-channel colour video projection, video installation, quadraphonic sound.
http://www.fondation-langlois.org/media/publications/DOCAM/Stan-Douglas-Nutka.jpg.
. 111 .
Internationally acclaimed photo and video artist Stan Douglas’s two works,
Nu.tka (1996), and Disco Angola (2012) complete the arc of this exhibition. Created
in 1996, Nu.tka is six-minute and fifty-second long single-channel colour video
projection with quadraphonic sound. This video installation simultaneously
shows two camera pans along the majestic landscape of Nootka Sound; as
the piece plays, these distinct shots are separated, combined, and juxtaposed,
so as to show a doubled image on the screen.
This doubled landscape video of the shores of Nu.tka Sound are accompanied
with simultaneous audio narrations of soliloquies (thoughts) based on
historical documents and journals of British colonial envoy, James Colnett,
and his Spanish equivalent, Esteban José Martínez.5 The pair met in 1789. Both
arrived on site with the objective of claiming territory. A bitter rivalry ensued
- to the displeasure of Chief Callicum of the neighboring Clayoquot Sound
who had good relations with the British and took Colnett’s side. The rivalry
came to a climax when Martínez took Colnett and his ship and crew prisoner
- whereupon Colnett went insane. Chief Callicum was accidentally shot by
Martínez, which caused the Nuu-chah-nulths to cease all relations with the
Spanish; this in turn caused the Spanish government to cease relations with
Martínez.6
The images in Nu.tka are interlaced and doubled, intensifying the visual
disorientation and linguistic and cultural dissonance that underscores the
installation’s subject of European and Aboriginal contact in Nu.tka Sound,
British Columbia. As if nodding to the rhythm of ethnocultural equity, the
doubled image finds visual singularity at six points within the video before
returning to its disorienting doubleness. The cacophonous and disorienting
. 112 .
overlapping of the visual and audio of Douglas’s Nu.tka highlights the
tensions engendered in this conflict, and the deterioration of communication.
Through a collision of differing desires, Douglas reveals isolation in the cultural
encounters that converged upon Nu.tka Sound - a site whose name derived
from a misunderstanding. The story goes, “when James Cook asked Chief
Maquinna the name of his land, he replied “Nootka!” which means “go” or
“turn-around.” To this day, Canada’s colonially founded federal government
supports a legally dubious position in response to Indigenous peoples land
claims and/or outright expropriation of native lands.7
Stan Douglas, Two Friends, 1975, 2012.
Digital C-print mounted on Dibond aluminum, 106.7 x 142.2 cm.
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/stan-douglas/survey/image/page/5/.
. 113 .
Stan Douglas, A Luta Continua, 1974, 2012.
Digital C-print mounted on Dibond aluminum, 120.7 x 181 cm.
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/stan-douglas/.
Disco Angola (2012) is Douglas’s latest photographic series. As he did in the 2010
photo-series, Midcentury Studio, the artist dawns the persona of an anonymous
press photographer who documents happenings between Manhattan, New
York, and Angola on Africa’s west coast during the last thrusts of the swinging
disco era: the mid-1970s. He purposefully dates the photographs either 1974
or 1975. All the photographs were in reality taken in Los Angeles, California.
Douglas frames and constructs the duality and turbulence of the respective
locations. In New York, disco and gay culture were emerging fiercely, and the
artist juxtaposes these cultures with the ending of Angola’s twenty-seven
year long battle for independence from Portuguese colonialism. Carefully
. 114 .
recreating scenes from archival photos and research, the dual-sited context of
this series presents a simultaneous account of two distinct and yet surprisingly
similar realities.
The series is comprised of a total of eight photographs: four situated in New
York City, and four set in Angola. The large-scaled colour photographs are
displayed opposite each other in pairs, creating a dialogue between the
geographic locations, desires and their respective socio-cultural and political
realities. Two particularly arresting images from this series are Two Friends, 1975
(2012) and A Luta Continua, 1974 (2012). In Two Friends, 1975 we are presented
with a snapshot of the interior of a Manhattan nightclub; a man and a woman
sit ambivalently at a table, not interacting with one another, almost oblivious
to the goings on around them. La Luta Continua, 1974 depicts a young Angolan
woman wearing a bright green jumpsuit, posing in front of a building painted
with the flag of the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, the political
party that still ruled the country at the time this photograph is meant to
depict.8 When shown together, the images resonate with the tales of two
distinct realities in different locations. Another reading of these two images
– in their oppositional placement in this exhibition – would be to speak to
connections between North America and Africa.
The dynamics of interpersonal communication operate singularly across
the spectrum of consciousness, illustrating the primordial beginnings of
humankind. The legacies of racism connected to African slavery, the antiSemitism that found expression in the Jewish Holocaust, and anti-Muslim
sentiments related to the events of September 11, 2001, all simultaneously
demonstrate struggles for existence and quests for domination. Bowen’s and
. 115 .
Douglas’s explorations challenge us to consider the complex mechanics of
human memory, social conditioning, intercultural exchange and cultural mis/
understanding.
Notes
1 Geoffrey R. Skoll, Social Theory of Fear: Terror, Torture, and Death in
a Post-Capitalist World (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2010), 1-10,
doi:10.1057/9780230112636.
2 Deanna Bowen, “Works,” accessed November 9, 2013, http://www.
deannabowen.ca/works/sum.html.
3 Deanna Bowen, “sum of the parts: what can be named,” Vimeo,
accessed November 9 2013, http://vimeo.com/49492147.
4 Deanna Bowen, “The Paul Good Papers,” http://www.deannabowen.
ca/works/PaulGoodPapers.html; “The Paul Good Papers | Gallery 44,”
accessed February 27, 2014, http://gallery44.org/deannabowen.
5 Niklas Goldblach, “NU.TKA,” VideoArtBlog, accessed February 27, 2014,
http://niklasgoldbach.blogspot.ca/2010/02/nutka.html.
6Ibid.
7 “Major B.C. land claim case before Supreme Court of Canada,”
The Vancouver Sun, accessed November 7, 2013, http://www.
vancouversun.com/life/Major+land+claim+case+before+Supreme+
Court+Canada/9128988/story.html
8 Jason Farago, “Stan Douglas,” Frieze Magazine 148 (2012),
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/stan-douglas/.
. 116 .
Bibliography
“Major B.C. land claim case before Supreme Court of Canada.”
The Vancouver Sun. Posted November 5, 2013. Accessed November 7,
2013. http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Major+land+claim+case+b
efore+Supreme+Court+Canada/9128988/story.html.
Bowen, Deanna. “Works.” Accessed November 9, 2013.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/sum.html.
____. “sum of the parts: what can be named.” Vimeo. Accessed
November 9 2013. http://vimeo.com/49492147.
____. “The Paul Good Papers.” Accessed February 27, 2014.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/PaulGoodPapers.html.
____. “The Paul Good Papers | Gallery 44.” Accessed February 27,
2014. http://gallery44.org/deannabowen.
Farago, Jason. “Stan Douglas.” Frieze Magazine 148 (2012). Accessed
February 27, 2014. http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/stan-douglas/.
Goldblach, Niklas. “NU.TKA.” VideoArtBlog. Accessed February 27, 2014.
http://niklasgoldbach.blogspot.ca/2010/02/nutka.html.
Skoll, Geoffrey R. Social Theory of Fear: Terror, Torture, and Death in a
Post-Capitalist World. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2010.
. 117 .
Displaced/Dispersed:
Pat Badani and
Marlene Creates
Hannah Morgan
***
Within today’s ever shifting global society, we often lose our fixed identity
related to home and place. Displaced from our country and community of
origin by choice or necessity, our personal geography grows, and we adapt
to our new landscapes. In our transitions we hope to find a feeling of place
within a landscape that resonates with our sense of belonging, heritage, and
home. For both indigenous and immigrated peoples, these new personal
geographies of no place or lost space, shaped by the modern world, often
create anxieties for the individual. Faced with a loss of natural environment or
community, many people find strength in cultural traditions and collective
support. This sense of displacement can be explored through a person’s
concept of home, including both how an individual constructs ideals of the
. 118 .
place, and how she or he forms the physical space in association with objects
and landscapes. This understanding of home as construct and reality comes
from the concept of displacement explored by the French philosopher
Gaston Bachelard in his book The Poetics of Space. Bachelard sees the home
as a space built from physical materials, but constructed through imagined
ideals and memories that evoke a sense of identity.1
Marlene Creates and Pat Badani explore their own and other people’s personal
senses of home and place through memory, imagination, and the physical
experience of space. A common theme in Creates’s and Badani’s work is the
displacement of people from their homes to a new place. Often the reason
for this displacing move is negative, caused by politics, finance, environment,
or urbanization, and not desired by the people who are removed from that
place. This resistance to change is to be expected, but through a growing
knowledge of the world via digital media, many people start idealizing a
better home for themselves in a distant place. In this way the displacement
from their original home is chosen and a dispersion is achieved, which can
be viewed as a forward, positive motion to relocate one’s home.
. 119 .
MOBILIT Y | MOBILITÉ
Marlene Creates, Gilbert Rich, The Distance Between Two Points is Measured in Memories, 1988.
Eighteen assemblages, two black and white photographs (28 x 36 cm), one story panel, selenium-toned
silver prints, a memory map drawn by a participant, pencil on paper.
http://www.marlenecreates.ca/works/1988distance.html.
. 120 .
Marlene Creates, Josephine Kalleo,
The Distance Between Two Points is Measured in Memories, 1988.
Eighteen assemblages, black and white photographs (28 x 36 cm), story panel, selenium-toned silver
prints, memory map, pencil on paper.
. 121 .
Marlene Creates, Joe Ford, The Distance Between Two Points is Measured in Memories, 1988.
Eighteen assemblages, black and white photographs (28 x 36 cm), story panel, selenium-toned silver
prints, memory map, pencil on paper.
. 122 .
The Distance Between Two Points is Measured in Memories (1988) is a series
of eighteen polyptychs. For this piece, the artist interviewed a number of
Inuit and Settlers of Labrador about their relationship to landscape prior
to the urbanization of the community. The finished work consists of a
photograph of the interviewee, a memory map drawn by the subject in the
first photograph, a memory of the subject’s that relates to the landscape,
and a photograph taken and an object collected by Creates when returning
to the landscape herself. While sharing stories from the past focused on
distinct landscapes, the interview subject was invited to draw a map
featuring particular landmarks and geographic characteristics. Creates used
these maps to visit the exact setting for the story. When Creates returned to
these locations with the help of the map she photographed the landscape
with identifying characteristics described in the story, and also collected an
object from the area. This series of actions created the presented polyptychs:
an image of the interviewee in their current home, a transcript of their story,
the map they drew, a photograph of the landscape depicted in the map, and
finally the found object from the space. This work describes a displacement
of space through the “passing from one way of life to another,”2 and evokes
the loss of a natural home through the urbanization of a landscape. Creates
contrasts the interviewees’ constructed memories of home and space with
the reality of the landscape through her own experience of following their
memory maps of the landscape, and by photographing and collecting
an object from the space. The pieces of each assemblage document the
fragments of memory and experience related to the landscape and depict
a narrative of cultural importance within it existing still, though the people
have been displaced.
. 123 .
Marlene Creates, Places of Presence: Newfoundland Kin and Ancestral Land,
Newfoundland, 1989-1991.
Black and white photographs, selenium-toned silver prints, memory map drawings, pencil on paper,
story panels and a title panel, screen print on Plexiglas, found natural objects.
http://www.marlenecreates.ca/works/1991presence.html.
After having explored the stories of Labrador’s communities through interview,
Creates shifted the focus onto her own family with the same strategy. In
reaction to a feeling of loss or literal displacement from her matriarchal
landscape, Creates interviewed family members in hopes to identify with a
past ancestral landscape through their memories and shared history within
a specific place. Memory maps, testaments of interviewees, black and white
photographs, and found objects once again become fragmented records
of Creates’s exploration of home in relation to a natural space, landmarks,
and location. A personal geography is created and represented through the
assemblage of these works and reflects both the physical importance of the
landscape, but also the influence of the constructed sense of home created
through memory.
. 124 .
Pat Badani, Where are you from?, 2002.
Two videos, 3:00 each, book, wall of printed vocabulary of keywords taken from interviews.
http://www.patbadani.net/index.html.
. 125 .
Badani, a self-described nomad, considers her personal geography to span
across seven different countries in the Americas and Europe. In the installation
work Where are you from? (2002), Badani reflects on the displacement of
many people within these countries. The installation contains three main
elements, a video compilation of interviews, a book of testimonials, and a
wall of keywords from these two sources. There is also a cubical area that
“accommodates the visitor who sits at a “desk” in order to interact with the
work and to choose her own route through the hyperlinked connections,
simulating an experience of travel through the content, and constructing
narrative relations between the parts in an individualized way.”3 In video
interviews included in the piece, Badani expresses empathy with her subjects,
and encourages each person to talk about their feeling of home by means
of memory, imagination, and place. There are testimonials describing a lost
space from the past, the new or current reality of a place, and an imagined
ideal of a home offering promise for a “better life.”4 It becomes clear in these
interviews that many people have been displaced or felt displacement
- whether they have traveled long distances or have had to adapt to the
urbanization of their community. Significantly, the desire to move is a central
theme in Badani’s work. Ideals of a better life often include a change in
location, but the retention of culture and tradition. A sense of identity is not
dependent on urban or rural landscape, but rather the sense of belonging
within a community. This community is a construct of the present and does
not have to relate to the history of the individual. Dispersing one’s self across
many landscapes may be the ideal for a nomad of Badani’s type. The sense of
home can come from a very different relationship with personal geography,
which includes many landscapes and a firm understanding of home as a
mental construct involving ideas of identity and belonging.
. 126 .
Pat Badani, Mind-Maps, 1994-1999.
Drawings for the Tower Tour Project.
Mind-Maps (1994-1999) drawn by Badani for the Tower Tour Project contrasts
with the memory maps that Creates had her interviewees draw. Badani
involves both physical and mental representations of her experiences within
the drawing of the map. Abstract and ambiguous shapes, and save labels like
. 127 .
“MY AMERICA” and “EUROPE,”5 are drawn within a globe-like circle and labeled
or connected with lines of travel. As with Creates’s work, text and image are
combined to display a similar relationship between memory, narrative, and
place. The concept surrounding the home being both construct and reality,
as described by Bachelard, comes together in a singular observable format in
Badani’s interpretation of her personal geography.
Creates’s and Badani’s works approach the subjects of displacement or
dispersion of people over place through individual and personal narratives
concerning their relationships to their geography. Through the interview
format, both artists conduct an exploration of identity through a sense of
home and landscape. While they have this strategy in common, the artists
have quite different results relating to remembering the reality of a place and
the imagined home. Bachelard’s writings on the home present ideas about
the experience of home as both construct and reality; Bachelard states that
when “memory and imagination remain associated, each one working for
their mutual deepening,”6 the narrative of home becomes an inseparable
idea of both the physical and mental experience. By sparking conversation in
their interviews, Creates and Badani allow a larger audience to engage with
the dialogue of personal geography and the relationships we create in the
spaces we live.
. 128 .
Notes
1 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Beacon
Press: Boston, 1964).
2 Marlene Creates, The Distance between two points is Measured in
Memories, Labrador 1988 (Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery,
1990).
3 Pat Badani, “Pat Badani,” accessed October 5, 2013,
4 Ibid.
5Ibid.
6 Bachelard, 5.
Bibliography
Badani, Pat. “Pat Badani.” Accessed October 5, 2013, http://www.
patbadani.net/index.html.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Translated by Maria Jolas.
Beacon Press: Boston, 1964.
Creates, Marlene. “Marlene Creates.” Last modified 2008. Accessed
October 12, 2013. http://www.marlenecreates.ca/bio.html.
____. Places of Presence: Newfoundland Kin and Ancestral Land,
Newfoundland 1989-1991. St. John’s: Killick Press, 1997.
____. The Distance between Two Points is Measured in Memories,
Labrador 1988. Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery, 1990.
. 129 .
Kunard, Andrea. “Between Two Points, Marlene Creates.” BlackFlash
Magazine. Accessed October 12, 2013. http://www.blackflash.ca/
between-two-points-marlene-creates.
. 130 .
Mike Hoolboom
and John Greyson
***
In an increasingly interconnected world, tourism has become one of the
driving forces of the global economy, producing more than one trillion
USD in revenue each year.1 One of the main means used to attract potential
travelers is moving image media. Most promotional videos, commercials,
and travel shorts show flawless depictions of exotic locations, appetizing
food, exciting lifestyles, and unconventional experiences. At the same time,
tourists have more means than ever before to document and capture their
journeys themselves in the form of still and moving images. Brought to an
extreme with the emergence of smartphones and tablets, tourists are able to
immediately share their memories with friends and strangers on various social
. 131 .
media and online platforms, translating and multiplying the tourist gaze onto
the Internet within seconds.
Regarding the interdependent relationship between tourism and image
production, the tourist experience is mainly visual, defined by the tourist
gaze captured on film, tape, and memory cards. Whereas the sensations
and stimulation of weather, taste, sounds, and smells are ephemeral,
representations of the visual experience are what the tourist can preserve
and distribute, and use to relive memories after the end of their journey. Yet,
commercial and personal images not only provide a method of stimulating
revenues or triggering personal memories: the relentless presentation of the
selected, and idealized cultural landmarks, traditions, and identities create a
process of simplification, producing and inscribing new and old forms similar
to colonial and imperial tropes that are ultimately linked to the fleeting,
curious, superficial, and sensation-seeking tourist-gaze.
Today, neoliberalism has developed into a new form of financial and cultural
domination. With the tourist industry as one of the main benefactors of the
expansion of capitalism, the disadvantaging realities are regularly concealed
or simplified in favour of glossary images that often present an overly
streamlined ideal, smartened up by those who take them – whether it is the
companies and agents who wish to attract tourists, or the tourists themselves
who become during their short stays self-appointed ethnographers and
anthropologists. Filmmakers, journalists, and artists connected to political
counter-movements are not exempt from these same practices which
embody what one might call the anthropological-industrial complex. Like
regular tourists – and despite their professed good intentions – images
. 132 .
captured for news reports, film productions, video essays, or art installations
are often characterised by the gaze of an outsider that is mainly constructed
through feeling of differences in comparison to their own background. They
might be able to capture what is happening on the surface, but it remains
questionable whether or not they are able to fully understand the sociopolitical development dynamics in front of their camera lenses in their full
complexity.
Consequently, questions arise about how the tourist gaze – as reproduced
and circulated in moving image media – is generating and inscribing political,
sexual, and gender hierarchies that are developed and advertised by bigger
economic aims and which determine, and in many ways mask, socio-political
realities. While only a fraction of the world’s population can travel around
the world and record their expeditions, the vast majority remains silenced in
terms of their immobility as well as in regard to those institutions designed
to represent their cultural history. Institutions like museums reinforce cultural
hegemony by presenting constructed histories to entertain tourists. They
are catering to the tourists’ demand for out of the ordinary experiences
and memories. But despite the search for sensational difference, the tourist
industries erase cultural disparity through the corporatization of entire cities
in order to cater to travelers unwilling to give up familiar standards. Moreover,
the tourist industries keep the industrial exploitation of touristic countries
hidden and restricted to other landscapes disposed by global capitalism,
refusing tourists the opportunity to gaze upon the social realities hidden
behind striking scenery, sublime landscapes, and shimmering cityscapes.
. 133 .
Travelling with Cameras examines Mike Hoolboom (b. 1959) and John Greyson’s
(b. 1960) respective interrogations of tourism’s influence on the construction
of national, cultural, and sexual identities. These two Canadian artists have
critically observed, questioned, and deconstructed media-fabricated identities
and histories created and inscribed by tourism industries and the tourist gaze.
Their films criticise how the act of travelling as well as neoliberal forces behind
the tourism industry are blending cultural and geographical individuality,
traditions, and moral concepts with corporate business agendas, all in the
pursuit of ever-increasing revenues.
John Greyson, Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers, 1986.
¾” video, 27 minutes, screenshot.
. 134 .
Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers (1986) is a self-examining video diary about
media-constructed homosexual identities in the face of the AIDS-crisis during
the final years of the Cold War. In the twenty-seven minute long visual essay,
John Greyson self-reflexively deals with his doubts about his ability to fully
explore and understand Russian queer subculture as a tourist journalist
without reverting to superficial and constructed Cold War redundancies
strictly dividing the West from the East.
In 1985, Greyson traveled as a Canadian delegate to the 12th World Festival
of Youth and Students, held in Moscow for 26,000 participants from 157
countries. The official theme of the festival was “For Anti-imperialist Solidarity,
Peace and Friendship.” As an openly gay delegate, he represented Toronto’s
International Gay Association and spoke on their behalf, advocating for the
rights of persecuted gays and lesbians living around the world. It was the first
time in the thirty-seven year-long history of the festival that gay and lesbian
delegates officially represented their respective countries and had the chance
to address civil rights issue related to sexual discrimination at the event.
Greyson brought his camera to Moscow, ready to document his journey
and the events of his trip inside and outside the festival, exploring the gay
and lesbian underground scene in the buzzing center of the Soviet Union.
Yet, due to technical problems during his stay, Greyson could only include
a few scenes from his material in the final cut of Moscow Does Not Believe in
Queers. The gaps left by the missing images are filled with fictional scenes,
excerpts from porn and Hollywood productions, as well as archival footage
of the Bolshevik Revolution. Greyson’s collage about queer life in Moscow
unfolds on several narrative levels, addressing issues such as the sexual
. 135 .
liberation movement brought forward after the October Revolution and
the contemporary media frenzy surrounding HIV/AIDS and its influence on
the formation of queer identities in both the East and the West. The multilayered narrative structure of this video essay points toward the impossibility
of presenting a full understanding and summarization of queer life in the form
of indisputable “facts” experienced as a tourist.
Greyson bases the first narrative level of the film on images shot by himself
during his journey. The film opens with joyous pictures of the Canadian
delegation travelling to the conference, showing them drinking, chatting,
and interacting with the camera. In these shots, Greyson immediately reveals
himself as a tourist, rejecting any form of journalistic authority. This strategy is
continued on the second narrative level, which shows Greyson and his fuck
buddy lying naked in bed, discussing the latter’s adventures at the festival.
Greyson underlines the subjectivity of spectatorship by casting fellow
video artist Michael Balser in the role of Greyson himself, as this constantly
undermines the notion of film as an objective medium and tourists as
objective observers. Moreover, a female voice-over analytically comments on
the couple’s discussion and behaviour, placing the filmmaker as the object of
study and his opinions under observation. The third level is a fictional interview
with Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai (played by feminist performance
artist Louise Garfield), who was an advocate for sexual liberation after the
October Revolution. Although there is no documentation Kollontai ever spoke
or wrote about homosexuality in the brief period between 1917 and 1933
when homosexuality was legalized in the Soviet Union, Greyson connects the
Russian revolutionary with the gay and lesbian liberation movement. Russian
gay medical student Constantine – whom Greyson met and interviewed
. 136 .
during the conference – discusses his discovery of a pamphlet by the Russian
feminist in an archival collection. He recalls the pamphlet arguing for the
rights of homosexuals, but is today overwhelmed by the idea of the existence
of such a note, unsure if he really held the pamphlet in his hands, or if his mind
and memories are playing a trick on him.
The fourth and final layer is Greyson’s use of porn and Hollywood productions.
On the one hand, a reedited version of Ice Station Zebra (John Sturges, USA
1968) – a Cold War espionage thriller with an all-male cast – depicts the
journey of lead actor Rock Hudson, whose HIV-infection dominated the
tabloid press in the mid-1980s, to Russia in an American nuclear submarine.
On the other hand, Greyson includes scenes of gay porn, showing men
having unprotected anal sex at various points. In combination with numerous
references to the hysterical media coverage of Hudson’s infection and AIDSrelated illnesses, Moscow Does not Believe in Queers outlines how simplifications
brought forward by the media create hysteria, prejudices, and intolerance on a
global scale, ironically creating points of contact between otherwise opposing
political belief systems.
. 137 .
John Greyson, Kipling Meets the Cowboys, 1985.
¾” video, 25 minutes, screenshot.
In 1984 and 1985, John Greyson directed The Kipling Trilogy. At the center
of the trilogy is the British author Rudyard Kipling, whose imperialistic
worldviews and racist tendencies were carried into the second half of the
20th century in the form of prose and lyrics (The Jungle Book, 1894; The White
Man’s Burden, 1899). In the three films, Greyson wistfully deconstructs the
hegemonic structures dominated by the straight white man’s ideas about
culture, race, and sexuality. The trilogy’s first part, The Perils of Pedagogy (1984),
is dedicated to the absence of role models for gay youths, while the second
part, The Jungle Boy (1985), is an examination of the contradictory tendencies
in Zoltan Korda’s adaption of Kipling’s stories about jungle-raised “man-cub”
. 138 .
Mowgli. The third and final instalment of the trilogy, Kipling Meets the Cowboys
(1985), sends the Noble Prize-winner as a tourist to North America, where he
himself becomes the victim of contemporary political and sexual bigotry.
In the twenty-five-minute long video, the prototypical colonist Kipling
(played by David Mole) arrives in Canada to recruit Cub Scouts, but finds
nothing more than sexualized cowboys that run afoul of the conservative
ideas of masculinity propagated in Kipling’s oeuvre. Although he is constantly
followed by undercover journalist Barbara Frum (played by Lisa Steele),
reporting live from the writer’s time in Canada working at CIA-TV, Kipling’s
journey does go according to plan at first. An early highlight of his journey is
his speech on how the white man’s burden restores justice in the international
jungle, held in front of the approving Canadian parliament. But when the
author decides to visit the premiere of Victor Fleming’s Captains Courageous
(1937) based on his own novel, things begin to go downhill. First, technical
problems replace the Kipling adaptation with Howard Hawks’ Western Red
River (1947), and then Kipling is arrested for having sex with a First Nations
travel agent (played by Cree dance artist René Highway). For the benefit of
Kipling, the charges are dropped since the author has been dead since 1936.
Greyson’s ironic and playful portrayal of Kipling’s excursion to contemporary
Canada is another critique by the filmmaker on the persistence of racism,
homophobia, and patriarchy in contemporary and popular culture, be
it in the form of novels or in the films of Hollywood and their portrayal of
heteronormative ideas of gender and the nuclear family. As in many of
Greyson’s works, Kipling Meets the Cowboys is full of intertextual references,
pieced together with fictional scenes as well as excerpts from Hollywood
. 139 .
movies and pornographic materials. Paralleling Kipling’s journey through
North America and his encouraging speeches about the need of the West
to police and civilize the rest of the world – set in action by a newspaper
headline proclaiming that the USA declares war against new Nicaragua Greyson presents the USA as the 20th century successor of the colonizing
forces of the British Empire.
Yet, Greyson also criticizes gay culture’s ambivalent contributions to this
development, which oscillates between queering the heteronormative figure
of the cowboy and taking up the cowboy as a symbol for America’s intended
hegemony. Thus, the scenes taken from Red River not only represent America’s
obsession with firearms, they are also a critique of the fetishization of the figure
of the cowboy in gay culture. By altering the film’s storyline, which depicts
a classic Oedipal conflict between Western-icon John Wayne and closeted
actor Montgomery Clift, Greyson identifies homosocial connotations in the
portrayal of male bonds and their relationship to their guns – often used as
a phallus symbol and a representation of masculinity – as an essential part of
the genre. In addition, Greyson shows the conflicted connection between the
sexualisation of the figure of the cowboy and its symbolic role in America’s
contemporary imperialism. The scenes of four young cowboys kissing,
blowing, and humping each other while lip-synching Roy Rogers songs is not
only a comment on the many gay subtexts in American culture, it is also a
reminder about the imperialist subtexts in gay culture.
. 140 .
Mike Hoolboom, Mexico, 1992.
16mm, 35 minutes, still.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=49394&title=still+from+%3
Ci%3E+Escape+in+Canada+%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Mike+Hoolboom&link_id=5248.
In the summer of 1989, Mike Hoolboom traveled with fellow experimental
filmmaker Steve Sanguedolce to Mexico. With a camera in their luggage, they
documented their journey from the hip, enjoying the “visual democracy” the
country had to offer as much as the “cheap supply of tequila and speed.”2 Back
in Canada, they worked for three years with the disconnected material they
shot. In the end, Mexico took the form of a resistant travelogue about a country
increasingly swallowed by the global economy. The film’s visual anecdotes,
. 141 .
loosely structured and held together by Hoolboom’s voice-over, are streaked
with the fear of the compromising cultural and financial consequences of
the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created a trilateral trade
block between Mexico, the USA, and Canada in 1994. Throughout the film, no
matter if Hoolboom and Sanguedolce explore the Sonora desert or the port
of the city Los Mochos, their inextricable feelings and fears become evident:
everywhere they go, it feels like being in Toronto.
Mexico explores the connection between free trade and tourism by avoiding
the simple categorization of Mexico as the exploited and the USA and
Canada as the exploiters. Instead, Hoolboom and Sanguedolce use the idea
of the journey to demonstrate how the way in which we perceive the world
as culturally diverse is highly selective and unaware of the influences of
globalized economic agents. Offering a snapshot of Mexico on the verge of
being overrun by US and Canadian corporations from a tourist’s perspective,
the overtly dark and gloomy images reveal what the majority of travelers
do not see: assembly line productions in large companies, smoking factory
chimneys, places in the jungle, producing nothing other than smoke, or the
erection of faceless skylines that make cities indistinguishable from each other
for the benefit of those who do not want to relinquish Canadian or Americanstyle products and standards. On the other hand, what tourists are willing to
see is equally constructed and narratively bent to cater to touristic pleasure.
Cultural heritage is transformed into busy visitor attractions, museums create
a vision of the past ajar to contemporary hegemonic ideas of history, and
hotels modeled after northern standards make excursions into Mexican life
only partially possible.
. 142 .
The political, social, and identity-forming position of the traveler related to
these issues is particularly evident in the first and last scenes of the audiovisual essay. The film opens with a shot taken from a plane on a runway. After
the screen goes black for a few seconds, Hoolboom’s poetic voice-offer refers
to the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones built out of the rocks of the Sierra
Madres, Mexico’s highest mountains. He talks about the museum’s popularity
among tourists, who despite the effort expended to visit the museum are,
once there, not actually willing to see or listen to the long list of historical
invasions of Mexico. The monologue is combined with shots of tourist masses
climbing Aztec Pyramids. Fast paced, the extreme long shot shows tourists as
small colourful dots, moving restlessly and hectically up and down the stairs,
not looking to the right and the left, not focused on the actual experience,
but driven by the pure idea of having been there. The film ends with another
reference to the tourist gaze, this time in form of a distanced view of a bullfight.
Framed through binoculars, we gaze through the eyes of a tourist at the fight
between the bull and torero with his many helpers. Too fragile to look directly
at the violent spectacle that ends with several men repeatedly stabbing the
bull, and too fascinated to turn the eyes away from the fight between man
and animal, the bullfight becomes an allegory for Third World tourism and its
troubling effects.
. 143 .
Mike Hoolboom, Escape in Canada, 1993.
16mm, 9 minutes, still.
Ci%3E+Escape+in+Canada+%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Mike+Hoolboom&link_id=5248.
In the 1940s, the Canadian Government sponsored a travelogue film
produced for potential American tourists looking to spend their holidays
in the neighbouring country. The film advertised Canada - or as Kipling
called it, our lady of the snow - as the land of escape from crowded places
and their alleged boredom. The film included all of the clichés and visual
formulas typically associated with Canada in order to attract the attention
of potential tourists with the budget to travel. The film showed peculiarly
composed and staged picturesque images from Niagara Falls to the Rocky
Mountains, of Mountain Rangers and Native Americans, buffaloes grazing in
the Canadian wilderness, and scenes presenting Montreal as “the Paris of the
. 144 .
North.” Hoolboom discovered these belittling images reducing Canada to a
synthetic tourist attraction for potential tourists from the United States, and
transformed them into a sharp critique of the imperialistic dangers presented
by the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Hoolboom invalidates the images presented in the original version with a
simple method: instead of deconstructing the film scene by scene into its
bits and pieces and reassembling it to bring forth the ideological subtexts of
the film, the filmmaker left the cut of the movie untouched and overexposed
the entire film. The over-exposure of the celluloid transformed the film in its
entirety into negative images, alienating what can be seen on the screen as
well as the spectator. The sublime landscapes vanish in garish white light,
and the interaction of a Mountie with a Native American becomes the
grotesque interaction of two faceless silhouettes, only distinguishable by their
exaggerated costumes. In a scene set in the Canadian wilderness, a Mountie
riding on a horse gets lost in the negative space, transforming the post-card
depiction of Canada into an empty projection of capitalist dreams of fat
revenues.
Mike Hoolboom and John Greyson’s works are distinguished studies of
the alienating effects of the tourist gaze in relation to the financial, cultural,
and political occupancy by travelers and the tourist industries in their films.
Each of the artists has approached the topic from various angles, using their
cameras as a means of writing visual travel diaries of trips to Soviet Russia
and Mexico, respectively. By appropriating found footage material taken from
advertisements, Hollywood, porn, and newsreel films, they reveal moving
images as mediators of false, distorted depictions of nations overruled by
. 145 .
neoliberalism. Besides this appropriation and remix of visual sources, their
films are also personal essays about their own experiences of being tourists.
They openly address their own position and role as tourists as well as their
inability to escape systems of tourist practices that lead to false conclusions,
playing into the hands of those agents they aim to criticize.
Virtual Exhibition
The exhibition design will have a simple and clean appearance. The website
will be divided into two parts: on the left side of the screen (taking up one third
of the screen), the visitors will find the curatorial essay and a table of contents
listing the films presented in the exhibition. From there, the visitors can decide
which film they want to see first, and request the respective description of
each film. On the right side (taking up two thirds of the screen), the visitors
can directly interact with the films. On the opening page, all four films will run
in parallel in the form of a split screen with four quadrants. Because of their
different running times this opening will constantly and without repetition
establish new connections between the individual films, creating a moving
mosaic of the tourist gaze. The visitors will be able to click on any of the
quadrants to access each individual film.
The visitors will have three options for how to watch the film. The first option
will enable them to watch the film in its entirety without interruption. After
the end of each film, the visitors can chose which film they want to see next.
The second option enables them to watch the films in their entirety while
also viewing additional information on their screen. The films will include
small symbols, clicking on which will trigger the display of further information
. 146 .
on a scene, historical background, and biographies, or give insights into the
script, research notes, costume design, and editing process. Thus, the visitors
can decide if they would like further information on, for example, Rudyard
Kipling and his relationship to Canada or the British Empire, featured films like
Red River and Ice Station Zebra, the scripts to all the films, or notes from the
archives of Greyson and Hoolboom. The third option enables the visitors to
deconstruct the four films into their individual pieces. They will be able to
watch the scenes, excerpts, and images used in the production on their own,
and create their own versions of the four films. Throughout the exhibition, the
visitors will be able to stop the films whenever they want and zoom into the
images to look for details.
The exhibition will also include a forum, where the visitors can share their ideas
about and interpretations of the films, as well as their re-edited versions. The
forum could be used to share and circulate alternative readings of the films,
additional information, and updated information on political developments
directly or indirectly related to the issued discussed in the work of Hoolboom
and Greyson.
. 147 .
Notes
1 “International tourism receipts surpass US $1 trillion in 2011,” (press
release), World Tourism Organization UNWTO, accessed December
19, 2013, http://media.unwto.org/en/press-release/2012-05-07/
international-tourism-receipts-surpass-us-1-trillion-2011.
2 Mike Hoolboom, Plague Years: A Life in Underground Movies (Toronto:
Yyz Books, 1998), 88.
Bibliography
Edensor, Tom. “Performing Tourism, Staging Tourism (Re) producing
Tourist Space and Practice.” Tourist Studies 1, no. 1 (2001): 59-81.
Hoolboom, Mike. Escape in Canada. http://mikehoolboom.
com/?p=399.
____. Mexico. http://mikehoolboom.com/?p=402.
____. Plague Years: A Life in Underground Movies. Toronto: YYZ Books,
1998.
International Tourism Receipts Surpass US $1 Trillion in 2011 (Press
Release). World Tourism Organization UNWTO. Accessed December
19, 2013.http://media.unwto.org/en/press-release/2012-05-07/
international-tourism-receipts-surpass-us-1-trillion-2011.
Longfellow, Brenda, Scott MacKenzie, and Thomas Waugh, eds. The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson. Montreal: McGillQueen’s Press-MQUP, 2013.
. 148 .
Urry, John. The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary
Societies, Theory, Culture & Society. 2nd Edition. London; Thousand
Oaks: Sage, 2002.
____. “The Tourist Gaze ‘Revisited’.” American Behavioral Scientist 36,
no. 2 (1992): 172-186.
Waugh, Thomas. Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering
Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press-MQUP,
2006.
. 149 .
Arni Haraldsson and
Christos Dikeakos:
Tar a Ng
***
With 2012 setting a record of over one billion international tourist arrivals in
149 countries, it is clear that tourism has grown into a popular global leisure
activity.1 But as more and more people engage in tourism, questions about
the ethics of sightseeing become increasingly pertinent.
Our preconceptions and experience of a popular travel destination are
shaped to a great extent by its tourist image. Bolstered by travel imagery and
official narratives, the tourist image of an attraction denies cultural critic Dean
MacCannell’s contention that “pleasurable and painful memory converge
in every attraction.”2 In other words, the tourist image celebrates important
cultural features that are firmly established in official histories while failing
. 150 .
to acknowledge the existence of people who have suffered in some way in
order for those very features to exist. The narratives of these people are often
excluded from history and thus survive only through collective memory.3 The
exclusionary nature of the tourist image is reinforced by the universality and
anonymity of an attraction,4 which encourages ignorance on the part of the
tourist towards social, economic, or political issues that may undermine its
pristine image.
Photography not only plays an important role in the production of travel
imagery, but is also the primary means by which tourists document the
places they visit. It is therefore apt that the two Vancouver-based artists in this
exhibition, Arni Haraldsson (b. 1958) and Christos Dikeakos (b. 1946), employ
the medium of photography to deconstruct tourist images of Jerusalem and
Vancouver, respectively, exposing the tension between these images and
the darker realities they conceal. Haraldsson traveled to Jerusalem in 1997. His
photographs of the miniature model of Jerusalem at the Holy Land Hotel and of
the abandoned Arab village of Lifta – whose population was displaced during
the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine – both capture and subvert
the tourist image of Jerusalem. From 2006 to 2009, Dikeakos photographed
the construction site of the Olympic Village and the surrounding landscape in
Southeast False Creek in Vancouver. By documenting the site in a transitional
phase, Dikeakos turns our attention away from the totalizing tourist image
towards the shifting identities of the site over time and its histories of human
displacement.
The disruption of the touristic experience by traces of human displacement
in these images raises challenging questions about what it means to be an
. 151 .
ethical tourist. Does the tourist have an obligation to critically engage with
products and experiences that are tailored for touristic consumption? What is
the relationship between the tourist and the traumatic memories embedded
in a given site? Does the tourist have an ethical responsibility to acknowledge
and somehow respond to these often-concealed memories? What shape
would such a response take?
Arni Haraldsson, Model of Ancient Jerusalem II, Holy Land Hotel, Jerusalem, 1997.
Chromogenic print, 23 x 29 in; 58.5 x 73.5 cm, National Gallery of Canada.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image.html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/big/h/haraldss/hara160.
jpg&cright=Arni+Haraldsson&mkey=17081&link_id=1837
Prior to its relocation to the Billy Rose Art Garden at the Israel Museum in
2006, the 2,000-square-metre model of ancient Jerusalem featured in Model
of Ancient Jerusalem II, Holy Land Hotel, Jerusalem was situated at the Holy
. 152 .
Land Hotel in southwest Jerusalem. The Israeli archaeologists who oversaw
the construction of the model studied primary sources in order to achieve a
historically accurate representation of Jerusalem as it was before the Roman
invasion of 70 CE.5 As a tourist attraction, the model projects an image of
Jerusalem as an ancient city unchanged by time. Haraldsson’s photograph
notably includes the Second Temple, a Jewish Holy Temple that was built by
Herod the Great (73/74 BCE–4 BCE) in 516 BCE and destroyed in 70 CE. The
cropping of the image indicates that the model is far more expansive than what
the artist has chosen to include. The fragmented nature of the photograph
subverts the completeness of the model, disrupting the utopian vision of
Jerusalem it may represent for Jewish tourists. The bright sunlight pervading
the image imbues the model with a sense of the holy, which is disturbed
by the jarring insertion of mundane objects such as the pillow and buckets.
Besides affirming the model as a manmade construct motivated by certain
desires and intentions, these objects firmly situate this ancient Jerusalem in
the present, revealing the anachronism of the tourist image of Jerusalem in
relation to present realities. The city is not a complete whole as it was before
70 CE but a contested site at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as
Israel and the State of Palestine both claim Jerusalem as their capital.
. 153 .
Arni Haraldsson, Lifta, West Jerusalem, 1997–2000.
Chromogenic print laminated to plexiglass, wood frame, 42 x 50 in; 127 x 152.5 cm,
National Gallery of Canada.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image.html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/big/h/haraldss/hara152.
jpg&cright=Arni+Haraldsson&mkey=17077&link_id=1837
. 154 .
Lifta was an Arab village in West Jerusalem whose population was displaced
during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. It is the only village
of over four hundred that was not completely destroyed during the war and
has not been permanently resettled.6 The displaced Arab residents, who
dispersed to East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Jordan, and other countries, have
not been permitted to return.7
In Haraldsson’s Lifta, West Jerusalem (1997–2000), the picturesque landscape
of Lifta in the foreground is juxtaposed with the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish
neighbourhood of Ramot in northeast Jerusalem. The neat rows of white
houses lining the horizon stand in contrast to the erratic configuration of
weatherworn stone buildings dotting the steep hillside. Haraldsson deliberately
reduces the colour saturation of his images by shooting in the diffuse light
of overcast days;8 this aesthetic lends a feeling of romantic nostalgia to Lifta,
West Jerusalem. However, the presence of the neighbourhood of Ramot –
somewhat ominously close to Lifta – precludes nostalgia with its appearance
of newness and its insistence on situating Lifta in the context of the present
rather than in an immemorial past. Knowledge of the thirteen families living
there today and of the displacement of the village’s original inhabitants
further challenges a nostalgic viewing of the image. The juxtaposition of
Ramot and Lifta in Haraldsson’s photograph reveals a visible tension present
in the landscape that speaks to the politics of place embedded in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
. 155 .
Christos Dikeakos, The Room, 3 Vets, 2009.
Light-Jet print, 71 x 89 in; 180 x 226 cm, Catriona Jeffries Gallery.
http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/christos-dikeakos/works/#8.
. 156 .
Dikeakos’ The Room, 3 Vets (2009) captures Jerry Wolfman, an art dealer
in Vancouver, in his “showroom” of First Nations art, located in an outdoor
equipment store that he co-owns called “3 Vets.” Not far from the Olympic
Village, the store likely welcomed many foreign visitors during the Olympics.
In the photograph, Wolfman is behind a glass display case in a corner of the
showroom, which is packed with First Nations masks, sculptures, paddles,
wood carvings, and other works. The cropping of the image suggests that
there are many more objects beyond the space shown in the image. Many
of the objects are hanging on pegboards, while others are strewn about
haphazardly all over the room. There are no visible labels for the objects
identifying their maker. The careless way in which these objects are displayed
clearly defines them as undifferentiated commodities rather than as unique art
objects. Employing a strategy similar to that of Haraldsson, Dikeakos captures
the disruption of the conventional aesthetic display of objects intended for
touristic consumption in order to expose the ideologies that motivate their
production. We may derive pleasure from the art of the First Nations, but we
must also recall the painful memory of colonialism and the prohibition of First
Nations artistic and cultural practices during the nineteenth and first half of
the twentieth century.
. 157 .
Christos Dikeakos, Squatter’s Tent, Olympic Village, 2007–2009.
Light-Jet print, 48 x 60; 122 x 152 cm. Catriona Jeffries Gallery.
http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/christos-dikeakos/works/#7
. 158 .
The Olympic Village is located in Southeast False Creek, which was originally
home to Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.9 The more
recent history of Southeast False Creek as an abandoned industrial site is
captured in Dikeakos’ Squatter’s Tent (2007–2009), which shows the location
of the construction site of the Olympic Village on a former parking lot. In
Squatter’s Tent, stacked slabs of concrete – which might be interpreted as a
man-made version of the mountains in the far distance – lead the eye into
the photograph, while the tent echoes the round shape of the Science World
building. There is a simultaneous mirroring of and juxtaposition between
the “messy foregrounds but optimistic backgrounds.”10 Similar to Haraldsson,
Dikeakos is interested in the “counter-influencing shifts and meanings” that
arise within the dialogue between the foreground and background in his
images.11
A distant view of the high rises and scenic mountains of the city may elicit
optimism, but Dikeakos’ close-up examination of the Olympic Village as a
specific site exposes the ways in which rapid urban development erases local
histories embedded in the landscape and exacerbates human displacement.12
This image also points to the obvious fact that the homeless population has
no place in the tourist image; however, homelessness is a serious problem
in Vancouver.13 Given that Aboriginal people represent thirty percent of
the homeless population of the city and two percent of the city’s entire
population,14 this image may be interpreted as referencing both their historical
displacement as a result of colonialism and the current displacement of
homeless indigenous peoples. Finally, Dikeakos’ photograph subverts the
tourist image of the Olympic Village by documenting the site prior to its
sanitization and aestheticization for public enjoyment.
. 159 .
The photographs of Haraldsson and Dikeakos propose alternative ways of
seeing and experiencing a place as a tourist. They urge the viewer to question
and look beyond the superficiality of the tourist image as well as asserting
an ethical responsibility on the part of the tourist to engage with the painful
memories and present realities that may reside in a given place. Haraldsson
and Dikeakos’s photographs are arguably more allusive than expository,
suggesting that the ethical tourist must assume an active role in pursuing and
shaping his/her personal encounter with that which lies beyond the tourist
image.
Notes
1 “Quick Overview of Key Trends,” UNWTO World Tourism Barometer 11
(January 2013): 3.
2 Dean MacCannell, The Ethics of Sightseeing (Berkeley; Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2011), 168.
3 Ibid., 171.
4 Ibid., 176.
5 Annabel Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 221.
6 Daphna Golan, Zvika Orr, and Sami Ershied, “Lifta and the Regime of
Forgetting: Memory Work and Conservation,” Jerusalem Quarterly 54
(Summer 2013): 69.
7Ibid.
8 Anne Brydon, “Perfecting Structure,” in At Last Sight (London: London
Regional Art & Historical Museums, 2000), 9.
. 160 .
9 “False Creek’s Ecological + Industrial History,” The Challenge Series,
accessed October 26, 2013, http://www.thechallengeseries.ca/
chapter-01/history/.
10 Colin Browne, “Location Hunting False Creek: An Interview with
Christos Dikeakos,” The Capilano Review 3, no. 10 (Winter 2010): 19.
11 Ibid., 20.
12 “Christos Dikeakos, 26 March–25 April 2009,” Catriona Jeffries Gallery,
accessed October 26, 2013, http://catrionajeffries.com/exhibitions/
past/christos-dikeakos-2009/?id=exhibitions&a=Christos%20
Dikeakos&y=All%20Years.
13 Lance Berelowitz, Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination
(Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005), 232.
14 Mike Howell, “First Nations people make up 30 per cent of
Vancouver’s homeless,” Vancouver Courier, October 15, 2013, accessed
October 26, 2013, http://www.vancourier.com/news/first-nationspeople-make-up-30-per-cent-of-vancouver-s-homeless-1.660225.
Bibliography
“Quick Overview of Key Trends.” UNWTO World Tourism Barometer 11
(January 2013): 3-4.
Berelowitz, Lance. Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination.
Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2005.
Browne, Colin. “Location Hunting False Creek: An Interview with
Christos Dikeakos.” The Capilano Review 3, no. 10 (Winter 2010): 13-37.
. 161 .
Golan, Daphna, Zvika Orr and Sami Ershied. “Lifta and the Regime of
Forgetting: Memory Work and Conservation.” Jerusalem Quarterly 54
(Summer 2013): 69-81.
Haraldsson, Arni and Anne Brydon. At Last Sight. London: London
Regional Art and Historical Museums, 2000.
MacCannell, Dean. The Ethics of Sightseeing. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2011.
Wharton, Annabel. Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Themes Parks.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
. 162 .
Les yeux grands fermés:
Analyse de photographies
d’espaces intérieurs de
Angela Grauerholz
et Lynne Cohen
Marie- Eve Sévigny
***
Les souvenirs de lieux et de choses (mobilier, objets) que nous accumulons
et construisons peuvent être personnels, c’est-à-dire, tirés de nos propres
expériences, ou historiques, c’est-à-dire, provenant d’une réalité collective et
partagée. Certains intérieurs, vus à travers les pages d’un livre, dans un film,
ou en photo, même s’ils n’ont pas été physiquement observés, peuvent
éveiller les souvenirs d’un espace similaire, d’une autre époque ou d’une autre
localisation. Conditionnés à reconnaitre sans nécessairement avoir connu,
. 163 .
c’est l’émotion et les impressions soulevées par la vision d’un lieu qui nous
transporte plus loin dans la réflexion. Car dans cette volonté de se souvenir,
nous reconnaissons l’absence; les gens qui ont foulé ces sols, occupé ces
chaises et habité ces espaces sont présents par leur absence.
Aussi, c’est sous cet angle d’approche que seront analysées les photographies
d’intérieurs d’Angela Grauerholz et Lynne Cohen. Photographiant des espaces
anonymes, à l’esthétique européenne pour la première et aux accents
nord-américains pour la seconde, les deux artistes suscitent des sentiments
contradictoires d’identification et de détachement face aux lieux captés sur
pellicule. Dans une période où la mondialisation estompe les frontières de l’art,
l’importance de la localisation de ces espaces devient notable. En se référant
à l’étude globale de l’art,1 la logique culturelle d’un lieu n’est pas effacée au
départ de celui-ci. Elle voyage plutôt avec nous afin de constituer un bagage
de pratique artistique et de souvenirs, qui peut être réutilisé dans l’espace et
le temps. En effet, les images de Grauerholz et Cohen touchent un aspect
crucial de la transnationalité dans l’art: la transmission de l’information visuelle
peut commencer et finir dans des sites variés et se déplacer dans plusieurs
directions.2
En contemplant ces images d’intérieurs, un rapport très étroit entre les
notions de présence et d’absence est établi, et une exploration des notions de
temporalité et de mémoire peut être initiée pour faciliter une compréhension
foncièrement différente des espaces habités.
Angela Grauerholz est née à Hambourg en Allemagne en 1952. Elle émigre
à Montréal, au Québec, en 1972, ville qu’elle habite depuis 1976. Elle est
. 164 .
d’abord reconnue pour ses photographies noir et blanc denses qui semblent
suspendues entre rêve et réalité. Véritables signatures de l’artiste, ces dernières
laissent par la suite place à des images similaires, mais de couleur.3 Dans ses
photographies, elle focus son attention sur la dynamique des objets dans
un environnement donné et explore leur portée en relation au temps et à la
mémoire personnelle et collective.
Lynne Cohen est né aux États-Unis en 1944, plus précisément à Racine
dans le Wisconsin. À partir de 1973, elle vit et travaille au Canada, d’abord
à Ottawa, puis à Montréal à partir de 2005. Son travail se concentre sur les
photographies d’intérieurs domestiques et institutionnels banals à première
vue. Ces espaces exceptionnellement variés ont inclus, entre autres, salons,
halls publics, maisons de retraite, salles d’attente, laboratoires, spas, usines,
installations militaires, et bureaux. Dans les photographies de Cohen le
caractère distinctif est l’absence de présence humaine, mais l’abondance de
signes de leur passage en ces lieux.
. 165 .
Angela Grauerholz, Le bureau, 1993.
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/fr/angela-grauerholz.
La photographie intitulée Le bureau (1993) par Angela Grauerholz représente
un aménagement très classique d’espace de travail qui pourrait être situé
dans une bibliothèque, autant que dans une institution gouvernementale.
Les massives colonnes de pierre cernant l’image ajoutent à l’aspect officiel de
l’ensemble. Dans cet espace aux tons sépia et aux contours flous, tout semble
suspendu dans le temps. Les chaises capitaines sont toutes identiques, mais
aucune n’est placée de la même façon. Même traitement pour les documents
empilés de façon désordonnée sur les tables.
. 166 .
Tirée de la réalité, cette image à l’aspect intemporel, qui voyagent entre le
passé et le présent, sert à confondre les souvenirs et repères temporels du
visiteur par rapport au lieu. Dans celle-ci, le concept de durée où le passé, le
présent et le futur se confond pour ne devenir qu’un seul. Ainsi, le présent est
en constante redéfinition parce qu’il porte les traces du passé et n’est jamais
seulement que le présent.4
Angela Grauerholz, Secrets, A Gothic Tale (Détail), 1994, épreuve à la gélatine argentique,
dimensions indéterminées. Collection du Centre d’art contemporain,
Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Bignan.
http://www.voxphoto.com/fd/artiste_select.php?artiste=109#.
La photographie Secrets, A Gothic Tale (Détail) (1994), prise dans le Château
de Kerguéhennec, Bignan, est littéralement celle d’un lieu de mémoire,
. 167 .
comme Angela Grauerholz les nomme. Le bâtiment datant du 18e siècle
est par définition historique. Les photographies qui en sont faites sont aussi
devenues des lieux historiques de mémoire, une fois contextualisées dans
l’espace du château, car ils peuvent évoquer un souvenir personnel à chacun.
Grauerholz utilise donc la capacité de métamorphose de ces lieux de mémoire
car elle y voit une possibilité infinie de réinterprétation pour chacun.5 Tirée
d’une collection de photos portant le même nom, Secrets, A Gothic Tale,
est basé sur l’histoire fictive d’une femme photographe du 19e siècle qui
aurait habité le château et en aurait documenté compulsivement chaque
détail. Présentée dans le contexte même du château, la collection prend
son sens comme trace du passé réinterprétée infiniment dans le présent.6
Formellement, certains éléments de cette photographie contribuent
possiblement à évoquer des souvenirs chez le spectateur. Par exemple, la
lumière diffuse provenant d’un chandelier dont on devine la forme ainsi que
la façon dont il éclaire la pièce en laissant certaines zones d’ombre, ou encore
les volets à demi-ouverts sur l’inconnu. Ces éléments, que l’on associe à une
ambiance onirique changent le ton de l’œuvre pour l’habiller de mystère.
. 168 .
Angela Grauerholz, Sententia-I-LXIII, No. 31, 1998.
Épreuve à la gélatine argentique.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image.html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/big/g/grauerholz/
grau018.jpg&cright=Angela+Grauerholz&mkey=53156&link_id=337.
. 169 .
Avec Sententia-I-LXIII, No. 31 (1998), une technique particulière est employée
afin d’amener le public un pas plus loin dans l’identification avec la
photographie. Grauerholz effectue un travail en opacité sur l’apparente
transparence photographique. Avec différents mécanismes, elle arrive à faire
focaliser le spectateur sur l’objet représenté plutôt que vers la représentation
de celui-ci. Pourtant, c’est justement la représentation elle-même qui peut
nous informer sur la façon dont nous interprétons ses photographies
d’espaces intérieurs. S’attarder à la représentation d’une scène comme celle
de la photographique tirée de la série Sententia-I-LXIII, permet de discerner
divers éléments formels découlant de la technique utilisée. À travers le
flou créé par un léger mouvement de camera, le jeu de noirceur, le focus
indéfini, le cadrage désaxé et l’ambigüité d’espace et de temps mentionnée
précédemment, elle souhaite faire une place à l’individu regardant ses
images pour qu’il puisse vagabonder à travers l’espace de cette photo. Ces
divers éléments formels sont utilisés pour donner l’impression que le travail
est regardé à travers une brume mélancolique.7 À sa manière, Grauerholz
souhaite mobiliser les émotions, pensées ou souvenirs du public par rapport
à des lieux similaires qu’il aurait connu ou des photographies similaires qu’il
aurait déjà vues. Comme vous voyez, en regardant les photos, un trouble
se produit entre le lieu de l’expérience et la relation des êtres et des choses.
. 170 .
Lynne Cohen, Living Room, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1973.
Épreuve à la gélatine argentique, Collection of the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff.
http://www.banffcentre.ca/event/5659/lynne-cohen-photographs-from-1973-to-1978openingreception?d=2012-02-02+17:00.
La fascination de Lynne Cohen pour les techniques de photographie
utilisées dans la publicité, et dans le monde de l’immobilier contemporain
est facilement reconnaissable dans son travail des années 70. En effet, dans
l’image intitulée Living Room, Ann Arbor, Michigan (1973) on remarque une
lumière neutre, une profondeur de champ et une composition semblable aux
catalogues de décoration reçus par la poste à l’époque. Ce qui en ressort est
l’étrangeté d’un décor neutre auquel tout le monde aurait pu s’identifier. Un
aspect artificiel qui est rehaussé par ce qui semble une économie de mobilier
et d’objets, disposés au millimètre près et sans aucun naturel. Réalisée en
. 171 .
tirage photographique argentique, technique la plus courante d’impression
de photo noir et blanc à partir de négatifs, elle présente des caractéristiques
typique de ce type de développement. Pour obtenir le résultat, une fine
couche de gélatine contenant des sels d’argent est appliquée au support
ou papier photo et sert à retenir les grains et à accroitre leur sensibilité à
la lumière pour révéler l’image. Une caractéristique distinctive de cette
technique photographique visible dans Living Room, Ann Arbor, Michigan,
est une surface d’image lisse et uniforme,8 ainsi que des tons noirs riches
contrastant avec des tons blancs nets.
Lynne Cohen, Spa, 1994. Épreuve à développement chromogène, 121,9 x 147,3 cm.
http://voxphoto.com/fd/artiste_select_en.php?artiste=92.
. 172 .
Les espaces captés par Lynne Cohen sont des espaces ordinaires auxquels
normalement, nous ne portons pas d’attention particulière. Cependant, en
les isolant et en les photographiant selon un certain angle comme dans la
photographie Spa (1994), Cohen reconfigure ces terrains familiers en terrains
inconnus et apparemment neutres. Ainsi, la relation contradictoire entre les
activités du monde contemporain, comme aller se détendre au spa, et les
espaces qui les abritent, est mise de l’avant par l’artiste. Au niveau formel,
différents éléments visuels retiennent l’attention. D’abord, les proportions de
l’espace ne semblent pas justes, au point où l’on peine à savoir s’il est grand ou
petit et si l’on devrait s’y sentir à l’aise ou claustrophobe. Il n’y a pas de porte ou
de fenêtre visible, donc pas d’issue. Pourtant, l’espace (aux tons monochromes
de bleu) est baigné de lumière. Cette lumière blanchâtre presque trop bleue
pour être la lumière du jour semble provenir d’une source artificielle unique
en dehors du champ photographique. Une explication potentielle de cet effet
provient de la méthode de développement employée. Dans le développement
chromogène, on synthétise chimiquement les colorants qui forment l’image
définitive à partir de précurseurs incolores déjà présents dans les couches de
la pellicule. Les tirages résultant offrent une saturation supérieure des tons,
ainsi qu’une gamme étendue et nuancée pour les couleurs riches. Or, « La
couleur, par son attrait immédiat sur l’œil, risque également de mettre le sujet
au second plan ou de lui ôter son mystère, et par conséquent de conférer aux
images un caractère artificiel. » 9
Ajoutant à cette impression générale, les chaises, signe de présence humaine,
sont ordonnées selon ce qui semble être une trame extrêmement régulière
à ne pas déranger. L’effet contrôlé qui en ressort semble être le fruit d’un
décor construit par Cohen pour le bien de son art, ce qui n’est pas le cas.
. 173 .
Cet espace, comme tous les autres photographiés par l’artiste, n’a subi
aucune modification et a été photographié tel quel dans le but de capter son
étrangeté.10 Les images de Cohen invitent à la réflexion et au questionnement.
Que sont ces espaces de vie et de travail sans les gens? Ont-ils raison d’être
sans occupants? Deviennent-ils seulement des témoins embarrassants de
l’absence des hommes une fois les hommes partis?
Lynne Cohen, Untitled (Astroturf), 2007.
Épreuve à développement chromogène, 132,1 x 156,2 cm, Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.
http://www.lynne-cohen.com/1024x768/images/2_30.jpg.
. 174 .
Dans son travail, Lynne Cohen utilise des méthodes photographiques précises
pour que le spectateur se projette dans l’image de l’espace intérieur. À titre
d’exemple, l’œuvre Untitled (Astroturf) (2007) est particulièrement éloquente.
Le cadrage, l’utilisation calibrée du grand angle, la symétrie et la profondeur
de champ aident le spectateur à se sentir pratiquement dans l’image.
Cette sensation est renforcée par l’aspect extrêmement directionnel de la
photographie. En effet, les lumières, le motif du plafond, la caille, les fenêtres
et même le découpage de peinture nous aspire pratiquement dans la photo.
Autre détail captant le regard: l’éclairage artificiel et homogène des néons,
associé aux couleurs de la photographie aide à reproduire les surfaces avec
le plus de détails possibles et à accentuer les motifs bidimensionnels.11 Dans
cette image, comme dans beaucoup d’autres de Cohen, l’utilisation de la
déformation visuelle propre à la photographie argentique contribue aussi
à l’effet de proximité ambigüe.12 Un élément intéressant à noter est que
toutes ces mises au point photographiques sont réalisées dans l’objectif
que le spectateur découvre toujours davantage de détails plus il s’approche
de la photo. Toujours située dans un lieu dont la fonction reste équivoque
— salle d’examen, résidence de personnes âgée, salle d’observation, etc.—
des éléments de l’aménagement tel le sapin artificiel et la chaise berçante
donnent des indices de présence humaine qui à la fois situent et confondent
le spectateur.
En présentant des espaces intérieurs autrement que par une photographie
documentaire, les deux photographes poussent le spectateur à questionner
son rapport à l’environnement qui l’entoure. En effet, par des approches
distinctes, elles permettent au spectateur d’accéder, le temps d’un instant, à
ce que l’œil ne perçoit pas au premier abord. Victime d’un brillant tour de
. 175 .
passe-passe, celui-ci perçoit dans ces photographies d’intérieurs quelque
chose qui a déjà été présent, a disparu, et est présent à nouveau.13 En
estompant habilement la ligne entre la réalité et la représentation de celleci, elles transmettent chacune à leur façon — Angela Grauerholz avec ses
images tout droit sorties d’un souvenir aux contours flous et Lynne Cohen
avec son regard nouveau sur des lieux banalisés — leur perception des
espaces inhabités comme des tableaux à dimension humaine qui témoignent
du vécu.
Notes
1 Référence à l’expression anglophone “World Art Studies”.
2 Loren Lerner, “Thematic and Conceptual Focus: World Art Studies
and Global Art Studies,” dans le syllabus ARTH 648B - Envisioning
Digital and Virtual Forms of Exhibitions: The Curatorial Translation of
Theory into Practice, 1.
3 Paulette Gagnon, “Angela Grauerholz,” L’Encyclopédie canadienne,
accédé le 10 octobre 2013, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.
com/articles/fr/angela-grauerholz.
4 Dans le chapitre Time, Space, Memory, de son livre Global Modernities,
Ann Game parle de la conception du temps du philosophe
français Henri-Louis Bergson en des termes qui se rapprochent
du travail d’Angela Grauerholz. Ann Game, “Time, Space, Memory,
with reference to Bachelard,” dans Global Modernities, éd. Mike
Featherstone, Scott Lash, et Roland Robertson (London; Thousand
Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1995), 196.
. 176 .
5 “Angela Grauerholz- The Inexhaustible,” University of Toronto Art Centre
on Vimeo, accédé le 11 octobre 2013, http://vimeo.com/31848431.
6 Leslie L. Brock, “Box Times: Landscape, Feminism and The Archive in
Selected Works by Angela Grauerholz” (thèse de maîtrise, Université
Concordia, 2004), 60-61, http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/7977/1/
MQ91004.pdf.
7 “Angela Grauerholz,” National Gallery of Canada, accédé le 10
octobre 2013, http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.
php?iartistid=2145.
8 “Gelatin Silver Print,” Irvin Penn Archives of The Art Institute of Chicago,
accédé le 16 décembre 2013, http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/
exhibitions/IrvingPennArchives/gelatin.
9 “Historique des procédés de la photographie,” Encyclopédie Larousse
en Ligne, accédé le 19 décembre 2013, http://www.larousse.fr/
encyclopedie/divers/film/52107.
10 Lynne Cohen et François LeTourneux, Faux indices (Montréal: Musée
d’art contemporain de Montréal, 2013), 40.
11 Lynne Cohen, Cover (Cherbourg-Octeville: Le Point du Jour, c2009),
119.
12 Cohen et LeTourneux, Faux indices, 16.
13 “Lynne Cohen: Occupied Territory,” Stephen Daiter Gallery, accédé le
15 octobre 2013, http://www.stephendaitergallery.com/dynamic/
exhibit_display.asp?ExhibitID=165.
. 177 .
Bibliographie
“Angela Grauerholz.” National Gallery of Canada. Accédé le 10
octobre 2013. http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.
php?iartistid=2145
“Angela Grauerholz.” Olga Korper Gallery Inc. Accédé le 15 octobre
2013.
http://www.olgakorpergallery.com/artist/Grauerholz
“Angela Grauerholz- The Inexhaustible.” University of Toronto Art
Centre sur Vimeo. Accédé le 11 octobre 2013.
Aynsley, Jeremy. “The Modern Period Room – A Contradiction
in Terms?” dans The Modern Period Room: The Construction of the
Exhibited Interior 1870 to 1950, ed. Penny Sparke, Brenda Martin, et
Trevor Keeble. London; New York: Routledge, 2006.
Brock, Leslie L. “Box Times: Landscape, Feminism and The Archive in
Selected Works by Angela Grauerholz.” Thèse de maîtrise, Université
Concordia, 2004. Accédé le 18 décembre 2013.
http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/7977/1/MQ91004.pdf.
Cohen, Lynne. “CCCA profil de l’artiste, Lynne Cohen.” Base de
données sur l’art canadien CACC. Accédé le 10 octobre 2013. http://
ccca.concordia.ca/artists/artist_info.html?languagePref=fr&link_
id=1372&artist=Lynne+Cohen.
____. Cover. Cherbourg-Octeville: Le Point du Jour, c2009.
. 178 .
____ et François LeTourneux. Faux indices. Montréal: Musée d’art
contemporain de Montréal, 2013.
Gagnon, Paulette. “Angela Grauerholz.” L’EncyclopédiecCanadienne.
Accédé le 10 octobre 2013. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.
com/articles/fr/angela-grauerholz.
Game, Ann. “Time, Space, Memory, with reference to Bachelard,”
dans Global Modernities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, et
Roland Robertson. London; Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Publications, 1995.
“Gelatin Silver Print.” Irvin Penn Archives of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Accédé le 16 décembre 2013. http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/
exhibitions/IrvingPennArchives/gelatin
Grauerholz, Angela. “CCCA profil de l’artiste, Angela Grauerholz.”
Base de données sur l’art canadien CACC. Accédé le 10
octobre 2013. http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/artist_info.
html?languagePref=fr&link_id=1372&artist=Lynne+Cohen.
“Historique des procédés de la photographie.” Encyclopédie Larousse
en ligne. Accédé le 19 décembre 2013. http://www.larousse.fr/
encyclopedie/divers/film/52107.
Stephen Daiter Gallery. “Lynne Cohen: Occupied Territory.” Accédé le
15 octobre 2013. http://www.stephendaitergallery.com/dynamic/
exhibit_display.asp?ExhibitID=165.
. 179 .
Identities | Identités
Identities
Identités
Ken Lum and Germaine Koh: Connections
Mojeanne Behzadi
SCULTURE CLUB and Scott Rogers:
Hacking the Void
Eleanor Dumouchel
Among Worlds: Experiencing Global
Nomadism and the Third Culture Kid
in the Works of Pat Badani and Jinny Yu
Victoria Nolte
Beautiful Monsters: Representing Fear in
the Work of David Altmejd and Shary Boyle
Jessica Kirsh
L’art de construire la réflexion sociale:
le travail d’Angela Grauerholz et
Jerszy Seymour comme terrains de
rencontre
Marie-Eve Sévigny
. 180 .
Ken Lum and
Germaine Koh:
Connections
Mojeanne Behz adi
***
Ken Lum and Germaine Koh: Connections brings together a selection of
works by the Canadian, Vancouver-based artists Ken Lum (b. 1956) and
Germaine Koh (b. 1967), and it focuses on how these artists investigate the
relative lack of close social relations in North American society today, and
how their projects propose possible ways to connect more meaningfully
with one another.
Nicolas Bourriaud’s theory of relational aesthetics offers significant insights
for a discussion of these two art practices. Bourriaud, a French curator, writer,
art critic, and author of theoretical essays on contemporary art, suggests that
art is not merely material but rather a platform for stimulating and facilitating
. 181 .
social interactions.1 As such, art takes the place of traditional forms of social
interaction which are becoming obsolete with increasing urbanization,
advancements in technology and digital media.2 Each work selected for
this exhibition not only engages viewers to participate in the creation and
interpretation of its meaning, but also encourages them to pursue moments
of interactivity and opportunities for interpersonal connections with other
audience members.
It has been argued that the globalization of culture in the late twentiethand early twenty-first centuries has destabilized various forms of social
identity, upsetting previously rooted social patterns of human interaction.
Cultural theorist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard makes such an argument
when he writes that, “the global interconnection of networks is doubled
by a dislocation of the fragments moving further and further from each
other.”3 Many artworks offer a way to counter the fragmentary condition that
Baudrillard describes by encouraging us to become aware of our position
within a culture, and question the institutional and cultural forces that shape
our daily lives.
Lum and Koh create works that make visible key issues often hidden from
our collective consciousness, and they significantly explore the presence of
social connections - or the lack thereof. In fact, these two artists operate in
similar ways, performing or exhibiting works in public spaces that encourage
chance encounters and elicit reactions and interactions with viewers.
. 182 .
Ken Lum, Entertainment for Surrey, 1978. Video still.
Surrey Art Gallery and Vancouver Art Gallery.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2012/02/29/kenlum/.
An important artwork included in this exhibition is Entertainment for Surrey, an
early video documenting a performance by Lum from 1978. Over the course
of four days, during the morning rush hour, Lum stood on a cliff overlooking
the Trans-Canada Highway, at the juncture linking the suburb of Surrey to the
city of Vancouver. The artist wore the same clothes every day, and stood still in
the exact same position provoking reactions from the drivers of passing cars,
who came to recognize him and expect his presence after a few days. On
the fifth day, after the motorists had become familiar with seeing him at this
. 183 .
location, rather than standing at the roadside, he installed a cardboard cut
out of his figure, which over time disintegrated under the weight of a heavy
rainfall. This fifth performative moment of the project created an element of
surprise for the commuters. Lum describes his relationship to the passing
commuters by stating: “People came to expect me there. I became a sign.”4
This performance presented drivers with an opportunity to become
conscious of the mundane routines they typically, and often unreflectively,
engage in, such as the drive from their suburban home to place of work.
Through the presentation of his own body, which as Lum puts it “became
a sign,” Lum’s intervention asked these commuters to give closer attention
to their surroundings, and the activities that occupied them daily. Lum’s
project stakes a claim on a rather anonymous, typically unoccupied public
space, and by doing so the artist precipitates human connections between
himself and an equally anonymous audience. This performance is an appeal
for a new state of sociability in the contemporary Western world, a world
well populated yet, according to Baudrillard and Bourriaud, a world that
is profoundly
disconnected. This disconnection partly stems from the
increasing tendency to automate activities formerly performed by humans.
Bourriaud elaborates: “The automatic cash machine has become the transit
model for the most elementary social functions, and professional behaviour
patterns are modeled on the efficiency of the machines carrying out tasks
which one represented so many opportunities for exchanges, pleasure and
squabbling.”5 The artist entices his audience to question the behaviours they
engage in everyday rather than accept and fulfil routines mindlessly. Although
the artwork now only exists in video format, the original performance is true
to the relational attribute of engaging onlookers in in unexpected ways in
. 184 .
their habitual settings: drivers and passengers interacted with Lum’s presence
and anticipated his reappearance, striking up a temporary and unexpected
form of social connection on the spatial periphery of an urban infrastructure.
Ken Lum, Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression, 2002.
Installation with mirrors and text, dimensions variable. Vancouver Art Gallery.
http://juliannekozak.blogspot.ca/2011/05/mirror-maze-with-12-signs-of-depresion.html.
Mirror Maze with 12 Signs of Depression is an architectural installation conceived
by Lum for Documenta 11, in Kassel, Germany, in 2002. The viewer is able to
enter this cubic structure, which is composed of fifty-one mirrored panes of
glass that serve as walls. On twelve of the panes, viewers can read sentences
that list, as the title indicates, signs of depression. Participants walking through
the maze encounter sentences like “I cry for no reason,” and “I am sad all the
time.”6 The experience of being faced with an infinitely repeated self-reflection
disorients the visitor, whose experience in the space could range from mild
. 185 .
discomfort to intense anxiety. The texts on the mirrored surfaces further disturb
the viewer by addressing psychological issues, and by provoking questions
for the viewer who may come to personally associate with the statements
of depression inscribed throughout the installation. Following the premise of
relational aesthetics, this mirrored installation creates an opportune space for
social connections. Through being disoriented and vulnerable, participants
are prone to be aware and empathetic to one another as they walk within the
labyrinth, experiencing the work with those around them. In fact, interactions
between visitors may offer a remedy to the disturbance caused by the work.
The senses of loneliness, insecurity, and anxiety experienced by a visitor may
be partially relieved by sharing the moment with other individuals present.
In ... (2000), an installation work by Koh, small steel balls hail from the ceiling
of the exhibition space, and once on the ground create a predetermined pattern that resembles a map.7 As visitors walk through the gallery space their
bodies become immersed in the installation as they start to sense the balls
dropping all around them. Koh conceived this project when the curators at
the Gandai Gallery invited her (and other artists) to select an object from the
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre as the inspiration for the creation of a new
work. Koh chose to respond to a set of Pachinko balls from the collection.
Pachinko, a game comparable to pinball or slot machines, was developed in
the early twentieth century as a leisure game for the working class in Japan.
To some degree, the game is comparable to the repetitive nature of industrial
labour, because it requires participants to repeatedly, mechanically manipulate a machine.8
. 186 .
Germaine Koh, ..., 2000.
Installation with ball bearings raining from overhead tracks, electrical mechanisms, variable dimensions.
http://germainekoh.com/ma/projects_detail.cfm?pg=projects&projectID=54.
. 187 .
This work surprises viewers by directly involving them in the action of the
work. These ball bearings rain down on the bodies of gallery-goers. Visitors to
this exhibition are not passive viewers, since it is the sensory, bodily experience
involved in this work that informs an audience’s interpretation of the work.
Visitors bring their own knowledge into understanding the map formed by
the steel balls, as they experience the installation. The downpour of the balls,
evoking rainfall, is contradicted by the metallic sound of the balls as they
land on the ground. For visitors familiar with Pachinko parlour environments,
this auditory component may recall the droning sounds of gameplay typical
to such spaces. This installation recalls the core principles of relational
aesthetics in that it produces sociability by soliciting physical participation
and conversational interaction among the viewers showered by balls and
puzzled by the magnetic constructions that determine the orientation of
the balls that form geographic-like patterns on the gallery floor.
. 188 .
Germaine Koh, Call, 2006.
Intervention using vintage telephone modified with
programmable microcontroller and custom circuitry.
http://germainekoh.com/ma/projects_detail.cfm?pg=projects&projectID=10.
Koh’s Call (2006) is a modified vintage telephone placed in a public space.
An LCD screen on the phone gives instructions for visitors to “pick up
handset,” and by so doing activate the work. Upon lifting the handset, the
device connects to a randomly selected line from a predetermined list of
volunteers selected by Koh. On her website, Koh explains that in “previous
presentations the volunteer participants, from a wide variety of backgrounds
and communities, have been solicited through a variety of local media
. 189 .
and means. The interactions are not recorded or otherwise determined in
any way, so the project is perpetuated and disseminated fundamentally
through oral history.”9 Call is a quintessential Koh work because of its use
of an everyday object and an unexpected space to stumble upon an art
installation. It can be considered in light of Bourriaud’s theories since by
facilitating verbal communication between strangers, the artwork offers a
new social environment and social network for the audience to participate in.
Moreover, the work attempts to address the lack of spontaneous interactions
between strangers and the alienation experienced in everyday urban life by
facilitating connections and exchanges amongst individuals.
Germaine Koh, Map Sense, 2011.
On-line map built with public contributions.
http://germainekoh.com/ma/projects_detail.cfm?pg=projects&projectID=123 .
. 190 .
Map Sense (2011) is a web-based project first exhibited at Centre A in
Vancouver for the cross-disciplinary exhibition entitled “CO-LAB,” and created
collaboratively by Koh and writer Gillian Jerome. Map Sense is an interactive
online map of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and Chinatown, an
economically disadvantaged neighbourhood that typically draws attention
associated to its high drug-use and sex-trade reputation. The public is invited
to contribute to the project by providing the website with content associated
with specific locations on the map, thus creating a mosaic of personal
knowledge, and giving a personal understanding of space. As a result of these
contributions, the map provides personal stories and histories that share the
ways people have experienced the space physically.10 Contributors provide
the website with sounds, texts, videos, and images to create a dynamic,
interactive storyboard of the neighbourhood. Map Sense is an ongoing work
based on Koh’s approach to the idea of crowd sourcing, the garnering of data
from a large community, now frequently employed by activist communities
and corporations alike, namely the desire to create a more democratic source
of information by shifting the control of knowledge-making from the hands
of authority figures to the wider public.11 Map Sense encourages political,
poetic, artistic, and personal entries from its participants. The resulting map
is composed of a wide range of creative input captured on the streets and
made possible by multifunctional technologies such as smartphones. Some
of the interesting tags include historical photographs and texts on specific
locations, videos of various ceremonies, and sounds, like a recording of music
from a Jazz Festival during a rainstorm. This work allows people to claim the
space they occupy and contribute to deepening its meaning by capturing
its present reality from their point of view. Indeed, it is a democratic attempt
to record history through the involvement of the public. In participating,
. 191 .
people stand to gain a sense of agency in their unique ways of interacting
with a given environment. It also encourages people to become more aware
and sensitive to place and the ways it shapes our identities. The connection
of Map Sense to relational aesthetics is apparent, in that it is imperative for the
success of the work to solicit as much public participation as possible. Each
person adding to the map actively engages with the work relating it to his or
her own lives. Participants can also gain insight and respond to the other tags
on the map and therefore offer responses to other participants.
Notes
1 Mark Pennings, “Relational Aesthetics and Critical Culture,”
in Proceedings Transforming Aesthetics (New South Wales:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2005), 1.
2 Nicolas Bourriaud, “Glossary,” in Relational Aesthetics, trans. Simon
Pleasance and Fronza Woods. (Dijon-Quetigny: Les Presses du reel,
1998), 109.
3 Jean Baudrillard, The Global and the Universal, accessed January 2,
2014, http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/theglobal-and-the-universal/.
4 Ken Lum, cited in Kitty Scott, “Ken Lum Works with Photography,”
in Ken Lum: Works with Photography (Ottawa: National Gallery of
Canada, 2002), 20.
5 Bourriaud, 17.
. 192 .
6 Okwui Enwezor, “Social Mirrors: On the Dialectic of the Abstract and
Figural in Ken Lum’s Work,” in Ken Lum, ed. Grant Arnold (Vancouver:
Vancouver Art Gallery and D&M, 2011), 73.
7 Germaine Koh, “Projects,” accessed October 20, 2013,
http://germainekoh.com/ma/projects_mainpage.cfm?pg=projects.
8 Laura U. Marks, “Immanent Domain,” in Germaine Koh (Vancouver:
Contemporary Art Gallery, 2001), 10-11.
9 Germaine Koh, “Projects,” accessed October 20, 2013, http://
germainekoh.com/ma/projects_mainpage.cfm?pg=projects.
10 Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art,
“CO-LAB: A Workshop + Exhibition Project,” accessed October 20,
2013, http://centrea.org/2011/07/co-lab/.
11 Germaine Koh, “Projects,” accessed October 20, 2013,
http://germainekoh.com/ma/projects_mainpage.cfm?pg=projects.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean. The Global and the Universal. Accessed January 2,
2014. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/theglobal-and-the-universal/.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Translated by Simon
Pleasance and Fronza Woods. Dijon-Quetigny: Les presses du réel,
2002.
Enwezor, Okwui. “Social Mirrors: On the Dialectic of the Abstract
and Figural in Ken Lum’s Work.” In Ken Lum, ed. Grant Arnold, 61-92.
Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and D&M Publishers, 2011.
. 193 .
Marks, Laura U. “Immanent Domain.” In Germaine Koh, 6-13.
Pennings, Mark. “Relational Aesthetics and Critical Culture.” In
Proceedings Transforming Aesthetics, 1-9. New South Wales: Art
Gallery of New South Wales, 2005.
Schöny, Roland. “Mirrors as Reflections of Global Transformations.”
In Ken Lum, ed. Grant Arnold, 103-116. Vancouver: Vancouver Art
Gallery and D&M Publishers, 2011.
Scott, Kitty. “Ken Lum Works with Photography.” In Ken Lum: Works
with Photography, 11-30. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2002.
. 194 .
SCULTURE CLUB
and Scott Rogers:
Hacking the Void
Eleanor Dumouchel
***
According to Michael Mandiberg, the Internet’s most important transformation
happened a decade ago, when access to high-speed Internet connections
and the creative tools of software exploded and turned once passive
consumers into an army of media creators.1 However, Mandiberg argues that
in spite of the techno-utopic aspects of online sharing and collaboration, the
expropriation of these mechanisms by Google and corporate media has put
Internet users back in their place as consumers.2 According to web artist and
pioneer Internet theorist Olia Lialina, the media that allowed relationships
between active users of the early Web have been replaced with “a mass
medium, permeating our daily lives to the point of becoming invisible.”3
. 195 .
The works of Glasgow-based Scott Rogers (b. 1981) and SCULTURE CLUB, a
collaboration between Lauren Hall (b. 1983) and Susy Oliveira (b. 1977), take
aim at the negative repercussions of this turn in the history of the Web by
confronting the invisibility of networked mass media in the physical space
of the gallery. Each of the works presented in this exhibition demonstrates a
distrustful distancing from the operations of the Web and its promises of free
information and unlimited, utopic sociality. SCULTURE CLUB’s installation Fruité
(2013) creates a viewing context that refers to the excess of connectivity via the
Internet, and the hyper-availability of things that appeal to both the sensorial
and the sensual. Similarly, Rogers fabricates a faux online commodity that
mimics the form and diffusion of “indie” musical “sub-cultures,” to experiment
with and comment upon the online availability and commodification of
“culture.”
As pointed out by journalist Macy Halford, who contributes to a blog
feature of The New Yorker, some unwieldy responsibilities accompany the
plethora of information available online.4 Rogers proposes a way out of
these responsibilities with the piece Variable Composition for Clocks (Autistic
Arrangement) (2013), which recovers some of the sense of active participation
that Lialina and other net artists of her ilk pay tribute to. The space the
viewer enters—a room lined with old, discarded clocks, offers the viewer an
experience that problematizes his or her agency in the face of media that
steers users’ behaviors. In the process of presenting these material, locative
experiences, these two artists beg the question: how does contemporary art
(and its audience, by extension) benefit by going offline, and what does it
have to lose by doing so?
. 196 .
SCULTURE CLUB (Lauren Hall and Susy Oliveira), Fruité, 2013.
Installation view
http://lauren-hall.com/artwork/3247344_Fruit.html.
SCULTURE CLUB’s installation Fruité, named after the brand of colourful fruit
juice produced by Canadian company Lassonde, is dominated by a singleminded aesthetic. Bottles of Fruité are situated on the floor of the space, and
the walls have been painted to match the colours of the juice. Plastic sheets,
similar to the wrapping that protects florist flowers are strewn on the floor,
reflecting the citrusy glow of the Fruité as well as the pink and orange walls.
Within the dimly lit interior space, photographic prints of a coy shirtless man
with a feathered, 70s porn star coiffe, and a female hand holding a rose against
an aquatic background lean against the tropical-hued walls from on top of
cardboard shipping boxes. Hall refers to these sculptural elements – created
. 197 .
by Oliveira – and the intangible pleasures they symbolize as contributing
to the work’s “cruelness.”5 However, during the one-night exhibition of
Fruité, SCULTURE CLUB offset the feeling of isolation and frustrated desire
engendered by these objects by hosting the installation in Oliveira’s house,
inviting “friends and loved ones,” and offering “Jello shots and atmospheric
music to form social cohesion.”6
SCULTURE CLUB (Lauren Hall and Susy Oliveira), Fruité, 2013.
Installation view.
http://lauren-hall.com/artwork/3247342_Fruit.html.
In this particular view of Fruité, we see the same mandarin-orange coloured
walls, a joint atop a radiator vent, as well as ice cubes and tiny passport-scaled
photographs of people floating in a large liquid-filled plastic Ziploc bag.
. 198 .
The Ziploc bag, like the shipping boxes and floral wrapping, is a preservative
tool, much like a hard drive or the cloud on which one “saves” data. Moreover,
the presence of a scattered collection of photographic headshots within the
bag – perhaps friends, strangers, acquaintances, or a mix of all three – recalls
social networking sites and social applications on the Internet. Nevertheless,
SCULTURE CLUB’s prognosis for these aspects of the Internet is bleak. The
idle joint in tandem with the bag of floating “profile pictures” evokes an
unquantifiable malaise described by journalists that afflicts Internet users
associated with “Generation Y”7Although the temptations of the pre-rolled
joint include the possibility of paradisiacal bliss, the reality can oftentimes
amount to dissociation, anxiety, and paranoia, all of which are exacerbated by
the constant virtual presence of one’s peer-group online.
Scott Rogers, Foamcore, 2005. Buttons.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nl9BZRAEz6s/T6RxbzyiazI/AAAAAAAAFkU/Mi87g-Gj44I/s1600/12.-Buttonswith-Blondie.jpg
. 199 .
Foamcore was a faux-record label invented by Scott Rogers with the
collaboration of the Arbour Lake School, an artists collective in Calgary. The
promotional website featured paraphernalia such as t-shirts and pins featuring
logos designed by Rogers for fictitious indie-rock bands Boner and Nazi
Sinatra. Rogers distributed the pins along with posters advertising that the
fictional band This is a Plane that Crashes would play live at the non-existent
venue Chainsaw, with Awkward Teen Sex as the opening act.8 Regarding
the Internet specificity of this work, it is worth noting that Rogers created
this work when teenagers and young people on message board facilitators
traded niche concepts of what was “cool” among their expanding cohort
of young internet users in the mid-aughts. Rogers’s success at fabricating
an entire, fictional DIY rock scene through the skilled honing of aesthetics
and web-presence indicates the vulnerabilities and contingencies of online
manifestations of sub-cultures. According to Rogers, the name Foamcore “is
more or less meant to bring out a feeling of lightness or insubstantialness,
and is a cheeky reference to the language systems and marketing structures
surrounding the music industry.”4 In the wrong hands, the same networking
apparatus can be used by mainstream media to dupe a target market into
thinking a mainstream brand is cool and grassroots when it is neither.
. 200 .
Scott Rogers, Variable Composition for Clocks (Autistic Arrangement), 2010. Installation view.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2010/08/19/timeland/.
A strikingly analog piece, Rogers’s installation features an arrangement of
unsynchronized clocks leaning against the walls of a room. Rogers explains
how the arrangement of the clocks, which were given to him by a friend of a
friend who discovered the entire collection in his “eccentric landlord’s” shed,
was inspired by a photograph he saw of an autistic boy and his stuffed animals.10
The boy had arranged his stuffed animals not from smallest to largest like
most children, but according to a “more elusive set of rules.”11 Accompanying
the clocks is a framed “score” consisting of a drawing by Rogers on a piece
of musical notation paper. As Rogers notes, “the ‘playing’ of the score comes
. 201 .
entirely from how the viewer may wish to interpret the objects and images.
In this sense it is a written score in the mode of Fluxus works; a suggestion
or instruction for a possible performance / composition.”12 In addition, this
score was printed on a poster with images of the clocks on the other side.
These posters were meant for viewers to take home or to cut and re-arrange.
Rogers points out, “the result was that the written score and the organization
of the clocks could be configured and reconfigured again and again by the
viewers through the poster.”13 Variable Composition for Clocks entails a return
to the drawing board for models of participation. Rogers’s rudimentary
representation of information systems, as well as the possibility of alternative
orderings, shows how such systems preclude genuine participation.
Rogers hands off to the viewer the score, a kind of blueprint, showing the
rules and parameters for manipulation and participation with the work which presents an alternative to subjection by the invisible machinations of
Web-programmers. SCULTURE CLUB undermines these same actors by giving
us objects, which, although strange and alien, are recognizable as signifying
the Internet’s ever-inflating repository of objects of want and need. Central to
Rogers’ and SCULTURE CLUB’s practice is a reification of the pervasive, desiredriven, invisible conduits of goods and information.
Notes
1 Michael Mandiberg, ed., “Introduction,” in The Social Media Reader
(New York: NYU Press, 2012), 1.
2 Ibid., 2-3. Mandiberg states, “media participation is now part of
media consumption,” and clarifies that the users behind “usergenerated content” are “merely individual members of the audience
that step into an intermediate role” within the monetized Internet.
. 202 .
Moreover, “professional content has become a much larger part
of the social media ecosystem” and “in July 2010 only three of
the top-twenty [YouTube] videos were nonprofessional.”
3 Olia Lialina, “Web Vernacular 2,” Contemporary Home
Computing (July 12, 2010), accessed December 2, 2013,
http://contemporary-home-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/.
4 Macy Halford, “Read this Book if You’ve got Five New Emotions,”
Page Turner (blog), The New Yorker (January 21, 2011),
http://newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/01/read-thisbook-if-you’ve-got-five-new-emotions-1.html.
5 Lauren Hall, email correspondence with the author, February 13,
2014.
6 Ibid.
7 Leigh Alexander, “Five Emotions Invented by the Internet,”
Thought Catalog (January 12, 2011), accessed December 2, 2013,
http://thoughtcatalog.com/leigh-alexander/2011/01/fiveemotions-invented-by-the-internet/.
One emotion identified by Alexander (who is not a
psychologist) on this website for and by hip, mid-crises
millennials is “A vague and gnawing pang of anxiety centered
around an IM window that has lulled. The individual may
experience elevated heart rate and depersonalization, and
while staring at the screen with an unfocused expression, have
catastrophic thoughts about their romantic history, their ability
to be liked by others in the future or their key flaws.”
. 203 .
8 Dave Dyment, “Scott Rogers | Foamcore Records,” Artists’ Books
and Multiples (blog) (May 4, 2012), accessed December 4, 2013,
http://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.ca/2012/05/scott-rogersfoamcore-records.html.
9 Scott Rogers, email correspondence with the author, December
23, 2013.
11 “Scott Rogers - Timeland: Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art,”
Art Gallery of Alberta, last modified 2010, accessed December 4,
2013, http://albertabiennial.youraga.ca/srogers.html.
12 Scott Rogers, email correspondence with the author, December
23, 2013.
13 Ibid.
Bibliography
“Scott Rogers - Timeland: Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art.”
Art Gallery of Alberta. Last modified 2010. Accessed December 4,
2013. http://albertabiennial.youraga.ca/srogers.html.
Alexander, Leigh. “Five Emotions Invented by the Internet.”
Thought Catalog (January 12, 2011). Accessed December 2, 2013.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/leigh-alexander/2011/01/five-emotionsinvented-by-the-internet/.
Chellappan, Siram and Kotikalapudi, Sraghavendra. “How
Depressives Surf the Web.” New York Times (June 15, 2012).
Accessed December 2, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/
opinion/sunday/how-depressed-people-use-the-internet.html.
. 204 .
Dyment, Dave. “Scott Rogers | Foamcore Records.” Artists’ Books
and Multiples (blog) (May 4, 2012) Accessed December 4, 2013.
http://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.ca/2012/05/scott-rogersfoamcore-records.html.
Halford, Macy. “Read this Book if You’ve got Five New Emotions,”
Page Turner (blog), The New Yorker (January 21, 2011). http://newyorker.
com/online/blogs/books/2011/01/read-this-book-if-you’ve-got-fivenew-emotions-1.html.
Lialina, Olia. “Web Vernacular 2.” Contemporary Home Computing
(July 12, 2012). Accessed December 2, 2013. http://contemporaryhome-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/.
Mandiberg, Michael, ed. The Social Media Reader. New York: NYU
Press, 2012.
. 205 .
Among Worlds:
Experiencing Global
Nomadism and the Third
Culture Kid in the Works of
Pat Badani and Jinny Yu
Vic toria Nolte
***
In our profoundly globalized and digitized age, it is now remarkably easy to
traverse cultural boundaries. The increased interconnectedness of global
culture has boosted practices of cultural exchange within the arts, resulting
in a range of artistic and appropriative practices produced from a broader
worldview. For some, this constant exchange of cultural ideas is not only part
of a globalized lifestyle, but is a means through which to establish personal
. 206 .
identity. At the heart of this exhibition lie issues of personal and transnational
identity, which will be examined in relation to sociologist David C. Pollock’s
model of the Third Culture Kid (TCK).1 The exhibition pairs the works of artists
Pat Badani and Jinny Yu, whose lived experiences embody those of the TCK.
Each artist reflects upon her own transcultural experience within her works
by producing hybridized art works that appropriate various mediums, stories,
and visual motifs. Through the works collected here, the exhibition positions
the Third Culture Kid as the ultimate global citizen: a nomad whose identity
is realized through a borrowing of experiences from all cultures that she
encounters.
In the 1950s, social scientists Ruth Hill Useem and John Useem developed
the notion of the “third culture” while researching the interstitial cultural
experiences of expatriate families in India. They discovered that likeminded
familial groupings, such as missionary or military families, formed their own
subcultures through their shared experiences. Each subculture was united
in the sense that their lifestyles and characteristics differed from their “home”
cultures, their “host” cultures, and the other subcultures of expatriate families
living in close proximity.2 With further research, the sociologists began
locating common characteristics exhibited by the children of these families
who were being raised among these transient cultures, referring to them as
“Third Culture Kids.”3
Expanding on this research, sociologist David C. Pollock defines the Third
Culture Kid (TCK) as “[a] person who has spent a significant part of his or her
developmental years outside the parents’ culture,” and, therefore, “frequently
. 207 .
builds relationships to all of the cultures [he or she lives within], while not
having full ownership in any.”4 Pollock goes on to demonstrate that, in the
TCK’s precarious state of existing between cultures, the formation of personal
identity is largely based on one’s relationship to other likeminded individuals.5
A sense of cultural imbalance plagues the identity of the TCK due to the
high mobility of his or her lifestyle and the ease with which he or she can
move between cultures and constantly “act” the part of a native.6 Therefore,
through the shifting influences of multiple cultures, the TCK’s ongoing search
for cultural balance produces an inability to embody just one set of cultural
values. This notion of living between cultures is further expanded through
the increasing influence of globalization, creating a fragile state of being that
is endemic of a postmodern moment in which one cannot locate the self
within cultural space, nor within geographic and political boundaries.7 While
our globalized world has ultimately allowed for a freer exchange of culture, it
has also made it easier for the TCK to acquire cultural influences which may
sometimes be realized without direct physical contact with another culture.
In this sense, the Third Culture Kid of the twenty-first century assumes the role
of the global nomad, a figure whose transcultural experiences are constantly
shifting as a result of an increasingly “global” culture. This nomadic existence
ultimately produces an identity narrative that is constantly in flux.
. 208 .
Pat Badani, Where are you from? _Stories (video archive interface view), 2002-2009.
Interactive media installation, dimensions variable.
http://www.patbadani.net/where_from1.html.
Where are you from? _Stories is a web-based archive of videos presented as
an interactive installation. Accompanied by a book and a wall of “keywords”
pulled from the video archive, Where are you from? _Stories is the culmination
of a series of interviews and research conducted by Badani. The video archive
is projected on a wall inside a large, white cube, and offers a selection of
sixteen videos, each of which has been edited to run for three minutes.
The videos feature interviews with participants of the project conducted
in English, French, or Spanish on the topics of home and personal identity.
. 209 .
Upon entering the space, the visitor is confronted with an interface of floating
portraits that link to the archived video interviews. The visitor may then select
the sequence of videos to watch.
An individualized narrative experience emerges from the participatory
elements of this installation. In selecting the sequence of videos, the visitor
essentially crafts her own story based on personal interests or personal ties to
the content of the interviews. The visitor therefore claims a definitive role in
determining how the narratives are witnessed. This gesture, combined with
the experiential and very personal video content, demonstrates how identity
and experience may be constructed through acts of association, recognition,
and appropriation. In hearing the stories of others, visitors begin to recognize
possible shared experiences and appropriate this into their own understanding
of self. It is this act of borrowing the stories of others that interests Badani,
who witnessed strong visitor engagement with this work.8 As Badani states,
“human beings constantly engage with storytelling – it is through stories that
we hold conversations and better understand each other and the world we
inhabit.”9 The experiences of the interview participants in Badani’s archive are
culturally diverse, yet the inherent messages of each interview are universal
and represent instances of lived experiences that audiences easily identify
with. Consequently, the viewer’s path through the projected videos may be
considered as an act of nomadism; in interweaving the stories of a culturally
diverse set of participants, the viewer may theoretically traverse global terrains
without ever leaving the white cube. This process of association, recognition,
and appropriation reflects many of the strategies employed by Third Culture
Kids in their continual search for identity narratives.10 However, the significance
of their experiences has greatly increased with the effects of easier methods
. 210 .
of transnational migration. Badani’s project ultimately reveals that these
processes of constructing identity may in fact be general conditions of lived
experience. In our era of globalization, it is important to note that many of us
may unintentionally establish similarly nomadic identities.
Through elements of storytelling, participation, and digital media, Badani’s
video archive pieces together multiple narratives, which cause us to reflect
upon our own stories of where we are from and how we define our homes
and ourselves.
Pat Badani, Where Life is Better (installation view), 2003.
Interactive, object-based installation, video projection, and Web-based work, dimensions variable.
http://www.patbadani.net/where_better1.html.
. 211 .
Badani claims that she is a nomad by choice. Having lived in seven countries
in the Americas and Europe, her constant status as “other” informs both her
research and her art practice, which is based in the creation of communicational
spaces and participatory projects that seek to create links between cultures,
languages, and people.11 Badani hybridizes differing mediums to create
exploratory works that consider the effects of globalization and its broadening
of cultural fields in the visual arts. In positioning herself to take up a global
view influenced by a multitude of personal experiences, Badani’s methods
confirm trends in globalized contemporary art practices that reflect the
world as interconnected through means of cultural and creative exchange.12
The term “exchange,” in this context involves the direct relaying of personal
accounts between Badani’s participants and visitors to the exhibition.
The next installation featured in this exhibition, titled Where Life is Better,
negotiates Badani’s self-imposed nomadic status through the consideration
of how ideas of “home” establish terms for better living. For Where Life is
Better, Badani recorded conversations about the concept of “a better life” with
participants in six different cities: Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Montreal, Toronto,
Paris, and Chicago. The installation features many different interactive elements,
including texts, a testimonial wall, and audio/video archives featuring Badani’s
conversations with her participants. These conversations were projected onto
a screen and transcribed into a book that allowed visitors to directly engage
with the stories. The testimonial wall, covered in Post-it notes, became a
place for visitors to actively respond to Badani’s question of “where is life
better?” by writing about their own concepts of home and “a better life.” In
providing a wide variety of mediums intended for audience participation,
Badani constructs a truly democratic space that can be individualized by the
. 212 .
involvement of each visitor. This act of compiling and appropriating many
voices and experiences once again allows visitors to construct personalized
narratives.
Both works by Badani in this exhibition employ elements of storytelling,
sharing, and participation. These collaborative spaces inherently seek the
stories of others as each visitor experience redefines the space, constructing
a simultaneously individual and universal encounter. Cultural boundaries are
blurred by Badani’s posing of the question, “where is life better?” as uncertainties
of “home” and of identity are ideas that transcend barriers. It is this element of
collaboration, of sharing personal experiences and shifting notions of home
that reflects how nomadic identities may be established. Further, Badani’s
installations act as social exercises that seek to maintain constant streams of
communication among her visitors and herself. Badani’s desire to reflect upon
her own nomadic experience is paralleled by the reflections and stories left
behind by her visitors and participants, and her compiling and staging of these
stories act as her own appropriative gesture. In this sense, Badani’s installations
are to be witnessed as documents that expose social truths rather than as a
singular narrative. The communicational aspect of both installations, which
feature the involvement of participants and visitors from various walks of life,
therefore mirrors the practice of seeking identifying facets beyond cultural
and national borders, locating it simply through embodied experience.
. 213 .
Jinny Yu, Story of a Global Nomad (de Vonk 1), 2007.
Oil on aluminum, 183 x 183 cm.
http://artmur.com/artistes/jinny-yu/story-of-a-global-nomad/.
. 214 .
Jinny Yu, Story of a Global Nomad (de Vonk 2), 2007.
In contrast to Badani’s practice of staging social documentary and research,
painter Jinny Yu’s body of work is produced using more traditional methods.
By pairing these two artists in this exhibition, we witness contrasting methods
of storytelling and collecting that realize how identity may be constructed
and reflected along these differing lines of cultural appropriation.
. 215 .
Born in South Korea, Yu moved to Canada in 1988. This migratory process has
forced her to understand various situations from an outsider’s perspective
while reconciling feelings of detachment and non-belonging.13 Yu’s
practice ultimately navigates the spaces through which narrative is formed,
investigating the relationship between space and painting on conceptual,
social, historical, and formal levels.14 Her Story of a Global Nomad series,
included in this exhibition, mediates these narrative processes by reflecting
the places she has roamed during her nomadic experiences, forming abstract
relations to the spaces she encounters.
Nomadism, as understood as an abstract concept that determines the
freedom of being potentially anywhere at anytime,15 informs the works in
Yu’s Global Nomad series. Here, abstraction is a visual form employed by Yu as
a strategy of cultural and self-reflection. Each painting in the series is visually
reduced to two separate planes, unified by the darker geometric patterns
that underlay the works and the overlapping forms that contrast in vibrancy
and colour. The overlapped forms are increasingly abstract, either referencing
various cultural designs culled from the history of modern painting or images
evocative of landscapes or locales that Yu has seen. In these notable examples
from the Story of a Global Nomad series, titled de Vonk 1 and de Vonk 2, the
lively red and green geometric forms mimic the ornamental patterns found
in the floor of the Villa de Vonk in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. This
floor was designed by Theo van Doesburg, a founding member of the early
twentieth century Dutch painting movement, De Stijl.16 Formed in reaction
to the First World War, members of De Stijl such as van Doesburg and Piet
Mondrian favoured pure abstraction through a formal reduction to the basis
of form and colour, later reducing this to a strict adherence to simplified lines
. 216 .
and the use of black, white, and the primary colours. Through this gesture, De
Stijl believed in the ability of art to achieve universality: to produce pictorial
space devoid of any physical or subjective representation. Yu’s paintings de
Vonk 1 and de Vonk 2 employ a similar scheme of colour and line that borrows
from De Stijl’s rejection of figurative representation. Perhaps inspired by, and
identifying with, Van Doesburg’s own nomadic lifestyle and connections
with the international avant-garde movement in Europe in the 1920s,17 Yu’s
appropriation of the visual and formal elements of De Stijl indicates a move
to transform her personal experiences of nomadism into a form of collective
consciousness.
However, in direct contrast with the universality of the abstract motifs Yu
employs in her work is the specificity of location (in time and place) attached
to the cultural signifiers she chooses to appropriate. This aspect of her practice
of transculturation is relative to a hybrid state of being and is evocative of the
characteristics she shares with the Third Culture Kid. The concept of being
simultaneously global and local is a constant feature of the works in her Global
Nomad series.
Through her employment of visual elements of abstraction, Yu references
histories of modern painting in both the Western world and the country
of her birth. Synonymous with a final break from Japanese occupation and
cultural influence, abstraction was seen as a progressively Western notion of
art that dominated the Korean art world for decades following the Second
World War. However, the concept of “modernity” in the history of Korean art
is essentially the rhetoric of shifting art practices due to the fact that there
is no real tradition of modernism in Korean art.18 This notion of modernity
. 217 .
is inherently temporal, locating specific realities of a localized experience
through the universal language of the modernity of the Western world. The
insistence on a local dialogue for the arts helps establish the feeling of a
homeland while simultaneously situating locality within a broader range of
global culture.19 In this sense, the practice of compiling localized dialogues is
an effective nomadic gesture.
Jinny Yu, Story of a Global Nomad (Han Birds), 2007.
. 218 .
The next selection from Yu’s Global Nomad series, titled Han Birds, features a
bright pink overlaid pattern which pulsates from the contrasting black and
grey hues of the painting’s geometric ground. The pink pattern conceptualizes
various tributaries of the Hangang River, one of the largest rivers on the Korean
peninsula and witness to vital moments in Korean history. Yu’s use of the
term “Han” in the title references both this river and the conventional name
of the Republic of Korea, “Han Guk.”20 Connecting this cultural reference to a
specific place in Yu’s personal repertoire of images demonstrates her ability to
maintain cultural ties to a number of locales, despite self-described feelings of
detachment and non-belonging.21 By appropriating the regional specificity
of a place through abstract art and its links to Korea’s cultural past, Yu shifts
this localized experience to a new, globalized space. This double hybrid of
aesthetics and experience reflects the process of identity formation and
articulation within the experiences of Third Culture Kids, who demonstrate
that hybridity22 and the correlation of the past and present, local and global,
are inherent elements of nomadic experience.
Through abstracting and combining a range of cultural sources, Yu’s Story
of a Global Nomad series becomes a space of cultural dialogue. Her act of
borrowing from multiple cultural sources is seamless in that she interweaves
the visual elements of a variety of global art canons without witnessing
them through an established hierarchal scale. Here, these visual elements
come to represent the equivocal parts of her nomadic identity, signifying her
reluctance to tie herself to one specific place or artistic canon.
While the works in this exhibition differ in their chosen mediums, the
processes of association, recognition, and appropriation observed by each
. 219 .
artist are closely linked through the collecting of stories and images from a
variety of cultural sources. The resulting hybridized works produced by each
artist thereby reflect the constantly shifting constructions of their nomadic
identities and realize their shared experiences as Third Culture Kids within
these visual processes of appropriation.
Notes
1 David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken, Third Culture Kids: Growing
Up Among Worlds (Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2009).
2 Ibid., 14: In order to clearly define which cultural influences shaped
the identities of the expatriate groups, Ruth Hill Useem and
John Useem established the term “first culture” to refer to the
home culture from which the adults came, and the term “second
culture” to refer to the host culture where the expatriate families
were residing. The “third culture” essentially became a “culture
within cultures” that united the experiences of the expatriate
families.
3 Ibid., 15.
4 Ibid., 13.
5Ibid.
6 Ibid., 44.
7 Carol Becker, “The Romance of Nomadism: A Series of Reflections,”
Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 23.
8 Pat Badani, Email interview by Victoria Nolte, Montreal, QC,
October 5, 2013.
. 220 .
9 Badani, Email interview.
10 Pollock and Van Reken, Third Culture Kids, 95.
11 Pat Badani, “Pat Badani – About,” Pat Badani: Inter Media Artist,
accessed September 20, 2013,
http://www.patbadani.net/about.html.
12 Niru Ratnam, “Art & Globalisation,” in Themes in Contemporary
Art, eds. Gill Perry and Paul Wood (New Haven and London: Yale
13 Patrick Mikhail Gallery, “Jinny Yu,” Patrick Mikhail Gallery, accessed
September 23, 2013, http://www.patrickmikhailgallery.com/artists/
jinny-yu/.
14Ibid.
15 Michael Rattray, “Story of a Global Nomad,” in Galerie Art Mûr 3, no. 4
(2007): 3.
16 Édith-Anne Pageot, “Story of a Global Nomad: Occurences du motif,”
in Jinny Yu (Montreal: Galerie Art Mûr, 2008), 29.
17 Tate Modern, “Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde:
Constructing a New World,” Tate Modern, accessed December 11,
2013, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/vandoesburg-and-international-avant-garde.
18 Hee-Young Kim, “The Fabric of Nomadism: Stitching the Global and
the Local,” in Global and Local Art Histories, eds. Celina Jeffery and
Gregory Minissale (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2007), 172.
. 221 .
19 Ibid., 173.
20 Pageot, “Story of a Global Nomad,” 29.
21 Jinny Yu, Phone interview with Victoria Nolte, Montreal, QC,
November 26, 2013.
22 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge Classics,
2004). My definition of hybridity is inspired by Bhabha’s discussion
wherein he identifies the images and ideas that exist between
varying cultural values as hybrid.
Bibliography
Badani, Pat. “Pat Badani – About.” Pat Badani: Inter Media Artist.
Accessed September 20, 2013. http://www.patbadani.net/about.html .
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture [1994]. New York: Routledge
Classics, 2004. Becker, Carol. “The Romance of Nomadism: A Series of
Reflections.” Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 22-29.
Kim, Hee-Young. “The Fabric of Nomadism: Stitching the Global
and the Local.” In Global and Local Art Histories, ed. Celina Jeffery
and Gregory Minissale, 170-86. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2007.
Pageot, Édith-Anne. “Story of a Global Nomad: Occurences du motif.”
In Jinny Yu. 23-31. Montreal: Galerie Art Mûr, 2008.
Patrick Mikhail Gallery, “Jinny Yu,” Patrick Mikhail Gallery.
Accessed September 23, 2013. http://www.patrickmikhailgallery.com/
artists/jinny-yu/.
. 222 .
Pollock, David C. and Ruth E. Van Reken. Third Culture Kids: Growing
Up Among Worlds [2001]. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2009.
Ratnam, Niru. “Art & Globalisation.” In Themes in Contemporary Art,
ed. Gill Perry and Paul Wood, 276-313. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 2004.
Rattray, Michael. “Story of a Global Nomad.” Galerie Art Mûr 3, no. 4
(2007): 3-4.
Tate Modern. “Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde:
Constructing a New World.” Tate Modern. Accessed December 11,
2013. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/vandoesburg-and-international-avant-garde.
. 223 .
Beautiful Monsters:
Representing Fear in the
Work of David Altmejd
and Shary Boyle
Jessica Kirsh
***
The beautifully grotesque sculptures of David Altmejd (b. 1974, Montreal) and
Shary Boyle (b. 1972, Toronto) tap into our dichotomous feelings of attraction
and repulsion for horrific and monstrous objects and images. Although opinion
is divided over questions of ethics and social responsibility, the majority of
people fear the grotesque. Addressing issues of heredity, sexuality, death, and
our place within the greater animal kingdom, the sculptures of Altmejd and
Boyle read as allegories of the human condition, and often incorporate humor
to produce nervous laughter. These artists portray faces and bodies that are
tense with troubled emotions, and that struggle to fit in somewhere between
grandeur and incongruity.
. 224 .
Altmejd and Boyle are fascinated with the power of objects and the
manipulation of matter; they have worked tirelessly to become masters of
their respective crafts. Their interpretations of fantastical characters and stories
borrowed from mythology, folklore, and interpretive dreams are brought to
life in three-dimensions. Whether the sculptures are larger-than-life or can
be held in the palm of the hand, they succeed in confronting the realities of
everyday life. Although both of these artists access historically rich imagery
such as wolves, giants, or mermaids, they approach these characters from
very different perspectives: Altmejd from a queer male perspective, and Boyle
from a mature female perspective. Through these subjective lenses, one can
nonetheless detect an array of visceral and universal anxieties, including fear
of death and lack of belonging.
David Altmejd selects a random assortment of objects – handcrafted werewolf
heads and limbs, Stars of David, crystals, mirrors, fake hair, junk jewelry, and
taxidermied animals – to be assembled into a variety of artistic, theatrical and
architectural scenarios. These installations, which Catherine Hong refers to as
“neo-gothic,”1 function as labyrinths of the unconscious.2 Altmejd is drawn to
objects and materials that have the power to create “energy.” Armed with an
educational background in evolutionary biology, Altmejd acts as an alchemist
in transforming human into beast, or vice versa, calling back to the old tales
of Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Altmejd is a true believer that life
is much more evident in his work than death; he explains, “a lot of people
think that I’m really fascinated by death and morbidity, but I’m much more
interested in life.”3
. 225 .
IDENTITIES | IDENTITÉS
David Altmejd, Delicate Men in Positions of Power, 2003.
Wood, paint, plaster, resin, mirror, wire, glue, plastic, cloth, synthetic hair, jewelry, glitter, 96 x 240 x 120 in.
http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/david-altmejd.
. 226 .
Altmejd’s installation Delicate Men in Positions of Power (2003) is a multi-level
series of stages in the round, consisting of various plinths and pedestals
resting on a base of large painted wooden boxes. The main character of the
piece is a werewolf lying across a platform. The situation resembles a morgue
or crime scene. The werewolf seems to be dead, but also appears to be alive
in a certain sense due to its crystallized organs and bloodless corpse, which
perhaps symbolize healing or resurrection. Severed heads with luscious wigs
and hollowed faces filled with quartzite crystals are scientifically – yet also
commercially – displayed on the upper level of the piece. The heads suggest
containment, and suggest the harnessing of all the energy required for the
transformation between man and animal. This reflects Altmejd’s own trauma,
since he has explained that he does not feel like he is in his own body.4 The
scene sparkles, and this optical effect seems to originate from the glitter of the
pearls, fake flowers, and birds. Reflected and refracted in the mirrors and shiny
surfaces of the work, these objects take on a new shape from every angle.
This is a landscape of horror and eroticism. Altmejd’s werewolf in this work
is a historically rich symbol drawn from gothic romantic literature and film.
Christopher Miles has also noted that the werewolf is a symbol of promiscuity
in popular culture, whether personifying society’s discomfort with collective
ideologies, or representing the awkward stages in teenage puberty.5 The title
Delicate Men in Positions of Power can be interpreted in various ways, especially
after noticing that almost none of the heads that the artist fabricates are female.
Are these heads a reflection of the male-dominated realm of contemporary
art, or representative of Altmejd’s identity as a queer artist?
. 227 .
David Altmejd, Giant 2, 2007.
Foam, resin, paint, wood, glass, mirror, Plexiglas, silicone, taxidermy birds and animals, synthetic plants,
pinecones, horse hair, burlap, chains, wire, feathers, quartz, pyrite, other minerals,
jewelry, beads, glitter, 100 x 168 x 92 in.
Altmejd uses a vast array of materials – including Plexiglas, mirror, taxidermy
birds and animals, synthetic plants, pinecones, horse hair, burlap, chains,
feathers, quartz, jewelry, beads, and glitter – in his work the Giant 2 (2007). This
assortment calls attention to the possibilities of the materiality of individual
objects, rather than Giant 2’s function as a whole. Although his artworks are
often monumental in scale, during his production process the artist starts
small; for example he may see a rock starting to take on a bodily shape.
. 228 .
From there things grow: crystals form on top of things, flowers bloom, and
birds fly. This decaying corpse of a giant is horrific yet oddly sensual - an
expression of the surreal and the glamorous. As Altmejd explains: “I think
about decay not in a negative way, but in the sense of creating space for
things to start growing.”6 Disaster is at the base of the story of this artwork,
but there are also we see signs of life and regeneration. Instead of rotting, his
characters crystallize – perhaps speaking to the fear of death and existential
discomfort felt by almost everyone. He chose to explore the character of a
giant in this piece due to its gentle yet monstrous nature. As Altmejd points
out, the giant is never truly mean. Although he may be dangerous, you can
find a way to go around him.7
David Altmejd, Untitled 7 (The Watchers), 2011.
Plaster, burlap, wood.
. 229 .
Altmejd’s two recent series – The Watchers, and Bodybuilders – were made
entirely of plaster casts of the artist’s hands. His method of dragging plaster
from one part of the sculpture to another, usually from the bottom up, speaks
to his tendency to work against gravity. The accumulations of molded white
plaster result in a roughly human form. In The Watchers the plaster eventually
transformed into appendages on the backs of each of the figures, resembling
wings. These white human-angel hybrids are the result of experimentation
and evolution. Altmejd is very interested in the notion of objects coming alive
and being able to develop their own intelligence and generate meaning.8
The ethereal nature and healing power often associated with angels could
perhaps offer protection from the fears and malaise of personal and universal conflict. However, in Untitled 7 (The Watchers) (2011), the figure appears to
have been beheaded, and its head has been replaced with a group of cast
hands floating above the sculpture. Altmejd believes that a strong energy
is produced from a moment of imagined decapitation,9 as seen in his many
headless bodies and body-less heads. Having experienced lucid dreams as
an adolescent, he admits that his sculptures are partly autobiographical and
exist as more intense versions of himself. He feels that they are almost like his
children, things that came out of him but that have the ability to develop their
own history and internal logic.10
Boyle is interested in examining what is considered “normal” versus what is
considered marginal, overlooked, and feared. Her works, whether paintings,
installations, or porcelain figurines, may be described as “earthy” and “folksy,”
embedded in notions of the familiar and uncanny.11 Her art reconstructs
tropes from ancient mythology, children’s literature, and popular culture to
. 230 .
investigate the human psyche. These so-called “neo-Baroque”12 sculptures
contain formal elements that are removed from their historical roots. Boyle’s
inspiration derives from struggles in relationships, illness, environmental issue,
war, class, poverty, as well as the interpretation of dreams. Like Altmejd, she
utilizes the grotesque as a means to examine everyday life and to alter our
perception of what is beautiful. Altmejd is obsessed with energy in matter,
and Boyle is similarly concerned with what she calls a “life spark”13 - in other
words, art that is alive.
Left: Shary Boyle, Untitled, 2005.
Porcelain, china paint. Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada.
http://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2011/09/09/corrupting-the-porcelain-figurine-tradition-shary-boyle/.
. 231 .
Right: Shary Boyle, Snowball, 2006.
Porcelain, china paint. Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
http://ridiculouslyinteresting.com/2011/09/09/corrupting-the-porcelain-figurine-tradition-shary-boyle/.
As a self-proclaimed figurative artist, Boyle uses humans or characters to
tell stories. She works with the medium of ceramics in order to achieve this
goal. Through research and apprenticeship, she learned slip-casting and
lace-draping with the help of a hobby group of women in their seventies
and eighties.14 Boyle’s handmade works are meant to meet the high
technical standards of expert artisans, which demand near perfection in
their manufacture. The medium of craft, as tradition has it, speaks to feminist
politics, the domestic and the psychosexual. Conversely, in the context of
. 232 .
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, porcelain was often collected
for display in cabinets of curiosity – a largely male, aristocratic privilege and
hobby. Boyle’s figurines are extravagantly dressed in period costume, but
on second glance, they appear to be less than perfect. They display an array
of physical abnormalities, including wounds, cuts, bruises, and backwards
limbs. Resembling illustrations from children’s books, the innocence of Boyle’s
porcelain characters appear to be in danger, whether threatened by deep
sensuality or psychological tension. These figures tell stories to suggest that
awkwardness, vulnerability, fear, and rage are components of inner life and
the human condition, and that these registers are just as significant in such
experience as tenderness, longing, hope, and freedom.15
In the case of Untitled (2005), the woman is holding her own decapitated head,
which is bleeding at the neck. Here, the artist shows violence in suspension,
which differs significantly from Altmejd’s interpretations of beheaded figures
that bear no trace of gore. Snowball (2006) on the other hand, although ornate
and beautiful, demonstrates an excessive femininity: the figure is suffocated
by outgrowths of flowers, branches or fabric which Boyle calls “decorative
cancer.”16 This female form evokes the exhausting need felt by some women to
keep up the ruse of femininity, and in the process blur the boundary between
the beautiful and the grotesque. Whereas growth may symbolize positive
notions of regeneration, healing, and evolution in Altmejd’s sculptures, for
Boyle it inversely represents a negative connotation of oppression. Untitled
and Snowball use realism and symbolism to express concerns with formalism,
ornamentation, seduction, oddness, theatricality, and politics. In contrast to
Altmejd’s practice, all but one of her figures in her porcelain series Lace Figures
are female.
. 233 .
Shary Boyle, The Cave Painter, 2013.
Plaster, foam, wood, overhead projectors, 120 in. long (figure).
Installation view. Jessica Bradley Art + Projects.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2013/05/30/shary-boyle-venice-bienniale/.
. 234 .
Boyle’s The Cave Painter (2013) features a ten-foot long white plaster mermaid
deity resting in a dark cave, clutching a baby. At the flip of a switch, this scene
becomes illuminated through a colourful photo collage projected from
three overhead projectors. The curl of the mother’s tail transforms into a boa
constrictor and the baby’s head becomes a Nautilus shell.17 Behind her, the
cave comes alive with images of many historical figures, including the likes of
Helen Keller, Marcel Marceau, and Charlie Chaplin. In this work, these assorted
and divergent characters co-exist, marrying harmony and chaos, the magical
and the disturbed, the real and the unreal. The maternal figure shifts back
and forth between peace, where she is protected from intrusive gazes, and
the spectacle, where she becomes objectified to the contemporary world.
For this work, perhaps inspired by her fear of getting older, Boyle decided to
focus on the roles of aging women, and of mothers which according to her,
are the least “sexy” or “fashionable” topics to take on in the contemporary
art world.18 The woman that Boyle depicts, who is near to the end of her life
and has supposedly surpassed her sexual usefulness in society, is in fact in
a powerful position of complete independence. In addition, the fact that
the central female figure is also a mermaid – specifically Sedna, ruler of the
Inuit underworld but also a giver of life – represents Boyle’s interested in folk
culture, and how such types of mythology transcend different cultures. Boyle
explains: “It’s also about the precipice of the known and the unknown world,
very much dealing with the idea of morbidity. She’s in this underground
place that is maybe the final place that you’d go before you would enter the
underworld. She’s a guardian of the next world.”19
. 235 .
The writings of Mikhail Bakhtin on the carnivalesque, grotesque, and history
of laughter are useful in considering the works of Altmejd and Boyle. His
discussion of a folk-festive culture concerns the deflating of hegemonic values,
and fosters a “true human fearlessness.”20 Bakhtin suggests that by utilizing
the tool of symbolic degradation, the fear of the unknown could materialize
and transform a “grotesque monster” into something that can be laughed at
and overcome.21 At first glance, the sculptures shown in this exhibition evoke
physical and psychological symptoms of weakness, pain, and discomfort. But
upon closer examination, they embody a new power, energy, and life.
Notes
1 Catherine Hong, “Beyond Tomorrow: David Altmejd,” W Magazine
(2007), accessed February 8th 2014, http://www.wmagazine.com/
culture/art-and-design/2007/11/emerging_artists_altmejd/.
2 “David Altmejd,” The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, posted
in 2013, accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.guggenheim.org/
new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/5438.
3 Hong, http://www.wmagazine.com/culture/art-and-design/2007/11/
emerging_artists_altmejd/.
4 Simona Rabinovitch, “David Altmejd: Artist’s Wonderland,” Nuvo
Magazine, posted in 2012, accessed February 8, 2014,
http://nuvomagazine.com/magazine/spring-2012/david-altmejd.
5 Christopher Miles, “David Altmejd,” Frieze Magazine 88 (2005):
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/david_altmejd/.
6 Hong, http://www.wmagazine.com/culture/art-and-design/2007/11/
emerging_artists_altmejd/.
. 236 .
7 Michaël Amy, “Sculpture as Living Organism: A Conversation with
David Altmejd,” Sculpture 26, no. 10 (2007): 29.
8 Amy, 25.
9 Robert Enright, “Learning From Objects: An Interview with David
Altmejd,” Border Crossings 23, no. 4 (2004): 66.
10 Amy, 29.
11 J Lynn Fraser, “Porcelain Provocations,” Ceramic Review 246 (2010): 52.
12 Fraser, 52.
13 Ibid., 54.
14 Ibid., 53.
15 Lorissa Sengara, “Porcelain Dreams and Nightmares: The Multidimensional Toronto Artist Shary Boyle,” Canadian Art (2006): 96.
16 Christine Pountney, “Artist as Shaman: The Illuminations of Shary
Boyle,” Hazlitt, posted May 27, 2013, accessed February 8, 2014,
http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/artist-shamanilluminations-shary-boyle.
17 Murray White, “The Mermaid’s Cave: Shary Boyle’s Path to the
Venice Biennale,” Canadian Art (2013): http://www.canadianart.ca/
features/2013/08/02/shary-boyle-mermaids-cave/.
18Pountney, http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/artistshaman-illuminations-shary-boyle.
19Ibid.
. 237 .
20 Michael Gardiner, “Bakhtin’s Carnival: Utopia as Critique,” Utopian
Studies 3, no. 2 (1992): 29.
21Ibid.
Bibliography
Amy, Michaël. “Sculpture as Living Organism: A Conversation with
David Altmejd.” Sculpture 26, no. 10 (2007): 22-29.
“David Altmejd.” The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Posted in
2013. Accessed February 8, 2014, http://www.guggenheim.org/newyork/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/5438.
Dery, Louise. “Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood.” Contemporary Art Gallery.
Posted in 2011. Accessed 2014. http://www.contemporaryartgallery.
ca/exhibitions/shary-boyle/.
Enright, Robert. “Learning From Objects: An Interview with David
Altmejd.” Border Crossings 23, no. 4 (2004): 66-75.
Firmin, Sandra. “Shary Boyle: Toronto.” Art Papers 30, no. 4 (2006): 71-72.
Fraser, J. Lynn. “Porcelain Provocations.” Ceramic Review 246 (2010):
52-55.
Gardiner, Michael. “Bakhtin’s Carnival: Utopia as Critique.” Utopian
Studies 3, no. 2 (1992): 21-49.
Gladman, Randy. “21st Century Werewolf Aesthetics - An Interview
with David Altmejd.” C Magazine 82 (2004): 36-41.
Heti, Sheila. “Deep Style: Artist Shary Boyle Talks About Her Process.”
Flare Magazine. Posted in 2013. Accessed February 8, 2014. . 238 .
http://www.flare.com/celebrity/entertainment/deep-style-artistshary-boyle-talks-about-her-process/.
Hong, Catherine. “Beyond Tomorrow: David Altmejd.” W Magazine.
Posted 2007. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.wmagazine.
com/culture/art-and-design/2007/11/emerging_artists_altmejd/.
Miles, Christopher. “David Altmejd.” Frieze Magazine 88. Posted 2005.
Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/
david_altmejd/.
Pountney, Christine. “Artist as Shaman: The Illuminations of Shary
Boyle.” Hazlitt Magazine (2013). http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/
feature/artist-shaman-illuminations-shary-boyle.
Rabinovitch, Simona. “David Altmejd: Artist’s Wonderland.” Nuvo
Magazine. http://nuvomagazine.com/magazine/spring-2012/davidaltmejd.
Sengara, Lorissa. “Porcelain Dreams and Nightmares: The Multidimensional Toronto artist Shary Boyle.” Canadian Art (2006): 94-98.
Velasco, David. “Monsters in the Closet: Learning to Love David
Altmejd’s Werewolves.” Art Papers 29, no. 4 (2005): 34-37.
Volner, Ian. “Shary Boyle: Cauldron of Creativity.” Nuvo Magazine.
Posted in 2013. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://nuvomagazine.
com/magazine/autumn-2013/shary-boyle.
White, Murray. “The Mermaid’s Cave: Shary Boyle’s Path to the Venice
Biennale.” Canadian Art. Posted in 2013. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2013/08/02/shary-boylemermaids-cave/.
. 239 .
L’Art de construire la
réflexion sociale: le travail
d’Angela Grauerholz et Jerszy
Seymour comme terrains de
rencontre
Marie- Eve Sévigny
***
Grâce aux merveilles de la mondialisation de la communication, notre société
est chaque jour plus connecté. À travers un raz-de-marée de réseaux sociaux,
de flux, de nouvelles technologies, de médias, et d’accès à l’information,
une mutation sans précédent s’opère pour modifier nos relations sociales et
transformer nos modes de vies. Paradoxalement à cette hyper-connectivité,
l’intangibilité et l’instantanéité de ces contactes donne une saveur
d’artificialité aux rapport humains et encourage un certain isolement social.
. 240 .
Dans ces conditions, il apparait donc nécessaire de couver, entretenir et
recréer s’il y a lieu, le lien social qui permet le contact physique entre les gens
et l’interaction.
Or, pour développer un projet dans un esprit de collaboration qui encourage
un pont entre les individus, il faut un motif valable et un contexte adéquat. À
mon sens, l’expérience culturelle, constitue le motif valable au rassemblement,
l’installation temporaire représente le contexte idéal. Ces éléments forment
un potentiel terrain de rencontre, un terrain commun. Comme le défend le
sociologue urbain Ray Oldenburg dans son livre The Great, Good Place, ces
terrains communs, pour véritablement jouer leur rôle, doivent se trouver dans
des lieux intermédiaires n’appartenant pas à la sphère personnelle de nos vies,
ni à la sphère professionnelle. Ces lieux, appelés les tiers-lieux (en contraste aux
premiers et seconds que sont la maison et le travail), sont selon Oldenburg,
essentiels à la société et à la vie publique.1 La dimension sociale est la clé de la
réussite du tiers-lieu: il procure à ses utilisateurs un sentiment d’appropriation
ou d’appartenance; il permet les échanges, le brassage d’idées, la mixité
sociale et intellectuelle; il favorise une certaine chaleur dans les rapports entre
les gens.
Quand ils sont trouvés et exploités, ces terrains communs peuvent donner
lieu à des moments incroyables de réflexion et de transformation. Aussi,
développer des projets qui donnent naissance à des ‘connexions inattendues’
entre diverses personnes et idées, permet aux gens de construire une
compréhension mutuelle et un capital social avec des gens d’autres milieux,
générations et cultures.
. 241 .
Les deux artistes que j’ai décidé de vous présenter ont chacun réalisé une
installation unique par laquelle ils ont construit leur vision d’un sujet,
mais aussi un terrain commun pour la partager et la voire fleurir. Avec
l’espace construit qu’ils proposent comme encouragement au dialogue, ils
contribuent à une certaine vitalité sociale. Jouant à la fois le rôle d’artiste, de
designer et de commissaire d’exposition, ces deux artistes entraînent les gens
dans des créations qui les encouragent à se rassembler pour réfléchir à des
sujets universels et vastes tel l’histoire et le devenir de la société. La première
artiste, Angela Grauerholz (1952), flânant à sa guise à travers les nombreuses
archives qu’elle possède, invite le public à l’accompagner dans son périple
de l’exploration du processus artistique. Dans son cas, l’élément rassembleur,
celui qui connecte les individus, est l’Histoire. Une Histoire pour laquelle elle
propose différents niveaux de lecture en décomposant et reconstituant les
archives d’artistes célèbres. Un exercice où points de rencontre et points de
rupture avec l’Histoire ouvre la porte à de multiples autres interprétations.
Jerszy Seymour (1968), pour sa part, avec son installation First Supper transporte
les gens sur le terrain commun de l’échange et du partage, le tout autour d’un
repas à saveur utopique où le dialogue sur la société idéale est entamé.
. 242 .
Angela Grauerholz, La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail, 2003-2004.
Vue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de 2 tables de lecture et 12 chaises, 12 livres,
1 table échiquier avec 2 chaises et 32 pièces d’échec, page couverture du magazine Interview
présentant l’affiche créée par Aleksandre Rodchenko pour le film Ciné-Œil (Kino glaz) de Dziga Vertov,
1924 (encadré), collection de facsimilés et livres, film/collage titré Ephemeris (16 min 6 s), matériaux
divers, dimensions inconnues.
http://angelagrauerholz.com/featured/reading-room-salle-de-lecture-2/.
Depuis le début des années 90, Angela Grauerholz s’intéresse, dans ses
recherches, à la notion d’archives personnelles. L’œuvre qui est présentée
est un travail de recherche/création, qui a donné naissance à une installation
« mixed media ». Elle l’a nommé La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail (20032004). Au cours de sa carrière, l’artiste a amassé une quantité importante de
photos, y compris les siennes, mais aussi une grande quantité de documents
dont des cartes postales, des textes littéraires et des textes sur l’art. Souhaitant
. 243 .
créer un ordre dans ses collections, mais aussi dans sa mémoire, l’idée du
projet de la salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail prend naissance. Dans sa
perspective du projet, en réorganisant ces archives, elle pourrait donner
une forme concrète à des notions plutôt abstraites telles l’histoire, les idées,
la mémoire, les idéologies. L’objectif était de développer un projet qui
démontrerait comment les artistes intègrent leurs connaissances et leurs
influences externes dans le processus de création, et qui exposerait au public
ce cheminement et ces sources habituellement inaccessibles. 2
Alexandre Rodchenko, Photo noir et blanc d’archive, 1925.
Salle de lecture du Club ouvrier de l’URSS conçue pour L’exposition internationale
des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes.
http://angelagrauerholz.com/archives-installations/2003-2004/documentation/.
. 244 .
Le point de départ de la salle de lecture est une photo en noir et blanc que
Grauerholz possédait et qui était sur son bureau depuis longtemps: celle
de la salle de lecture du Club ouvrier de l’U.R.S.S., de l’artiste constructiviste
russe Alexander Rodchenko. La salle d’origine a été conçue pour «L’exposition
internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes» à Paris en 1925.3
Les lignes géométriques austères créées par Rodchenko pour le Club des
travailleurs évoquent une culture de l’hygiène, de la rationalité et de la sobriété.
Le Club incarnait l’idéologie révolutionnaire, non seulement en accordant
des loisirs aux travailleurs mais aussi en reconcevant loisirs comme actifs et
collectifs plutôt que comme passifs et solitaires.4
Alexandre Rodchenko, Dessin original, table et chaise pour la Salle de lecture du Club ouvrier de l’URSS
conçue pour L’exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, 1925.
http://angelagrauerholz.com/archives-installations/2003-2004/documentation/.
. 245 .
La surface articulée de la table commune pouvait être à plat pour le travail
ou inclinée pour la lecture, et la surface de jeu de la table d’échecs tournait
pour donner aux joueurs l’accès à leurs sièges. La structure pliable contre le
mur du fond combinait une tribune pour un orateur, un écran vierge pour
projeter des slogans et des graphiques, ainsi qu’un écran extensible pour
l’affichage de matériel illustratif.5
Lorsque Grauerholz décida de s’approprier cette installation historique, son
objectif était aussi de créer un lieu de mémoire où l’histoire du Club ouvrier
se mêlerait à l’histoire et au travail d’autres artistes dont le sien. Sa salle de
lecture représente littéralement une œuvre synthèse de tous ses intérêts
et activités: la typo, la photo, le design graphique, le design de meuble, de
l’objet, de l’environnement et finalement l’histoire de l’avant-garde.
Au niveau construit, on retrouve, dans l’œuvre de Grauerholz, une reproduction
en contreplaqué russe du mobilier par Rodchenko c’est-à-dire deux tables de
lecture, douze chaises, une table d’échec et deux chaises l’accompagnant.
À ceux-ci s’ajoutent douze livres et un film projeté sur le mur. La salle agit dont
comme contenant de l’œuvre: elle lui donne un contexte et contribue comme
tel, à sa lecture.6 Chaque élément du mobilier est porteur d’une idée, d’une
intention; les formes, les couleurs, tout a un but, une raison d’être. Comme
dans l’installation de Rodchenko, le mobilier est ajustable, pour s’adapter à
son utilisateur; on souhaite que le visiteur s’installe et participe activement à
l’ensemble.
. 246 .
Vue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de 2 tables de lecture et 12 chaises,
12 livres, 1 table échiquier avec 2 chaises et 32 pièces d’échec,
page couverture du magazine Interview présentant l’affiche créée
par Aleksandr Rodchenko pour le film Ciné-Œil (Kino glaz) de Dziga Vertov, 1924 (encadré),
collection de facsimilés et livres, film/collage titré Ephemeris (16 min 6 s),
matériaux divers, dimensions inconnues.
. 247 .
Angela Grauerholz, Sans titre (circular), 2003-2004.
Couverture et double page tirés de l’installation «mixed media» Reading Room for the Working Artist,
relié avec dos en lin rouge, couverture imprimée, 8 3/4 x 11 1/4 pouces, 192 pages.
http://angelagrauerholz.com/archives-installations/reading-room-salle-de-lecture/.
. 248 .
Les douze livres qui sont exposés sur les tables de lecture sont à la fois contenant
et contenu. On trouve dans leurs pages, une synthèse conceptualisée et
ordonnée des archives personnelles de Grauerholz sur des thèmes comme
l’espace, l’architecture, la symbiose et la mort. Le processus de création des
livre a essentiellement pris la forme d’une lente composition d’éléments
photographiques et textuels sélectionnés dans ses archives (coupures de
presse, lettres, couvertures de livres, cartes postales, reproductions et œuvres)
afin de les réunir pour produire un document qui serait à la fois, une sorte de
journal témoin de l’installation, une thèse sans texte sur son processus créatif,
une œuvre visuelle, un ouvrage littéraire d’histoire de l’art.
Vue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de 2 tables de lecture et 12 chaises, 12 livres, 1 table
échiquier avec 2 chaises et 32 pièces d’échec, page couverture du magazine Interview présentant
l’affiche créée par Aleksandre Rodchenko pour le film Ciné-Œil (Kino glaz) de Dziga Vertov, 1924
(encadré), collection de facsimilés et livres, film/collage titré Ephemeris (16 min 6 s),
. 249 .
Réalisée en collaboration avec Jean Myette, la dernière composante de l’œuvre,
Ephemeris, est un collage d’extraits des films préférés de l’artiste, projeté en
quatre boucles. Chacune des quatre boucles composant le montage final
reprend essentiellement un même récit non-narratif qui est légèrement
autobiographique et fortement poétique.7 Les extraits de films de Grauerholz
remplacent les graphiques et images présentées dans l’installation de Rodchenko.
Ceux de Rodchenko encourageaient un moment social et éducatif de détente,
ceux de Grauerholz encouragent un partage social et culturel pour tous.
La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail, après dix ans de conception, est, comme
l’explique l’artiste, un ‘work in progress’ qui fait le lien entre l’art, sa propre
vie et l’histoire.8 Elle représente une reformulation contemporaine de la
Gesamtkunstwerk, une œuvre d’art totale, une notion essentielle qui « constitue
le fondement artistique de la majorité des artistes et auteurs auxquels elle se
réfère – Duchamp, Warhol, Borges, Benjamin, Malraux, Zweig, etc. –, c’est-àdire des individus qui ont cherché à réaliser une synthèse entre l’art et la vie. »9
. 250 .
Vue de l’installation «mixed media»
composée de 2 tables de lecture et 12 chaises, 12 livres,
1 table échiquier avec 2 chaises et 32 pièces d’échec,
page couverture du magazine Interview présentant l’affiche créée par
Aleksandre Rodchenko pour le film Ciné-Œil (Kino glaz) de Dziga Vertov, 1924 (encadré),
collection de facsimilés et livres, film/collage titré Ephemeris (16 min 6 s),
. 251 .
Par sa multidisciplinarité et de son intention de créer, chez le spectateur une
expérience de l’œuvre d’art réciproque,10 l’installation confirme son statut
d’œuvre contemporain. En effet, à mi-chemin entre le travail d’artiste et celui
de commissaire, cette mise en forme et mise en espace de matériel relatif
à l’art et à la culture moderne, invite le spectateur à la découverte et à la
réinterprétation. Ainsi, le public contribue donc malgré lui à l’expérience de
l’exposition grâce au design de celle-ci et plonge dans une histoire de l’art
et des artistes quelque peu utopique, mais néanmoins appropriée. En effet,
si celle-ci permet d’observer rétrospectivement la substance même de la
démarche, la production et la réflexion de l’artiste,11 elle offre aussi la possibilité
de revisiter une histoire publique.
Jerszy Seymour, First Supper, 2008. V
ue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles, collection de livres,
électroménagers, matériaux et objets divers, dimensions inconnues.
http://www.jerszyseymour.com.
. 252 .
Jerszy Seymour se décrit comme un instigateur dans la relation de la société
au monde construit. Intéressé parfois à connecter avec la réalité dans ses
projets et d’autres fois à complètement déconnecter de celle-ci, il se qualifie
d’existentialiste12 dans son approche.
Pour le projet First Supper (2008), Seymour souhaitait travailler sur un projet
pour discuter de l’utopie, mais d’une manière non-utopique. L’idée était donc
de commencer par détacher le design de l’industrie, de la commercialisation
et du capitalisme, des notions qu’il considère comme une entrave à la société
idéale. En partant de l’idée que le design industriel est né de la modernité, qui
est toujours elle-même connectée à l’industrie et à ce genre de mécanisme,
l’artiste a commencé à chercher des espaces où il serait possible de créer
du design vivant de manière autonome par rapport à tout ce qui entoure
l’industrie. L’idée était donc de déconnecter pour éventuellement mieux
connecter par la suite.
Jerszy Seymour, First Supper, 2008.
Détail de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles, livres, électroménagers,
vaisselle, chaudrons, aliments, matériaux divers, dimensions inconnues.
. 253 .
Pour ce projet, discuter du thème de l’utopie était très important pour
Seymour, car il estimait que le sujet était tombé depuis la fin de la modernité
et le communisme et le déclin apparent du capitalisme dans une sorte de
zone interdite.13 Raviver la question utopique pouvait donner lieu à terrain
de discussion fertile. Aussi l’idée du diner, comme vous allez le voir, était
de discuter de la question utopique comme il se doit, c’est-à-dire dans un
contexte non hiérarchique (comme une conférence par exemple). Quoi de
mieux qu’un repas pour échanger des idées après tout?
Affiché à l’entrée de l’installation, l’inscription suivante: « First Supper is a
nowhere place, an amateur soup and an open ended utopian question mark.
It is cooked on a non commodity flame, and made with ingredients of doing,
sharing and being. Should it exist? Could it exist? What will we eat? What will
we talk about? You are invited by Jerszy Seymour and the coalition with love.
Please enjoy and viva la utopia! »14
Dans cette description, le terme amateur tire sa définition de sa source latine
amātor, qui signifie « amant, amoureux, passionné, personne enthousiaste
dévouée à quelque chose ».15 Le terme coalition fait référence à « une alliance
formée de personnes au différentes capacités réceptives et sensibilités, mais
ayant un objectif commun ».16 L’amateur, cette personne enthousiaste et
dévouée, vient donc discuter des possibilités d’une société différente, dans le
contexte d’un souper organisé par Seymour.
. 254 .
Vue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles, livres, électroménagers,
L’exposition est divisée en deux parties principales: d’une part la cuisine,
donc le lieu de production, d’autre part les tables et chaises représentent la
partie consommation. Dans la cuisine (sur le site), Seymour et son équipe ont
fabriqué une cire biodégradable servant à produire tout le mobilier central de
l’installation. Coulée rapidement et aléatoirement, elle fusionne des couleurs
criardes loin des couleurs traditionnelles du mobilier, comme pour rappeler
l’aspect irréel d’une discussion sur l’utopie.17 Dans le même ordre d’idées, un
lien peut être fait entre l’apparence ludique du mobilier de l’installation et la
naïveté presque enfantine de croire en un monde idéal.
. 255 .
Vues du processus de fabrication de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles,
livres, électroménagers, vaisselle, chaudrons, aliments, matériaux divers, dimensions inconnues.
Cette cire modifiée brassée avec de simples morceaux de bois fige en
quelques minutes à peine tout en gardant une apparence liquide. Aussi,
par son utilisation, elle fait office à la fois de partie structurante et de partie
structurée de pièces de mobilier. Les pattes de tables, littéralement collées à
la cire figent en même temps que celle-ci pour créer un empattement avec
des joints à la Rietveld, mais beaucoup plus facile et rapide à réaliser que les
originaux. Le processus de fabrication des tables et bancs pour une centaine
de personnes a été extrêmement rapide et l’ensemble de l’installation a été
montée, utilisée et démontée en 5 jours.18
. 256 .
Détail de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles, livres, électroménagers,
La nourriture que les gens ont mangée était de la soupe de racines de
différentes couleurs. Réalisée dans le même espace de production que le
mobilier, sa texture était volontairement similaire à celui-ci.19 Tout comme
le mobilier, aucune soupe n’était identique. Grâce à cette similarité, une
connexion directe peut être faite entre la cuisine comme lieu de production
et lieu de consommation. Pensée sous forme de métaphore, la nourriture est
aussi une référence à l’irréalité d’une société utopique.
Dans la salle on peut aussi trouver la galerie où des matériaux résiduels de
la production sont exposés et deviennent des témoins du processus de
création de l’installation et des éléments décoratifs. De plus, l’espace possède
. 257 .
un coin lecture qui est une sorte de bibliothèque de référence comprenant
tous les livres et lectures ayant inspiré l’installation à Seymour. Les citrouilles
autour de la pile de livre sont présentes à la fois comme éléments résiduels
de la production de soupe, mais aussi comme mobilier temporaire improvisé.
Finalement, sur le sol, quelque part dans la salle, l’inscription faite à la cire:
« Viva la utopia ».
Vue de l’installation «mixed media» composée de tables, bancs, citrouilles, livres, électroménagers,
Comme il le prouve avec cette installation, Seymour prend conscience de sa
responsabilité sociale en tant que designer/artiste et des possibilités qu’apporte
sa profession en termes de création de situations sociales. L’intervention
réinterprète l’espace de la galerie afin de la transformer en un lieu où, à travers
le partage d’un repas, l’échange d’idées sur une société idéale est possible.
. 258 .
Exposition virtuelle
Le design de l’exposition virtuelle sera divisé en deux parties, afin de permettre
deux types de parcours distincts à l’usager. À l’ouverture de la page d’accueil,
un texte d’introduction présentera l’exposition, l’angle d’approche et les
artistes dans un contexte global. À partir de ce point, le visiteur sera confronté,
à choisir entre une visite structurée ou une visite aléatoire.
Dans le cas de la première, la navigation, l’accès à l’information et la structure
générale de l’exposition sera logique et clair afin de permettre aux utilisateurs
une visite plus contrôlée. En sélectionnant cette option, le visiteur arrivera sur
une page où il aura une vue en plongée sur chacune des installations des deux
artistes, comme si elles étaient situées dans deux salles adjacentes. Chaque
installation pourra être explorée en sélectionnant des éléments qui en font
partie. Aussi, quand une section sera sélectionnée, une animation zoomera
sur le détail pour transformer la vue en plongée en plan moyen, comme si le
visiteur se retrouvait physiquement dans l’installation. Lors du zoom, deux-tiers
de la page sera consacré à l’image et le tiers restant servira au texte expliquant
ce qui est observé. Finalement, le public pourra toujours revenir facilement
aux vues en plongée des deux salles, ou continuer à explorer de l’intérieur.
Le second type de visite sera basé sur l’exploration du processus artistique
des artistes. En choisissant ce parcours, le visiteur sera placé devant les
deux mêmes salles vues en plongée et pourra sélectionner une ou l’autre
des installations. Par contre, lorsqu’il souhaitera zoomer sur des éléments, il
sera emporté plutôt vers les réflexions, inspirations et transformations ayant
mené à la création du projet. Comme en immersion dans l’esprit de l’artiste
. 259 .
en plein bouillonnement créateur, la navigation sera non-linéaire, intuitive
et en apparence désorganisée, en hommage à l’importance qu’accordent
Grauerholz et Seymour au processus.
Notes
1 “Ray Oldenburg,” Project for Public Spaces, accédé le 29 novembre
2013, http://www.pps.org/reference/roldenburg/.
2 Angela Grauerholz, “Reading for the Working Artist by Angela
Grauerholz,” vidéo YouTube, 6:08, publié par National Gallery
of Canada media, 7 avril 2010, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mx16TSV49do.
3 Le Club des travailleurs de Rodchenko était l’une des expositions
soviétiques présentées à l’Exposition Internationale et des Arts
Décoratifs Industriels Modernes Parisienne de l’été 1925. D’autres
expositions soviétiques comprenaient le pavillon soviétique de
Konstantin Mel’nikov et la présentation d’artisanat, de design
graphique, des dessins d’architecture et les œuvres créées crées à
VKhUTEMAS.
“Worker’s Club 1925,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, en
ligne le 30 novembre 2013, http://www.moma.org/interactives/
exhibitions/1998/rodchenko/texts/workers_club.html.
4 “Worker’s Club 1925,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, en
. 260 .
5 Ses composantes ont servi de multiples fonctions, et la plupart
d’entre elles visaient à éduquer le travailleur au moyen des
technologies de l’information les plus actuelles possibles.
“Worker’s Club 1925,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, en
Grauerholz,” video YouTube, 6:08, publié par National Gallery
7Ibid.
8Ibid.
9 “Angela Grauerholz. La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail,” Centre
Vox, en ligne le 27 novembre 2013, http://www.centrevox.ca/
exposition/angela-grauerholz-la-salle-de-lecture-de-lartiste-autravail/.
Grauerholz”, vidéo YouTube, 6:08, publié par National Gallery
11 “Angela Grauerholz. La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail,”
Centre Vox, en ligne le 27 novembre 2013, http://www.centrevox.
ca/exposition/angela-grauerholz-la-salle-de-lecture-de-lartiste-autravail/.
. 261 .
12 « L’existentialisme est un courant philosophique et littéraire
qui postule que l’être humain forme l’essence de sa vie par ses
propres actions, en opposition à la thèse que ces dernières lui
sont prédéterminées par de quelconques doctrines théologiques,
philosophiques ou morales. L’existentialisme considère donc chaque
personne comme un être unique qui est maître, non seulement de
ses actes et de son destin, mais également, pour le meilleur comme
pour le pire, des valeurs qu’il décide d’adopter. »
Encylopédie Larousse en ligne, sv. “Existentialisme,” accédé le 2
décembre 2013, http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/
existentialisme/50475
13 “1 22 13 Jerszy Seymour,” YouTube video, 57:30, tiré d’une conférence
intitulée “An Evening with Jerszy Seymour” présentée à The
Cranbook Academy of Art le 22 janvier 2013, 1968, publié par
“Cranbook deSalle,” 23 janvier 2013, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=R-gEoEMGNVU.
14“Projects,” Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop, en ligne le 3 décembre
2013, http://www.jerszyseymour.com.
15 “1 22 13 Jerszy Seymour,” YouTube video, 57:30, tiré d’une conférence
intitulée “An Evening with Jerszy Seymour” présentée à The
Cranbook Academy of Art le 22 janvier 2013, 1968, publié par
“Cranbook deSalle,” 23 janvier 2013, http://www.youtube.com/
16Ibid.
17Ibid.
. 262 .
18Ibid.
19Ibid.
Bibliographie
“Angela Grauerholz. La salle de lecture de l’artiste au travail.”
Centre Vox. Accédé le 27 novembre 2013. http://www.centrevox.ca/
exposition/angela-grauerholz-la-salle-de-lecture-de-lartiste-autravail/.
“Angela Grauerholz: The Inexhaustible Image…Épuiser l’Image.”
Musée canadien de la photographie contemporaine. Accédé le 25
novembre 2013. http://www.gallery.ca/grauerholz/en/.
Campbell, James D. “Angela Grauerholz, Reading Room for the
Working Artist. ” Archives Ciel Variable. Accédé le 29 novembre 2013.
http://cielvariablearchives.org/en/component/content/article/1356angela-grauerholz-reading-room-for-the-working-artist.html.
Doyon, Jacques. “Ciel Variable 66: Lectures.” Magazine Ciel Variable.
Accédé le 29 novembre 2013. http://www.cielvariable.ca/recent/66/
editorial.htm.
Encyclopédie Larousse en ligne, s.v. “Existentialisme.” Accédée le
2 décembre 2013. http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/
existentialisme/50475.
Grauerholz, Angela. «Reading for the Working Artist by Angela
Grauerholz.» Vidéo YouTube, 6:08. April 7, 2010. http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=mx16TSV49do.
. 263 .
Meyer, Carl F. “3 Keys to creating Great ‘Good Places’.” Co.Design.
Accédé le 27 novembre 2013. http://www.fastcodesign.
com/1665202/3-keys-to-creating-great-good-places.
Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Community
Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They
Get You Through the Day. 1ère ed. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
“Projects.” Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop. Accédé le 3 décembre
2013. http://www.jerszyseymour.com.
“Ray Oldenburg.” Project for Public Spaces. Accédé le 29 novembre
2013. http://www.pps.org/reference/roldenburg/.
“Reading for the Working Artist by Angela Grauerholz.” Angela
Grauerholz. Accédé le 29 novembre 2013. http://angelagrauerholz.
com/featured/reading-room-salle-de-lecture-2/.
Seymour, Jerszy. «1 22 13 Jerszy Seymour.» Filmé le 22 janvier 2013.
Vidéo YouTube, 57:30. 23 janvier 2013. http://www.youtube.com/
“Worker’s Club 1925.” The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Accédé
le 30 novembre 2013. http://www.moma.org/interactives/
. 264 .
Histories | Vécus
Histories
Vécus
Histoires présentes:
Napachie Pootoogook
et Jeff Thomas
Lucile Pages
Transcendence?: Intersubjectivity,
Responsibility and Canadian Identity
Featuring Works by June Clark
and Tim Whiten
Adrienne Johnson
Arriving:
Narratives of Adaptation
and Resilience
Hannah Morgan
Convergences: Familial Memories,
Self-Identity, and Migration in the Works
of Dipna Horra and Isabelle Pauwels
Victoria Nolte
Flickering Memories:
Chuck Samuels
and Mike Hoolboom
. 265 .
Histories | Vécus
Histoires présentes:
Napachie Pootoogook
et Jeff Thomas
Lucile Pages
***
Depuis les premiers contacts avec les peuples occidentaux les autochtones
d’Amérique du Nord ont été sujets au pouvoir et à la domination des colons.
Que ce soit par les premiers dessins des missionnaires, les photographies
ethnologiques ou bien plus récemment les publicités et films hollywoodiens,
leur représentation a toujours été soumise aux interprétations erronées des
colons. Au fil des années, leur identité a été passée sous silence, transformée,
et modelée par les sociétés occidentales dominantes. Cependant, comme
le souligne Christina Marie Frauschauer dans son mémoire “Talking Back
to the West: Contemporary First Nations Artists and Strategies of Counterappropriation,” les changements apportés aux lois culturelles dans les années
cinquante, les mouvements pour les droits civiques et l’identité politique des
. 266 .
Histories | Vécus
années soixante, les nouvelles réflexions critiques issues des pratiques postcolonialistes depuis les années quatre-vingt et les nouvelles présentations
scénographiques de l’art et des cultures autochtones dans les musées depuis
les années quatre-vingt-dix ont radicalement contribué au développement
d’une nouvelle histoire de l’art autochtone, ravivant leurs cultures et traditions
et engendrant de nouvelles pratiques artistiques. Pour Frauschauer ceci est en
partie expliqué par Frantz Fanon dans son article “On National Culture” de 1967,
dans lequel il expose une prérogative indispensable à la réappropriation d’une
identité enfouie sous plusieurs siècles de colonisation. Pour Fanon, il s’agit de
reconnaître et de mettre en évidence les années coloniales et les changements
apportés par celles-ci. Les artistes doivent donc prendre en considération la
tradition coloniale et son impact sur leur culture contemporaine.1 Ce résultat
est ce que Homi Bhabha a appelé l’identité hybride, “the creation of something
that is both familiar and new as a result of the merging elements of colonizer
and colonized.” 2
Quelque chose de nouveau, voilà ce qui, selon moi, rejoint les pratiques
de Napachie Pootoogook (1938-2002) et Jeff Thomas (né en 1956). En se
réappropriant leur passé, ils redéfinissent leur identité, loin des clichés d’un art
soi-disant autochtone. Les deux artistes sont issues de deux cultures distinctes,
Inuit pour Napachie Pootoogook et Iroquoise pour Jeff Thomas, et donc de
rapports différents au colonialisme. Il n’est pas ici question de mettre dans le
même panier les différents natifs d’un même pays et leur rapport aux colons
occidentaux, mais de mettre en relation les différentes stratégies esthétiques
et thématiques employées par des artistes contemporains d’une même
nation, engagés dans une réflexion critique sur l’identité.
. 267 .
Histories | Vécus
Napachie Pootoogook est une artiste Inuit née sur l’île Baffin dans la région de
Qikiqtaaluk sur le territoire Nunavut. Originaire d’un campement traditionnel
de Sako, elle déménage rapidement à Cape Dorset, ou elle travaille en tant
qu’artiste au sein de la West Baffin Island Co-operative. Au début de sa carrière,
Pootoogook se penche sur la représentation de légendes et croyances Inuit,
mais dès les années soixante-dix, son intérêt se tourne vers la représentation de
la vie traditionnelle des femmes Inuites dans les campements, une thématique
qui devient alors centrale dans son œuvre. Si elle a une production artistique
effrénée durant toute sa carrière, laissant plusieurs milliers de dessins originaux
derrière elle, l’une de ses séries les plus connue reste sans doute celle de la fin
de sa vie. Consciente de son état de santé fragile, elle s’affaire pendant près
de cinq années à la production de quelques trois cent dessins illustrant ses
expériences personnelles de la vie au campement, celle de son grand-père,
décédé avant sa naissance, mais aussi des histoires de son entourage, de ceux
avant elle, et des légendes locales. Bien plus qu’une œuvre autobiographique,
ses dessins forment également une archive précieuse de documents
historiques et ethnographiques sur la vie traditionnelle des Inuits. En bas de
chaque œuvre, quelques lignes écrites en Inuktitut par l’artiste, décrivent les
lieux, les personnages et les scènes représentés, laissant au spectateur le loisir
de comprendre chaque dessin.
Jeff Thomas est né à Buffalo en 1956, dans l’état de New York. Il est artiste
photographe et travaille à Ottawa. En plus de ses nombreuses expositions
à travers l’Amérique du Nord, il a été commissaire de plusieurs projets dont
Emergence from the Shadow: First People’s Photographic Perspectives au Musée
canadien de la civilisation à Québec en 1999 et Where Are the Children? Healing
. 268 .
Histories | Vécus
the Legacy of the Residential Schools aux Archives nationales du Canada à
Ottawa en 2002. Son œuvre bien connue du public fait aujourd’hui partie de
grands musées nationaux et régionaux en Amérique du Nord et en Europe.
Élevé en ville à Buffalo, Thomas ne partait que rarement dans la réserve des
Six Nations, mais ces voyages marquèrent son enfance. Sans eau courante ni
électricité, il passait des journées entières à écouter l’histoire de son peuple
racontée par les anciens. De retour en ville, il ne retrouvait rien de ces histoires,
aucune trace de l’existence du peuple Iroquois. Sa pratique s’est donc
rapidement dirigée vers la recherche de signes, de traces et d’images urbaine
sur l’histoire de son peuple. Comme il le dit lui-même :
You won’t find a definition for ‹urban Iroquois› in any dictionary
or anthropological publication – it is this absence that informs
my work as a photo-based artist, researcher, independent curator,
cultural analyst and public speaker. My study of Indian-ness seeks
to create an image bank of my urban-Iroquois experience, as well
as re-contextualize historical images of First Nations people for
a contemporary audience. Ultimately, I want to dismantle long
entrenched stereotypes and inappropriate caricatures of First
Nations people.3
. 269 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Napachie Pootoogook, La Tentative d’enlèvement de Napachie nº1, 1997/1998.
Feutre noir et crayons de couleur sur papier, 50,7 X 66,3 cm.
La Tentative d’enlèvement de Napachie nº1 est la première des trois œuvres
de Napachie Pootoogook présentées dans cet essai. L’inscription en bas du
dessin à été traduit comme suit :
My name is Napachie Pootoogook. When Josephie, a man other
than Eegyvudluk was trying to take me for a wife, they tried to put
me in a boat. Pootoogook and his son Eegyvudluk were there, and
Eegyvudluk, my husband-to-be, was watching me struggle. I won
the fight because I was very frightened. There was my husband-tobe, Eegyvudluk, just watching.4
. 270 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Ces indications donnent un nouveau sens à l’œuvre, une dimension
autobiographique. Loin des clichés sur la vie tranquille est harmonieuse des
Inuits, l’artiste écrit d’un ton détaché, presque insensible, comme une scène
banale. Le style du dessin est très descriptif, élaboré dans une composition
en fresque dans laquelle se déroule l’action au premier plan. La multitude
de traits parallèles délimitant les différents espaces du décor extérieur et des
personnages brouillent cependant la lecture, faisant écho à l’agitation et à la
violence de la scène.
Napachie Pootoogook, Avances sexuelles, 1997/1998.
Feutre noir et crayons de couleur sur papier, 50,7 x 66,3 cm.
. 271 .
Histories | Vécus
La deuxième œuvre, Avances sexuelles n’est pas autobiographique cette fois.
Il est difficile de savoir s’il s’agit d’une scène contemporaine à la vie de l’artiste
dans le campement ou à une histoire racontée par son entourage. Néanmoins,
une fois encore, les personnages son identifiés. Les lignes de textes ont été
traduit comme suit :
While everyone else had gone fishing, Mitiarjuk visited Melia with his
pants off to deliver her slipper. He only had his kamiks (skin boots)
and his parka on. Melia was an elder and her tent was made from
outer parkas and other materials that were sewn together as she had
nothing for she was a widow. Old pants and old burlap flour bags
were sewn together and her tent was really small. Melia’s husband
Alikak is out fishing so the old man Mitiarjuk is making advances
toward another woman.5
Dans ce dessin, le sujet délicat des relations hommes/femmes est traité avec
humour. Le derrière coloré du vieil homme lubrique devient l’attraction de
la scène, et souligne la posture particulièrement humiliante dans laquelle
Napachie a choisie de le représenter. Les détails sont précis, jusqu’aux coutures
de la tente mentionnées dans sa description écrite. Le banc de pierre à l’horizon
ferme la perspective et centre la scène sur l’ouverture de la tente. Ici l’extérieur
et l’intérieur sont presque mêlés, nous laissant un sentiment d’oppression,
accentué par la multitude de traits parallèles délimitant les différentes formes
des objets.
. 272 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Napachie Pootoogook, Le Pouvoir de voler, 1997/1998.
Feutre noir et crayons de couleur sur papier, 50,7 x 66,3 cm.
Dans Le pouvoir de voler, la description plus réduite cette fois, dit :
Kitty prepared to take off from a cliff at an island called Tuniit. Her
husband, Jayko, is naked in the middle of winter, holding bibles as
usual. This was during the first introduction of Jesus. Kitty thought she
was a goddess and as powerful as God.6
. 273 .
Histories | Vécus
Dans une composition plus épurée cette fois, Napachie décrit une histoire
locale, probablement racontée par sa famille. La scène se déroule bien avant
la naissance de l’artiste puisqu’en son temps, le christianisme était déjà
très répandu et accepté. Le détail de l’homme nu, qu’elle tient à partager,
étant mentionné dans le dessin et dans le récit, est également une stratégie
humoristique destinée à détourner le drame qui s’apprête à arriver. Il s’agit
ici de «dérapages» dans la conversion des Inuits. Comme l’écrit Leslie Boyd
Ryan,7 Jayko était un homme connu de la région. Peter Pitseolak aussi l’aurait
mentionné dans son autobiographie People from Our Side.8 Persuadé d’être
un prophète, Jayko vivait dans un igloo sans toit pour contempler les cieux,
prier et chanter. Devenu le messager de Dieu, il avait réunit plusieurs disciples
et les persuadait de se débarrasser de leurs biens matériels précieux.
Les trois dessins de Napachie, très descriptifs et détaillés, documentent
minutieusement la vie traditionnelle des campements Inuits telle que l’a
connu où telle qu’on le lui a raconté. En plus de laisser un travail qu’aucun
artiste n’avait réalisé avant elle, elle ravive la pertinence de l’histoire orale Inuit
et vient combler une partie de l’histoire de son peuple largement dominée
par les écrits de chercheurs occidentaux. L’ajout de textes en est par ailleurs la
preuve. Si Napachie voulait transmettre l’histoire de sa région aux générations
futures, il est évident qu’elle ouvrait également son public aux spectateurs
occidentaux, nous livrant une image complexe, sobre et objective des
activités quotidiennes de la vie traditionnelle et de son organisation sociale,
une vie révolue qu’elle fut la dernière à connaître.
. 274 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Jeff Thomas, Champlain Monument Indian, 1992.
Épreuve argentique, 35,6 x 45,7 cm.
Le travail de Jeff Thomas, comme celui de Napachie Pootoogook, est motivé
par l’absence, le manque d’histoire, de documentation et d’analyse sur l’histoire
de son peuple. Champlain Monument Indian (1992) est une photographie noir
et blanc de l’éclaireur indien au pied du monument Champlain à Ottawa. Placé
au pied de la sculpture de Champlain, il est agenouillé, clairement au service
de l’occidental, avec pour seule inscription sur son socle le mot « iroquois ».
Les monuments ont une place particulière dans le décor urbain.9 Très visibles
par leur emplacement et leur taille, ils deviennent également invisibles aux
yeux des habitants, fondus dans le décor urbain quotidien, souvent placés à
des endroits stratégiques de circulation, ou comme point de repère pour une
vue particulière de la ville. C’est le cas du monument Champlain à Ottawa.
. 275 .
Histories | Vécus
Thomas ne photographie pas le monument en lui même, mais seulement
un de ses détails et le décor qui l’entoure. Il met en évidence l’attraction
touristique du monument, la vue sur les quais de la ville, détournant le regard
des visiteurs de la réalité à laquelle ils doivent faire face. L’éclaireur indien du
monument Champlain est un sujet particulièrement cher à l’artiste. En 1996,
l’Assemblée des Premières Nations engage une lutte contre le monument, et
la représentation de l’iroquois, et demande à ce qu’il soit déplacé (ce qui fut
le cas). Bien que sympathique à la cause, Jeff Thomas aurait aimé conserver
la sculpture à son emplacement original, et qu’une plaque y soit ajoutée,
expliquant le malaise de la représentation. Pour lui la disparition de la sculpture
précédait la disparition d’une partie de l’histoire coloniale des iroquois. En
enlevant la sculpture, on autorisait le Canada à faire tomber dans l’oubli ce
type de représentations, stéréotypes nationalement acceptés et exposés dans
l’espace public.
. 276 .
Histories | Vécus
Jeff Thomas, Buffalo Dance de la série Indian on Tour, 2001.
C-Print, 20 x 30 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=46741&title=Indian+on+T
our%2C+Buffalo+Dance%2C+Museum+of+Natural+History%2C+New+York+City%2C+2001&artist=Je
ff+Thomas&link_id=2007.
Buffalo Dance (2001), photographiée au pied du musée d’histoire naturelle
de New York, fait partie de la série Indian on Tour, dans laquelle Thomas
photographie des figurines indiennes pour enfant dans des espaces publiques
d’Amérique du Nord mais aussi d’Europe. La photographie ne manque pas
d’humour. Alors que le détail du bas relief représente un troupeau de bisons
et de cerfs manifestement en train de brouter tranquillement dans une prairie,
l’indien lui danse, couteau et hache à la main. Le mouvement suggéré par
la figurine pourrait aussi bien être interprété comme celui d’une chasse,
faisant directement référence au bas relief en arrière plan. L’artiste joue ici
. 277 .
Histories | Vécus
avec les représentations clichées des indiens, stéréotypes dans lesquels
identité, coutumes, traditions et valeurs sont souvent confuses. La figurine
pourrait également faire référence aux dioramas présents à l’intérieur du
musée. Couramment utilisés depuis le début du vingtième siècle, ils sont
majoritairement employés dans les musées d’histoire naturelle et ont été créés
dans le but de préserver la représentation d’une époque précise ou d’une
espèce en voie de disparition. En plus de paysages voués à disparaître et de
scènes animalières, certains dioramas présentent des populations étrangères,
généralement non-occidentales et considérées comme primitives. De toute
évidence, le photographe fait référence aux pratiques douteuses des musées
d’histoire naturelle qui ont eu court dans le passé, que ce soit par l’emploi
de dioramas dans la représentation de communautés soi-disant vouées à
disparaître ou bien par la présentation de spécimens vivants. Un exemple
tragiquement célèbre est celui d’un groupe d’Inuits « acquis » en 1897 par
le musée d’histoire naturelle de New York10 au court d’une expédition dans
l’Arctique. Le groupe était exposé dans des vitrines la journée, et dormait dans
le sous-sol de l’institution le soir. Le squelette de Qisuk un des hommes Inuits,
fut exposé après sa mort dans la même vitrine où était exposé son fils. Les
ossements n’ont été rapatriés à la famille de Qisuk qu’en 1996.
. 278 .
Histories | Vécus
Jeff Thomas, Eight Indians, 2012.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=76176&title=Eight+Indians&
artist=Jeff+Thomas&link_id=2007.
Eight Indians (2012) fait partie de la série A Conversation with Edward S. Curtis
dans laquelle Jeff Thomas met en dialogue ses propres clichés avec ceux
de l’ethnologue. Sans complètement discréditer le travail de Curtis, Thomas
lui donne une nouvelle résonance contemporaine. Dans cette œuvre, la
composition est chronologique. Elle met en relation les portraits masculins
figés et intemporels de Curtis (à gauche) et un groupe de jeunes autochtones
contemporains se tenant par les épaules et se moquant d’une figurine
d’indien en habit traditionnel (à droite). Thomas représente ainsi l’histoire de
la représentation des premières nations, de la photographie noir et blanc
des ethnologues et chercheurs occidentaux aux artefacts de nos sociétés
. 279 .
Histories | Vécus
occidentales. Mais alors que dans l’image de droite les trois autochtones
ne sont présents que comme modèles à la merci du photographe, figés
et sans expression devant un fond uni (probablement celui d’un studio de
photographie), l’image de gauche illustre la réception des stéréotypes au
sein même d’une communauté, leur laissant la liberté d’exprimer leur propre
perception critique de ces images. Dans un décor qui ressemble à celui
d’un appartement, les cinq jeunes hommes se moquent manifestement
de cette figurine pour enfant, affublée de plumes et d’une cape rouge, une
représentation bien éloignée des ancêtres de la communauté, représentés à
gauche. La légende de Curtis, reprise tel quel par Thomas, vient faire écho
dans notre présent à l’histoire coloniale des autochtones d’Amérique du Nord
et à leur représentation ainsi que sa réception contemporaine.
Napachie Pootoogook et Jeff Thomas puisent tous deux dans le passé pour
appréhender leur réalité contemporaine. Si leur stratégie est comparable,
leur méthode est en revanche différente. Napachie puise dans son histoire
personnelle et celle de sa communauté, décrivant un passé vécu pour
illustrer la vie des campements traditionnels Inuits et nous entraîner dans
son monde, loin de la ville occidentale. Thomas en revanche, se penche sur
la ville et les représentations d’un passé commun et partagé, et souligne
une réalité concrète pourtant devenue invisible aux yeux de tous. L’un
dévoile et l’autre redécouvre. Mais il y a, dans les deux cas, le besoin de
construire un pont entre deux mondes aujourd’hui séparés par l’oubli et le
mensonge. Ils creusent un nouveau sillon liant leur histoire contemporaine
avec celle de leur ancêtres et se réapproprient ainsi leur identité. En aucun
cas leur démarche n’est celle du communautarisme et de l’exclusion, mais
. 280 .
Histories | Vécus
plutôt celle du désir permanent d’ajouter leur voix à l’histoire dominante
occidentale, rétablissant ainsi la complexité des relations coloniales de
leur pays. Ils accumulent sans enlever et rétablissent sans simplifier. Leur
démarche narrative et descriptive, leur humour et leur référence au passé
étend leur public à tous les spectateurs, éclairent de nouvelles significations
notre histoire contemporaine.
Notes
1 Christina Marie Frauschauer, “Talking Back to the West:
Contemporary First Nations Artists and Strategies of Counterappropriation” (mémoire de maitrise, Université Concordia, 2011), 4.
2 Karolina Tomaszewska, “Autobiographic Narrative in the Drawings of
Napachie and Annie Pootoogook,” 21.
3 Jeff Thomas, “Jeff Thomas: A Study of Indian-ness,” accédé le 18
septembre 2013, http://scoutingforindians.com/biography.html.
4 Darlene Coward Wight, éd., Napachie Pootoogook, 42.
5 Ibid., 46.
6 Ibid., 86.
7 Ibid., 24.
8Ibid.
9 Richard William Hill, “Jeff Thomas: Working Histories,” 13.
10 Stephen T. Asma, Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and
Evolution of Natural History Museums, 3.
. 281 .
Histories | Vécus
Bibliographie
Asma, Stephen T. Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and
Evolution of Natural History Museums. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001.
Berlo, Janet Catherine. “Drawing (upon) the Past: Negotioating
Identities in Inuit Graphic Arts Production.” Dans Unpacking Culture:
Art and Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, édité par Ruth
Phillips et Christopher B. Steiner, 178-194. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999.
Froschauer, Christina Marie. “Talking Back to the West: Contemporary
First Nations Artists and Strategies of Counter-appropriation.”
Mémoire de maitrise, Université Concordia, 2011.
http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/35902/.
Hill, Richard William. “Jeff Thomas: Working Histories.” Dans Jeff
Thomas: A Study of Indianness, édité par Katy McCormick, 9-19.
Toronto: Gallery 44, 2004. Publié conjointement avec l’exposition du
même nom, présentée à Gallery 44, Toronto.
McCormick, Katy, éd. Jeff Thomas: A Study of Indianness. Toronto:
Gallery 44, 2004. Publié conjointement avec l’exposition du même
nom, présentée à Gallery 44, Toronto.
Wight, Darlene Coward, éd. Napachie Pootoogook. Winnipeg:
Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2004. Publié conjointement avec l’exposition
du même nom, présentée à Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg.
. 282 .
Histories | Vécus
Thomas, Jeff. “Jeff Thomas: A Study of Indianness.” Scouting for
Indians. Accédé le 18 septembre 2013. http://scoutingforindians.
com/biography.html.
Tomaszewska, Karolina. “Autobiograhic Narrative in the Drawings of
Napachie and Annie Pootoogook.” Mémoire de maitrise, Université
Concordia, 2012. http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/view/creators/
Tomaszewskska=3AKarolina=3A=3A.htm.
. 283 .
Histories | Vécus
Transcendence?:
Intersubjectivity,
Responsibility and Canadian
Identity Featuring Works
by June Clark
and Tim Whiten
Adrienne Johnson
***
“What does it mean to transcend Canada’s colonial past? What is the measure
of ethnocultural equity for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and persons of
colour? Is it the adoption of government initiated Canadian multiculturalism,
which for better or worse is an institutionalized guideline for nondiscriminatory practices? Or is it our current alleged temporal ‘post-colonial’
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moment - a moment whose geographic and temporal subjectivity belies the
notion of postcolonial? How is the forked tongue of contemporary Canadian
“democratic liberal discourse,”1 as termed by Frances Henry, Winston Matthis,
and Carol Tator.
The works of June Clark (b. 1941) and Tim Whiten (b. 1941) are the point of
entry into this exhibition’s phenomenological exploration of transcendence in
relation to Canada’s founding colonial roots vis–à–vis Canada’s ethnocultural
relations with Indigenous cultures and those of peoples of colour, and Canada’s
transnational relationships with those peoples and communities abroad. After
all, it must never be forgotten that it was through globalized collusion in the
centuries-long, genocidal project of African slavery – which also touched
Canadian soil – that the stereotyped “African” has been positioned in mind
and conscribed in body as inferior, lazy, uncivilized and inhuman - literally, the
antithesis of all that is good/white.
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June Clark, Family Secrets, 1992. Mixed media, measurements various, installation view.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/secrets27.html.
June Clark, Family Secrets, 1992. Mixed media, dimensions variable (detail).
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image_minimal.html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/screen/c/clarkj/
clkj028.jpg&mkey=22294&cright=June+Clark&link_id=&title=Family+Secrets%2C+[detail].
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The first selection of work by Clark is from the installation Family Secrets
presented within the group exhibition The Creation of the African-Canadian
Odyssey held June 26-September 7, 1992 at Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary
Art Gallery. Family Secrets consists of nineteen average to small, black boxes
containing old photographs, found and made objects such as bottles, screws
and hair, and artifacts of popular culture. Each box is presented on one long,
continuous shelf and is individually spot lit from above. The boxes relate Clark’s
autobiography, exuding both fragility and reverence, oscillating between the
tactile and the elusive. As containers, the boxes and their documentary affect
serve to conceal, display, codify, and mythologize.
Colloquially associated with silence, void, and mystery the archetype of the
hinged black box, as featured in this work, can also be interpreted as a sacred
vault of information. In this way, each black box serves as an ultimate witness;
the objects they contain, varied and seemingly banal, become elevated as
testimony, and seem to mystically abound with elusive meanings. The boxes
of Family Secrets can equally be seen as making allusions to the perceptions
of blackness and the objects they hold, to show constellations of knowledge,
and to provoke internal and external tensions and anxieties by colliding the
personal, spiritual, commercial, and political. With respect to the latter, this is
best exemplified through the box containing an American flag. Speaking to
the myriad of conflicting relationships with symbols of nation, the American
flag, among the most recognized and readily visible objects of human history,
reoccurs in Clark’s oeuvre to date. Clark, a native of Harlem, New York, recounts
how this piece symbolizes a very turbulent time in her life during the late
1960s. She and her husband fled to Toronto, Ontario, taking all they could
carry, within 48 hours of receiving his draft notice.2
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Clark’s Family Secrets (1992) weaves together the intimacy of memory and
the family home, and public life, speaking to tensions between personal and
societal beliefs and the turbulence in reconciling those differing aspects.
Memory, identity, and belonging are inherently in conflict within this work,
ever intensified through the lens of Canada’s rhetoric relating to constructions
and performances of ethnocultural equity.3 Lived experiences of racial, sexual,
financial, and religious marginalization of Canada’s Indigenous and peoples of
colour, fundamentally put into question the value, measure, and mechanics of
so-called cultural evolution under policies of multiculturalism.
June Clark, Psalm 103: Verse 16, 2000.
Installation, mixed media, dimensions variable, (detail).
http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/images/screen/c/clarkj/clkj117.jpg.
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Clark’s second installation, Psalm 103 Verse 16 (2000) features a washboard with
a glass panel, and a rusted chain with unlocked shackles wrapped around
it. The washboard is one of twelve washboards and canvas tapestries Clark
originally presented in the group exhibition, Niagara: Between Time and
Place, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Ontario in 2000. The washboards, with frames
of either natural wood, white-painted wood, or wicker, are decorated with
voodoo-esque dolls, assorted collages, and trinkets, evoking tenuous aspects
of the racialization and gendering of labour - where the shackles, reminiscent
of chain-gangs, and the washboard, a symbol of domestic women’s work,
collude and allude in particular to remind of the pervasive economic and
social insecurity imposed on many Canadian women of colour.
In 2012 the World Economic Forum ranked Canada twentieth in terms of equitable economic participation between men and women.4 However, this
economic disparity is consistently and most acutely felt among women of
colour who are more likely to be unemployed. If employed, women of colour are overrepresented in part-time positions with little to no opportunity
for advancement, and at significantly lower wages than their White counterparts.5 Understanding that wellbeing6 – broadly, robust participation in and
enjoyment of one’s life within society – is intrinsic to one’s participation in any
society, systemic income disparities and poverty are implicitly critical factors.
In 2013 approximately 20.9 million men, women, and children are living
in slavery.7 Systemic capitalistic greed perpetuates what has been the
slowest economic recovery in modern times. In this context, Clark’s use of
washing boards and coarse canvas tapestries presents layered readings of
Eurocentric formulations of labour, modernity, imperialism, race, and gender.
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The juxtaposition of the washboards with the crude tapestries at once forms
an arc connecting the antiquated to industrialized forms of technology - a
testament to stratifications of labour that prevail in various guises both A Mari
usque ad Mare (from sea to sea, Canada’s national motto adopted in 1921 and
enshrined in the Royal Coat of Arms Canada) and abroad.
This history informs the work, rendering the title curious. The namesake for
this piece, Psalm 103:16 of the Christian bible reads, “the wind blows over
it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”8 This verse refers
to the impermanence of objects, a theme that is carried forward as the
passage continues, “[the] LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his
righteousness with their children’s children with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.”9 This call to and for boundless faith
further embodies a central aspect in the fight towards equitable access,
enjoyment, and participation for Canada’s Indigenous and peoples of colour.
This verse and the piece named after it reflect a belief that in time we, as the
human race, shall overcome not only the shackles of racism and sexism, but
also the oppression of imperialist capitalism that continues to steadily profit
off of socio-cultural inequity.
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Tim Whiten, Draw, 1993. Mixed media, dimensions variable.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image.html?languagePref=en&url=/c/images/big/w/whitent/wht039.
jpg&cright=&mkey=55064&link_id=.
The transcendental has informed Whiten’s work and practice of over forty
years. Whiten’s work aspires to connect the physical, the intellectual, and the
spiritual, as he is fascinated with connections and disjunctions between human experience, psychic memory, and everyday reality.10 Whiten’s piece, Draw
(1993) is an example of precisely this. Draw is a mirrored wagon measuring
25 x 20 x 72 inches that has two rear wheels, and two pegs at the front that
keep it upright. On its top surface, the silhouette of a fish has been cut in the
mirror.
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Draw (1993) speaks to the thematic framework of this exhibition through a
visually compelling kaleidoscope of intractable tensions between form and
function, religion and mysticism - aspects of subjective and intersubjective
negotiations towards transcendence. This wagon’s sleek, mirrored exterior is
countered by its strange and counterintuitive construction - notably its boxy
shape, and its need of at least one more missing wheel. Furthermore, it is
difficult to determine which end of the object is the ‘front’ or ‘back,’ as the fin
located between the wheels could easily be viewed a windshield or the back
of a seat.
Throughout the history of art and civilization, the mirror has often been
linked to superstition and divinity, and has been given a range of treatments
across cultures. Some of the familiar uses of the mirror include: the covering
of mirrors when someone dies in a family, and the common superstition of
‘seven years of bad luck’ when breaking a mirror. In concept and form, Draw
encompasses aspects of the superstitious and the divine, the reflective and
the introspective, seeming to perpetually and illusively chase resolution in
the other.
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Tim Whiten, One, One, One, 2002. Cast glass, rolled glass, metal, 62 x 3 x 8 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/image_timeline.html?languagePref=en&link_
id=550&artist=Tim+Whiten.
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One, One, One (2002), a second piece by Whiten of equal tension, is a seductive
and breathtakingly delicate reproduction of a dusting broom made from glass.
Set leaning against a wall, this lowly and common tool of domestic labour is
reborn as an extraordinary object of art. The glass construction of this object,
which presents a layered oxymoron, challenges any tactile impulses one may
have. It is a fragile object fashioned to resemble a tool that is usually handled
quite roughly. The broom is an object steeped in folklore, such as the act of
“jumping the broom,” an expression that refers to a custom traced to African
American slavery. Research done by Alan Dundes illustrates that as early as 1849
African American slaves in the south that were allowed or freely able to marry,
stepped or jumped over a broomstick (sometimes decorated with flowers
and ribbons) during the matrimony ceremony. There remains dispute as to
whether or not this practice originated in Africa.11 Whiten created this piece
in honor of his late mother, who worked as a domestic labourer. In relation to
spirituality, Whiten’s statement in a Canadian Art, Winter 2012 interview adds
intrigue to our understanding of this artwork. Whiten says, “The creator put
the means of understanding here for us to grab,” Whiten says. “He placed the
key to the universe inside us, because it’s the last place we’d look.” 12
In addition to the works of Clark and Whiten, this exhibition took inspiration
from Emmanuel Levinas’s ontological philosophy of transcendence, wherein
he proposes transcendence as a need to escape responsibility and being.13 A
notable component of Levinas’s ontological model of transcendence is the
conceptualization of an embodied, cognitive transition happening simultaneously from the inside and outside - a subjective and intersubjective transformation that acknowledges the Other and the Other within. The raw materiality of Clark’s pieces in contrast with the precious delicateness of Whiten’s
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works embody this conflict negotiation. Yet there is also harmony in their
distinct explorations of the unquenchable thirst of the human spirit to reach
beyond prescribed and perceived limitations.
Notes
1 Frances Henry, Winston Matthis, and Carol Tator, “Introduction,”
in Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and
Conflict (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 3-6. Democratic
liberal discourse, as presented by the authors, is meant to address
the politics of identity and the political position of the country,
whilst being equally illustrated within the presence of dominant
hegemonic forces and ideologies.
2 June Clark, “Video Profile by Linda Corbett, 2010,” accessed October
13, 2013, juneclark.ca/pages/V1969.
3 Canadian Multiculturalism Act is in many ways a one-sized-fits-all
solution to several social, cultural, linguistic, and racial tensions
threatening individual access and equity and national cohesion. The
Act constitutionally recognizes all persons as equal under Canadian
law, provides protection against discrimination, and recognizes the
rights and liberties of its aboriginal peoples and Canadians. This
however does not remedy the lived experiences of systemic racism.
4 Tavia Grant, “On Gender Equality, Canada is No Iceland,”
The Globe and Mail, October 25, 2013, accessed November 2,
2013, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/
economy/economy-lab/on-gender-equality-canada-is-no-iceland/
article15074408/. The World Economic Forum is a an independent
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international organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland, committed
to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political,
academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and
industry agendas; Canadian Labour Congress, “Women’s Economic
Equality Fact Sheet,” http://www.canadianlabour.ca/news-room/
publications/womens-economic-equality-fact-sheets accessed
November 2, 2013.
5 World Economic Forum, The Gender Gap Report 2012, (Geneva,
Switzerland: World Economic Forum, 2012). ‘Economic participation’
is defined by the World Economic Forum as, “The participation
gap is captured using the difference in labour force participation
rates.” ; “Women’s Economic Equality Fact Sheet,” Canadian Labour
Congress, accessed November 2, 2013, http://www.canadianlabour.
ca/news-room/publications/womens-economic-equality-factsheets. This disparity is staggering when understanding that 1 out
of 7 Canadian women is a woman of colour. This report observes
that in 2005, the strongest economic year Canada had since the
millennium, 9.3% of women of colour were unemployed in contrast
to the general population unemployment rate of 6.6%. Moreover,
in terms of dollar amounts, “Women working full-time, all year earn
only 70.5% as much as men ($39,200 vs $55,700). Under the same
conditions, that is working full-time all year, women of colour earn
only 64% and Aboriginal women an appalling 46% as much as men.”
6 I subscribe to the working definition by the Canadian Index of
Wellbeing: “The presence of the highest possible quality of life in its
full breadth of expression, focused on but not necessarily exclusive
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to: good living standards, robust health, a sustainable environment,
vital communities, an educated populace, balanced time use
and highest levels of democratic participation and access to, and
participation in leisure and culture.” Canadian Index of Wellbeing.
How are Canadians Really Doing? The 2012 CIW Report (Waterloo:
Canadian Index of Wellbeing and University of Waterloo, 2012), 5.
7 “What is Modern Slavery,” Anti Slavery, accessed October 30, 2013,
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_
slavery.aspx.
8 “Psalm 103:15-18 (New King James Version)” Bible Study Tools,
accessed November 3, 2013, http://www.biblestudytools.com/
psalms/passage.aspx?q=psalms+103:15-18
9Ibid.
10 David Liss, “Rituals of the Imagination,” in Messages From the Light
(Toronto: Koffler Centre of the Arts, 1997), 2-8.
11 Alan Dundes, “Jumping the Broom: On the Origin and Meaning of an
African American Wedding Custom,” The Journal of American Folklore
(1996): 327, http://www.jstor.org/stable/541535
12 Jennifer Hallam, “Slavery and the Making of America,” Historical
Overview: Family, accessed February 14, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/
wnet/slavery/experience/family/history.html; Anne Ireland, “The
Real Deal,” Canadian Art, accessed November 3, 2013, http://www.
canadianart.ca/features/2011/12/15/tim_whiten/#sthash.fYuUsow8.
dpuf.
. 297 .
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13 Bettina Bergo, “Emmanuel Levinas,” accessed November 3, 2013,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/#TraOthSam.
Bibliography
Bettina Bergo. “Emmanuel Levinas.” Accessed November 3, 2013.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/#TraOthSam.
Canadian Index of Wellbeing. How Are Canadians Really Doing?
The 2012 CIW Report. Waterloo: Canadian Index of Wellbeing and
University of Waterloo, 2012.
Canadian Labour Congress. “Women’s Economic Equality Fact
Sheet.” Accessed November 2, 2013. http://www.canadianlabour.ca/
news-room/publications/womens-economic-equality-fact-sheets.
Dundes, Alan. “Jumping the Broom: On the Origin and Meaning
of an African American Wedding Custom.” The Journal of American
Folklore (1996). 327, http://www.jstor.org/stable/541535.
Hallam, Jennifer. “Slavery and the Making of America.” Historical
Overview: Family. Accessed February 14, 2014. http://www.pbs.org/
wnet/slavery/experience/family/history.html.
Henry, Frances, and Carol Tator. Racism in the Canadian University:
Demanding Social Justice, Inclusion, and Equity. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2009.
____. The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. 4th ed.
Toronto: York University, 2009.
. 298 .
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Ireland, Anne. “The Real Deal.” Canadian Art. Accessed November
3, 2013. http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2011/12/15/tim_
whiten/#sthash.fYuUsow8.dpuf.
Liss, David. “Rituals of the Imagination.” In Messages From the Light,
2-8. Toronto: Koffler Centre of the Arts, 1997.
“What is Modern Slavery.” Anti Slavery. Accessed October 30, 2013.
http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/what_is_modern_
slavery.aspx.
. 299 .
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Arriving:
Narratives of Adaptation
and Resilience
Hannah Morgan
***
In her art practice, Bev Tosh (b. 1948) has researched the personal stories of
transatlantic journeys of more than forty-five thousand war brides to Canada
from Great Britain and Europe in the 1940s. Tosh’s project reveals that the
history of these women is one of the most unique and fascinating stories of
immigration to Canada. Many young women left their familiar lives behind
them in order to marry Canadian soldiers they had met and fallen in love
with during World War II. These British and European ladies faced many
cultural shocks and personal struggles when embarking on their new lives in
Canada. Through mutual support the war brides created a network of friends
and community that strengthened their sense of a communal identity, and
fostered shared experience. Their first-hand experiences of major political
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and social issues in the mid-twentieth century resulted in narratives of
perseverance, resilience, and adaptation. Vessna Perunovich (b. 1960), who
immigrated to Canada in the 1980s when her home country, Yugoslavia, was
in civil unrest, offers another narrative of immigration. The work of these artists
also connects through their use of materials often associated with women’s
handicrafts, and their play with qualities of hard and soft. These connections
contribute conceptually and physically to the theme of female migration
to Canada, and their endurance within a new country. The objective of this
exhibition is to create a dialogue between these two artistic interpretations
of narratives on adaptation and resilience.
Canadian soldiers in Great Britain and Europe during the Second World War
deployed to help the English, and while doing so they also forged relationships,
and even began families with these women.1 At this time of uncertainty,
couples were falling in love unabashedly, and Canadian servicemen were
proposing marriage and offering a new life in Canada to these young foreign
women. Almost all of these young fiancées had firsthand knowledge of the
horrors of war that threatened their lives - and an offer of marriage was one
of hope and happiness. Because of the difficult context of rampant death
and destruction that these women had been living in, leaving behind
the familiar comforts of home and family may not have been as difficult a
choice for the young brides-to-be as it might have been otherwise. After
the war ended and the young women arrived in Canada, newspapers joked
that Canadian servicemen were “the best immigration agents this country
has ever sent abroad.”2 War bride immigration was paid for and organized
by the Canadian government as these women were seen as immigrants
of “exceptional quality.”3 More often than not their lives were romanticized
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through this public lens, and little was known of their personal stories of
struggle, adaptation, and even regret. Moreover, after these women had just
experienced a devastating war in their own home countries, a new internal
conflict was emerging in relation to their social and economic position. The
dominant cultural expectation was that these women would be domestic
wives, would find fulfillment as mothers through nurturing a family, and
would abandon any desire for personal independence as individuals that
they may have had before coming to Canada.
Bev Tosh has made these testimonials of war brides a central subject of
her research and artistic practice. Tosh has connected with many women,
beginning with her own mother, who had the experience of being a war
bride. Tosh has listened to numerous personal stories of endurance in the
“leap of faith taken by thousands in order to build lives far from home.”4 Her
initial project, which was based around her mother’s life as a war bride in New
Zealand, gave her a sensitivity and knowledge that allowed her to capture
the narrative and image of other war brides. Through many interviews with
women who are now in their senior years, Tosh documents their stories, and
artistically incorporates them into her practice of portraiture and installation.
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Bev Tosh, Strands, 2010.
Twine, thread, sheer fabric, 11.6 x 11.6 in.
http://warbrides.com/artwork/threads.
The embroidered work Strands (2010) consists of the words of Reta, who
recalls her memory of “leaving her Australian home in 1946 en route to the
United States as a young war bride.”5 Her infinite words spiral around a central
void, which symbolizes both the regeneration of the story and the fading
of Reta’s memory. Strands was completed a few years before Reta began to
lose her memory, and so this piece shows the importance of Tosh’s project
in preserving the testimonials and memories of these women. The threads
of Reta’s story – metaphorically and literally sewn by Tosh into the fabric of
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history – become a portrait of this woman. This example shows how the
stories of the ever-aging war brides are becoming more precious as the firsthand accounts of their lives disappear.
Bev Tosh, Shoulder-to-Shoulder, 2001-2009. Oil on wood, each 48 x 12 in.
http://warbrides.com/artwork/paintings/.
In Shoulder-to-Shoulder, a series of oil paintings on wood panels measuring
forty eight by twelve inches, Tosh depicts individual brides based on original
photographs from the war brides on their wedding days. Each panel, still
rough from the lumber yard, was carefully selected by Tosh to reflect her
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interpretation of the woman’s mood and expression, as well as the shapes
and lines of her face in the photograph. The natural grain and texture of the
wood is used to emphasize the unique characteristics of the bride and her
image on that day. These photo-realistic portraits, which reflect the youth,
excitement, and at times the hesitation in the faces of the new brides,
become images of a haunting naiveté when re-configured by Tosh in these
panels, and when contextualized with the testimonial interviews.
Bev Tosh, Cathie. Oil on wood, 12 x 48 in.
http://warbrides.com/artwork/paintings/.
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In interview, many war brides voiced the profoundly life altering choices
they had made upon setting sail on the one-way passage across the Atlantic.
Tosh recalls this collective realization expressed by one particular war bride
in an interview as follows: “One war bride told me that when the ship started
to move, she felt a ripple go through the crowd as these women realized
they may never come home again.”6 On the other side of the ocean, women
like Cathie refused to get off the ship, determined to return home, while
others such as Joy were greeted by a husband with a pregnant woman who
demanded a divorce. These are two devastating and dramatic narratives but many of the war brides rallied, and were determined to make the best of
an intimidating situation. The resilience of these women and their migration
is alluded to in the installation method of Tosh’s paintings. Set along the wall
on railroad ties, the painted wood panels resemble the planks of a track. This
spatial composition symbolizes the travel of these women to new homes
across Canada and their lifelong commitment to a new home and country.
War brides confronted not only the strict stereotypes and expectations of
the 1950s housewife but also skeptical in-laws who, no doubt, induced fears
of failure and disappointment. These women were in a vulnerable situation
since there were “strong social taboos against divorce and separation [which]
implied that the divorcee was a personal and moral failure.”7 With few options
and despite all the hardships, the war brides “adapted, compromised, made
home for [their] husbands and families,”8 adding quality to post-war life in
Canada and contributing as strong Canadian citizens.
The narratives of Tosh’s war brides project can be considered in dialogue
with the sculptural works of Vessna Perunovich who confronts issues of
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“personal intimacy and of societal constructs” through her own experience
of immigration to Canada from the former state of Yugoslavia in the 1980s.9
While situated in different epochs, both Tosh’s and Perunovich’s narratives
come from experiences of war and migration, and have similar themes of
struggling against barriers both physical and psychological. Perunovich
sees these limitations as being imposed by restrictive social institutions
and political ideologies. While Perunovich’s works conceptualize political,
social and personal issues into abstract forms, they also connect with the
experiences of the war brides in Tosh’s practice.
Vessna Perunovich, Wounding Series, 2000-2002.
Nylon, plastic hose, cutting tools, scissors, knives, hangers, dimensions variable.
http://www.vessnaperunovich.com/vessna.html.
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Vessna Perunovich’s Wounding Series (2000-2002) is a display of large, corsetlike sculptures made from nylon material, and plastic tube hoops. Through
its shapes that equally resemble the delicate forms of dresses or tents, this
installation conveys the fragility of the body and the home. As a result of
the civil war that Perunovich witnessed in Yugoslavia she felt that her sense
of home had been literally punctured by the violence; her identity was
experiencing “runs” in its fabric. Similar to the war brides, she left her wartorn country to find a better life in Canada, but she still had strong family
connections whose absence were a void in her new life. A symbol of femininity,
the nylon tights used in this project evoke the personal vulnerability women
feel during periods of war and immigration.
Vessna Perunovich, Negotiating Utopia, 2006-2012.
Elasticized string, red wall.
http://www.vessnaperunovich.com/vessna.html.
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Another sculptural piece by Perunovich is Negotiating Utopia (2006- 2012),
an illusionistic brick wall created by weaving elastic string into rectangles in
front of a red wall. This work fools the viewer into thinking there is a barrier
within the space, when actually it is only a perceived boundary. Perunovich
presents us with a physical example of our mental assumptions of limitation,
and shows us how easy it is to trick our mind and senses into thinking and
feeling that we face an impassible barrier. Perunovich makes reference to
actual physical blocks, to make a comment about the mental blocks we have
towards our own existence within a society. We are told there is a limit and we
believe it without ever really looking closely at the problems or circumstances.
This imaginary wall or boundary equally represents the stereotypes and
social expectations placed on Perunovich as a female artist and immigrant
by transforming a seemingly welcoming space into one with deceiving
limits and expectations for its visitors. In this way, the piece connects with
what was imposed on the war brides as new arrivals who were expected
to comply with domestic expectations. During the Second World War, these
stereotypes had been weakened: women entered the workforce in order to
fill the places of the men who were in battle. This allowed women on the
home front to gain a sense of independence, but as soon as the men came
back to take over the jobs, women were, figuratively speaking, forced back
behind the wall. The illusion that a woman’s role is only in the home was
temporarily broken, only to be reinstated after the war. Bringing these two artists together in this exhibition allows new responses to
and perspectives on the visual stories of Tosh’s war brides, and Perunovich’s
narrative abstractions.
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Notes
1 Melynda Jarratt, “Introduction,” Canadian War Brides, accessed
November 3, 2013, http://www.canadianwarbrides.com/intro.asp.
2 Melynda Jarratt, “The War Brides of New Brunswick,” (Master’s thesis,
University of New Brunswick, 1995), accessed November 3, 2013.
http://www.canadianwarbrides.com/thesis1.asp.
3Ibid.
4 Bev Tosh, “Introduction,” War Brides, last modified 2011, accessed
November 1, 2013, http://warbrides.com/.
5 Tosh, “Threads,” War Brides, last modified 2011, accessed November
1, 2013, http://warbrides.com/.
6 Tosh, “Introduction.”
7 Gabrielle Fortune, “‘Mr Jones’ Wives’: War Brides, Marriage,
Immigration and Identity Formation,” Women’s History Review 15 no.
4 (2006): 587-599.
8 Jarratt, “The War Brides of New Brunswick.”
9 Gareth Bate, and Dawne Rudman, “Artist: Vessna Perunovich,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Interview 49,” World of Threads Festival,
last modified 2012, accessed November 1, 2013. http://www.
worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/049_vessna_
perunovich_12.html.
. 310 .
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Bibliography
Bate, Gareth, and Dawne Rudman. “Artist: Vessna Perunovich,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Interview 49.” World of Threads Festival.
Last modified 2012. Accessed November 1, 2013. http://www.
perunovich_12.html.
Fortune, Gabrielle. “ ‘Mr Jones’ Wives’: War Brides, Marriage,
Immigration and Identity Formation.” Women’s History Review 15
no. 4 (2006): 587-599.
Hajdin, Nives. “Vessna Perunovich Moves Beyond the Walls.”
Canadian Art. Last modified February 22, 2013. Accessed November
1, 2013. http://www.canadianart.ca/see-it/2013/02/22/vessnaperunovich/.
Jarratt, Melynda. “Canadian War Brides.” Accessed November 3, 2013. http://www.canadianwarbrides.com/intro.asp.
_____ . “The War Brides of New Brunswick.” MA thesis, University of
New Brunswick, 1995. Accessed November 1, 2013. http://www.
canadianwarbrides.com/thesis1.asp.
Moore, Jacquie. “A Wife Less Ordinary.” Swerve Magazine. September
4, 2009. Accessed November 2, 2013. http://warbrides.com/reviews/.
Tosh, Bev. “Introduction.” War Brides. Last modified 2011. Accessed
November 1, 2013. http://warbrides.com/.
Vessna, Perunovich. “Bio.” Last modified 2013. Accessed November 1,
2013. http://www.vessnaperunovich.com/vessna.html.
. 311 .
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Convergences: Familial
Memories, Self-Identity,
and Migration in the
Works of Dipna Horra
and Isabelle Pauwels
Vic toria Nolte
***
Throughout one’s life, the defining of the self is a process that remains in
a constant state of becoming. Living increasingly mobile lifestyles within a
contemporary age of easily accessible, “globalized” culture, we open ourselves
up to a variety of elements that contend with our search for cultural and selfactualized balance. We forge our identities through such influences as the
geographic places we inhabit, our familial heritage, our nationality (or lack
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thereof), and our place of birth: converging or combining past and present
experiences to produce a cohesive self-portrait. With so many competing
voices, is it possible to truly situate the self within one localized and reconciled
definition? Or will the shifting aspects of our past and present realities continue
to remain unsettled?
By pairing the works of artists Dipna Horra (b. 1974) and Isabelle Pauwels
(b. 1975), this exhibition examines the spaces in which self-identity may shift
between ancestral legacies and moments of self-realization. Fascinated by
their family histories, each artist attempts to reconcile her own understanding
of self through precedential or remembered experience, producing
multimedia installations that construct or envision narrative spaces in which
the converging aspects of her being may unfold.
In the context of this exhibition, to “converge” means to combine past and
present experiences with the hope of producing a complete vision of the self.
As a result of simultaneously consulting historic and current narratives, this
complete vision-of-self becomes transient, its basis in the constantly shifting
modes of past and present, a fleeting and in-between arena of converging
identities. Located within these transitory spaces of experience, a fuller
definition of selfhood is thus envisioned as a mixed state of being,1 one that
remains rooted in the past, yet continues to physically move forward with
each new lively encounter.
A common mode of converging identity through the past and present is
recognized through the process of migration. In the act of relocation, the
migrant moves to a new geographic place wherein the possibility for new
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aesthetic and lived experiences may arise. Through migration, a new way
of being emerges, allowing expressions and representations of the self to
further shift through cultural and political borders.2 Holding on to aspects
of both past and present selves permits the migrant to remain attached
to the cultural traditions of former lived experiences while forging a new
identity within a new milieu. Moreover, those who were not directly part of
a geographic shift, but rather experienced it through family stories, may feel
the further effects of migration and how it comes to shape ways of being.
Through postmemories3 or re-memories,4 formed by the familial legacy of the
relocation or resettlement, we may reconcile past and present narratives of
selfhood. Therefore, both the direct physical experience of migration, and the
reinforcement of the move through family retellings of history, has a lasting
effect on how notions of the self may be cultivated or perceived.
Suspended from the ceiling and projected onto large sheets of white cloth is a
video of Dipna Horra folding and unfolding the drapes of a sari while an audio
mix of Kathak dance, tabla rhythms, and the chants of the artist’s parents
plays in the background. Referencing the folds of the sari, Horra’s gesture of
folding and unfolding, and her state of being in-between cultural identities,
Between the Folds (2007) is a vast video installation that reconciles Horra’s
familial heritage through this culturally significant garment. Horra chooses
to display herself in the video only in fragmented views, while allowing the
garment moments of complete exposure. While the meditative rhythm of the
music lulls the viewer into a subtle trance, the sensuous and tactile folds of
the draped fabric, upon which the video is projected, beg to be touched. The
installation thus constructs an ephemeral and tangible space in which ritual
and cultural history are assembled, enacted, and considered.
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Dipna Horra, Between the Folds (video stills), 2007.
Video installation, dimensions variable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnkJaZSnXTE
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Though Horra was born in Kenya and spent the majority of her life in Ottawa,
she is constantly drawn to her family’s origins in India and actively explores this
aspect of her identity in her multimedia works.5 Greatly influenced by these
migratory shifts from India to Kenya and finally to Canada, Horra conceives
her identity as a transcultural and trans-historical state of being through her
act of converging past narratives into facets of her present experience. Her
installations thus become physical spaces inspired by the imagined meeting
of past and present, family and self.
In Between the Folds, Horra’s Punjabi heritage is embodied through her
donning of the sari, yet her personal ties to this cultural ritual are built through
postmemories, through stories and ritualistic acts passed down from her
parents, grandparents, and other family members who have direct associations
to India and the Punjab region. Rooted in a past that is not entirely her own,
Horra consigns herself to the in-between places of culture, time, and space.
The gap between her lived experiences and how she chooses to represent
her self and her cultural history is a cross-cultural, generational divide, one in
which she is situated in different eras and time zones simultaneously.6
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HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Dipna Horra, Avaaz (installation view), 2010.
Multimedia installation (furniture, window, china tea sets, and sound), dimensions variable.
http://www.dipnahorra.com/
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The next installation featured in this exhibition, titled Avaaz (2010), exemplifies
Horra’s more recent artistic practice of creating “sound sculptures.”7 Exploring
the artistic and architectural staging of sound,8 Horra uses field and voice
recordings to construct aural environments in which her familial postmemories
may be further ritualized. Deriving the title from the Punjabi word for “voice,”
Avaaz is a multimedia sound installation composed of a variety of household
objects. The sounds of a violent storm and a rattling window emerge
from the stationary window suspended from the gallery ceiling, while the
disembodied voice of Horra’s father, recounting the story of his own father’s
journeys through India and Africa, emanates from the china teapot, part of the
tea set resting upon the wooden table in the centre of the gallery. This story,
recounted in English, is interrupted at various moments by the voice of a fiveyear-old Horra singing in English and French, which plays from the sugar bowl.
Other sounds to be heard in the installation are the clattering of dishes, and
various conversations between members of Horra’s family in Punjabi. With
Avaaz, the viewer is welcomed to sit at the table, listen to these voices, and
be part of an imaginary tea service. This act allows the viewer to participate in
Horra’s transcultural and transhistorical narrative.
Sound, as a privileged element of Horra’s works, fabricates an immediate,
phenomenological experience. The ability of sound to ooze through the
floors,ceiling, and objects placed in the gallery is deeply stirring and alluring.9
The content of Horra’s narrative, at times harrowing and at others nostalgic,
heightens the immersive feeling of the installation. Breaching traditional
notions of time and presence, the disembodied voices and sounds compete
with one other in this constructed heterotopia.10 As time passes in the teatime
ritual, a tension mounts between the warm, homely atmosphere produced
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Histories | Vécus
by the familiar household sounds and the disconcerting feeling of listening
to disembodied voices.11 These voices, heard in a variety of languages, speak
to the dissociative feelings related to the experience of being an immigrant,
a process in which new languages and customs are often learned. This
participatory ritual thus skirts the lines between imaginary and staged,
localized and displaced.
The staging of these sensory installations enables Horra to participate in the
experiences of migration that define her family’s history as she ritualizes and
establishes her own sense of self within this threshold.
Isabelle Pauwels, B&E (video stills), 2008. Standard definition video transferred to VHS, sound,
hanging screen, 13:31 mins, screen dimensions: 7 x 10 ft.
http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/isabelle-pauwels/works/
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Both artists presented in this exhibition demonstrate narrative as a powerful,
yet easily manipulated conceptual device. While Dipna Horra employs sound
and voice, Vancouver-based artist Isabelle Pauwels mediates her own presentday experiences through familial postmemories contained by the objects in
her family’s possession. Born to a Belgian family with direct links to Belgium’s
colonial activities in the Congo, Pauwels spent much of her childhood watching
home movies produced by her grandparents, who lived in the Congo while
they worked for the government during Belgium’s colonial rule.12 Staging
the histories of her family in video installations, Pauwels experiments with
the problematic aspects of documentary-style narrative while attempting to
reconcile her family’s troubling colonial past.
Shot in her grandparents’ rural home in West Flanders, Belgium, B&E (2008)
documents the end of the last generation of Belgium’s colonial history as her
grandparents’ estate is divided amongst the family. As the camera pans across
various scenes of her grandparents’ home, the viewer sees a variety of objects
obtained from their life in the Congo. Pauwels invites the viewer to consider
the staged properties of the documentary as she plays with the viewer’s
expectations of the genre, re-imaging traditional narrative functions through
her interest in the staging of the scene.13 Playing central roles in the video are
the objects themselves, the dividing of which is conceived of as a migratory
gesture. With the objects of Pauwels’s grandparents in the possession of their
descendants, family history is both physically and figuratively transferred
through the family’s lineage, placing unsettling colonial legacies in the hands
of a new generation.
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Histories | Vécus
Isabelle Pauwels, W.E.S.T.E.R.N. (video still and installation view), 2010.
HDV video projection & hut constructed out of pine, palm thatch, and felt,
33:45 mins, hut dimensions: 12 ft. diameter.
http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/isabelle-pauwels/works/
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In a gesture that further considers the specific legacies of family memories
and objects, Pauwels stages the opening scene of her video installation,
W.E.S.T.E.R.N. (2010) inside her parents’ Richmond, British Columbia home. In
this scene, the artist’s mother is featured cataloguing objects for the camera,
telling stories about each object and how it came into the family’s possession.
Through her stories we see that the objects presented here are not just a
random assortment of “cultural relics,” but that each object has a deeper
meaning within the family’s history.14 The rest of the video shifts between
this scene and scenes from the old family videos Pauwels watched as a child.
The grainy clips from home videos, shot sometime in the 1950s, feature the
landscape of the Congo as a backdrop. The locations presented in these clips
are vaguely reflected by the specific objects held by Pauwels’s mother in
her home.15 Pauwels projects this video onto a screen inside a thatched hut,
which is constructed in the centre of the gallery space and is accompanied
by scanned archival photos and documents on the gallery walls. The archival
photos, along with scenes from the video, have been culled from Pauwels’s
grandparents’ records.
The constructed thatched hut is an imagined space that has come into being
for the purpose of containing the shifting, transcultural and trans-geographical
narratives at play in Pauwels’s projected video. This space, inspired by the
scenery Pauwels witnessed in her grandparents’ home videos, is a symbol of
colonial postmemory, constructed from the cultural expectations Pauwels has
associated with the Congolese landscape. Once again defying conventional
considerations of time and place, the thatched hut and video projection are
a set of simultaneously embodied and imagined heterotopias,16 wherein
Pauwels constructs the space for her troubling historical dialogue to unfold.
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Histories | Vécus
Within the hut, identity-defining experiences easily migrate between the
1950s and the 2000s, enabling Pauwels’s understanding of self to exist within
two sets of lived experiences. In addition, the archival documents Pauwels has
framed and hung on the gallery wall directly reflect memories that she has
appropriated as her own.
While Pauwels is directly documenting her family’s colonial past in these
works, her very neutral stance on the matter directly contrasts with Horra’s
very personal exploration of her own familial roots. Pauwels does not
make it clear if she is critical of her family’s history and therefore we are not
encouraged to read the works presented here as decolonizing strategies. It
seems, rather, that Pauwels’s re-packaging of familial history is playing into
some sort of exoticizing desire, an attempt to negotiate the “other” through an
enforcement of cultural stereotypes based on Pauwels’s indirect associations
with Congolese culture.
Nevertheless, both artists in this exhibition are preoccupied with family
legacies. In mirrored attempts to better understand where they come from
and, perhaps, where they are going, they examine the narratives of their
family histories in an effort to understand their own identities. Staging these
narratives within a constructed space, they are able to not only interpret
stories and cultural rituals, but are also forced to realize possibly uneasy truths
about their origins.
. 323 .
Histories | Vécus
Notes
1 Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of
Becoming (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 2002). I owe the
development of my working definition of “convergence” to Rosi
Braidotti and her book, Metamorphoses. While the term itself was
not derived from Braidotti, her discussion of hybridized states of
being and the processes that determine them is a major influence.
Through a theoretical analysis of postmodern culture, Braidotti
considers the need for new figurations or alternate representations
and locations for the in-between states we constantly find ourselves
in. Moreover, she demonstrates that people continuously shape
their own experiences and identities in relation to a hybrid “state of
being” – formulated through the many different aspects of personal
experience.
2 Sam Durrant and Catherine M. Lord, introduction to Essays in
Migratory Aesthetics: Cultural Practices Between Migration and Artmaking (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2007), 11-12: Speaking of
aesthetics as migratory (or of art forms that aestheticize the act of
migration) is to “spatialize” a chronological field. Migratory aesthetics
may allow one to move between cultures that have two very
different worldviews, bringing cultural elements from one place to
another.
3 Marianne Hirsch, “The Generation of Postmemory,” Poetics Today
29, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 103-28: Marianne Hirsch’s research on
“postmemory” is rooted in the second-generation experiences
of the children of Holocaust survivors, wherein the stories of the
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Histories | Vécus
traumatic experiences of their parents deeply affect their own
worldviews. I have borrowed Hirsch’s term here and have applied it
to my own understanding of how familial history and legacy may
shape self-identity. I use this theory here to examine how previous
family histories in other locations and within other cultures may
have the same effect.
4 Judith Tucker, “Painting Places: A Postmemorial Landscape?” in
Essays in Migratory Aesthetics, ed. Sam Durrant and Catherine M. Lord
(Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2007), 60.
5 Tony Martins, “Scripting Dipna Horra,” Guerilla Magazine, accessed
October 28, 2013, http://www.getguerilla.ca/index.php/archivemenu-item-new/32-features-issue-17-ottawa-en/382-a-script-for-anunmade-film-about-dipna-horra.
6 Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in
Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia University Press,
2011), 4.
7 James Fowler, “Sounding Off with Dipna Horra,” Akimbo: Art +
Tech Blog, accessed October 28, 2013, http://www.akimbo.ca/
atblog/?id=11.
8Ibid.
9 Steven Connor, “Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art,” in Sound:
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly (London and
Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Art Gallery and MIT Press, 2011), 130.
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Histories | Vécus
10 Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” in
Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach
(New York: Routledge, 1997): 334. Foucault defines a “heterotopia” as
a space that exists in society, but is seen as a counter-arrangement.
Within a heterotopia, “real” arrangements are challenged,
represented, and overturned. The term, “real” relates to how a
heterotopia is a reflection of society, yet is unreal in its construction
because it does not exist as an arrangement in physical space.
11 Jenny McMaster, “The Migrating Sound Scape: Dipna Horra’s Avaaz,”
Fuse Magazine, accessed October 28, 2013, http://fusemagazine.
org/2010/12/the-migrating-sound-scape-dipna-horra’s-avaaz.
12 Vancouver Art Gallery, “Isabelle Pauwels,” The Distance Between You
and Me: Vancouver Art Gallery, accessed November 3, 2013,
http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/the_distance/isabelle-pauwels/.
13 Mia Johnson, “Isabelle Pauwels: B and E,” Preview: The Gallery
Guide, accessed November 3, 2013, http://www.preview-art.com/
previews/02-2009/pauwels.html.
14 Sarah Mameni, “Congo Memories: Isabelle Pauwels’s Adventures in
History,” Canadian Art Magazine, accessed November 5, 2013,http://
www.canadianart.ca/features/2010/09/15/congo-memories-isabellepauwels-adventures-in-history/.
15Ibid.
16 Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” 335.
. 326 .
Histories | Vécus
Bibliography
Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference
in Contemporary Feminist Theory. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2011.
Braidotti, Rosi. Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of
Becoming. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 2002.
Connor, Steven. “Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art [2005].” in Sound:
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly, 129-39.
London and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Art Gallery and MIT
Press, 2011.
Durrant, Sam and Catherine M. Lord, eds. Introduction to Essays
in Migratory Aesthetics: Cultural Practices Between Migration and Artmaking. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2007, 11-19.
Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias
[1967].” In Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed.
Neil Leach, 330-36. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Fowler, James. “Sounding Off with Dipna Horra.” Akimbo: Art +
Tech Blog. Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.akimbo.ca/
atblog/?id=11.
Hirsch, Marianne. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today
29, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 103-128.
Johnson, Mia. “Isabelle Pauwels: B and E.” Preview: The Gallery
Guide. Accessed November 3, 2013. http://www.preview-art.com/
previews/02-2009/pauwels.html.
. 327 .
Histories | Vécus
Mameni, Sarah. “Congo Memories: Isabelle Pauwels’s Adventures in
History.” Canadian Art Magazine. Accessed November 5, 2013.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2010/09/15/congo-memoriesisabelle-pauwels-adventures-in-history/.
Martins, Tony. “Scripting Dipna Horra.” Guerilla Magazine. Accessed
October 28, 2013. http://www.getguerilla.ca/index.php/archivemenu-item-new/32-features-issue-17-ottawa-en/382-a-script-for-anunmade-film-about-dipna-horra.
McMaster, Jenny. “The Migrating Sound Scape: Dipna Horra’s Avaaz.”
Fuse Magazine. Accessed October 28, 2013. http://fusemagazine.
org/2010/12/the-migrating-sound-scape-dipna-horra’s-avaaz.
Tucker, Judith. “Painting Places: A Postmemorial Landscape?” In
Essays in Migratory Aesthetics: Cultural Practices Between Migration
and Art-making, ed. Sam Durrant and Catherine M. Lord, 59-79.
Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2007.
Vancouver Art Gallery. “Isabelle Pauwels.” The Distance Between You
and Me: Vancouver Art Gallery. Accessed November 3, 2013.
http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/the_distance/isabelle-pauwels/.
. 328 .
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Flickering Memories:
Chuck Samuels
and Mike Hoolboom
***
Flickering Memories examines how spectator identification with both movie
characters and the stars that portray them has produced, shaped, and affected
cultural understandings and memories of queer individuals and communities
from the invention of the movie camera in the late 19th century to the present
day. This exhibition features two Canadian artists who have critically examined,
playfully deconstructed, and sharply questioned (mis)representation of queer
identities in international moving image media: Chuck Samuels (b. 1956) and
Mike Hoolboom (b. 1959).
Chuck Samuels’ photography and Mike Hoolboom’s experimental films aim
to overcome the substantial gap in the cultural memory of moviegoers who
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are more familiar with persistent stereotypical portrayals of “pansies” and
“dykes” – or desexualized individuals – than with differentiated and versatile
representations of queer identities. Although the number of queer-themed
mainstream productions has increased over the last thirty years, recent
examples demonstrate that merely increasing the quantity of gay, lesbian,
and transgender characters featured does not necessarily overcome the
stereotypes that have persisted since the silent era.
This is why Flickering Memories breaks with critiques focusing
on the
insufficient quantity of queer representations and focuses instead on visual,
ideological, and political viewing positions outside heteronormative social
structures generated by the circulation of popular moving image media.
The exhibition does not pose the question in terms of if queer characters are
sufficiently and adequately represented, but instead explores how normative
binaries between homosexuality and heterosexuality, man and woman, gay
and lesbian, or race and class, can be overcome by queering formal aesthetics
and approaches towards moving images. As the work of Samuels and
Hoolboom illustrates, the act of representation itself is less the objective than
an exploration of the production and circulation of queer forms of expression
that set out to queer cultural memory.
Samuels and Hoolboom offer two different approaches toward the queering
of cultural memory and film history. On the one hand, Samuels’ photographs
are a teasing and humoristic approach to the question of how Hollywood
productions have determined gender roles and inscribed the dominance
of the white middle class through stereotypical depictions or the simple
absence of minorities not conforming with heteronotmative standards.
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Underlining the importance of cinema in his own personal development,
Samuels writes himself into film history in the form of bold image distortions,
jeopardizing Hollywood’s notions of race, class, and sexuality by taking the
roles of various movie characters. On the other hand, Hoolboom uses the
rich archive of film history for his expressionistic depiction of living with HIV,
creating a pure cinematographic language with his collages of scenes taken
from Hollywood and television productions, porn, and educational films.
Each image – on its own or in combination with others – is a subtle glance
into the fears, physical and emotional wounds, hopes, and thoughts of a man
caught between life and death in times oscillating between ignorance and
hysteric fear of HIV/AIDS.
Chuck Samuels and Bill Parsons, Installation view: Psychoanalysis, 1996.
Mixed media installation, gelatin silver prints, 117 x 170 cm.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=18423&title=installation+vie
w&artist=Samuels%2C+Chuck&link_id=1866.
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Chuck Samuels and Bill Parsons, Untitled panel #2: Psychoanalysis, 1996.
25 Gelatin silver prints, 17 x 170 cm.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=18417&title=untitled+panel
+%232&artist=Samuels%2C+Chuck&link_id=1866.
Psychoanalysis restages one of the most iconic scenes in film history: the
murder of Marion Crane by Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Psycho
(USA 1960). The multi-media installations, consisting of black and white
photography and a computer controlled remix of Bernard Herrmann’s score
and Hitchcock’s voice, is a playful analysis of cinematic norms of gender and
narration. While the reenactment seems to be true to the original on first
sight – including shots of Norman’s peephole, the white shower curtain, an
enormous blade approaching the body, and the victim’s face in agony - a
closer look reveals that Crane is not portrayed by a white female, but has been
replaced by various men and women of different ages and races. Playing with
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HISTORIES | VÉCUS
the expectations of the spectator as much as with Hitchcock’s storytelling,
Psychoanalysis is a teasing comment on the artistic and socio-political norms
represented and reinforced by Hollywood. Looking at the final picture of the
installation, showing Samuels after he has peeked into the shower, it is hard to
tell what has shocked him more: the murder itself, or the fact that the white
female victim was only one among many identities.
Chuck Samuels, Installation view: Chuck Goes to the Movies, 2009. 108 inkjet prints.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=73364&title=Installation+
view+from+the+project+%3Ci%3EBefore+Photography%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Samuels%2C+Chuck&li
nk_id=1866.
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HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Chuck Samuels, Untitled panel: Chuck Goes to the Movies, 2009. Inkjet prints.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=73352&title=Untitled%2C+
%3Ci%3Efrom+the+series%3C%2Fi%3E+Chuck+Goes+to+the+Movies&artist=Samuels%2C+Chuck&li
nk_id=1866.
With Chuck Goes to the Movies (2010), Samuels explores in 108 photographs
his singular relationship to film and photography. Presenting a collection of
stills from a wide range of film genres and periods, Samuels creates his own
film history and personal archive of productions released up to 1967, the year
his father began teaching him photography, which then enabled Samuels
to tell his own visual stories. In Chuck Goes to the Movies a reflection on the
formative influence of film and photography on our lives is expressed through
Samuels’ presence in every panel of the installation. All of the photographs
show one character with a camera, who on closer examination is revealed to
be Samuels himself. With the camera as the only invariable characteristic of his
changing appearance, Samuels’ idea of film history is not restricted by ideas
of gender, race, age, and nationality. Instead, taking the role of leading and
supporting characters as well as extras, Samuels overcomes normative forms
of representation and inscribes himself into the history of film’s first seventy
. 334 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
years. For example, Samuels positions himself in the role of photojournalist
Vicke Vale in Batman and Robin (Spencer Gordon Bennet, USA 1949), and thus
in the role of Bruce Wayne’s lover who comes dangerously close to discovering
the smart billionaire’s secret, posing the potential threat of outing him as the
Dark Knight.
Mike Hoolboom, Franck’s Cock, 1993. 16mm, 8 minutes, still.
Franck’s Cock is the first part of Mike Hoolboom’s AIDS-Tryptichon,1 in which
the HIV-positive filmmaker offers a polyphonic view on his life with the virus.
In the film, an unknown narrator, played by Callum Rennie, directly addresses
the camera and shares his fear about his partner dying of an AIDS-related
disease. The narrator takes us with his emotional and nostalgic monologue
. 335 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
from his first meeting with the older and more experienced Franck to a
detailed account of their sex-life to Franck’s HIV-diagnosis and declining
health. During the monologue, the screen is split in four quadrants with
Franck’s lover in the upper-right corner of the screen, while the other three
screens illustrate the couple’s love story with excerpts from gay pornography
(lower-right quadrant), excerpts from Madonna’s banned video Erotica (lowerleft quadrant), and educational films about recreation (upper-left). Franck’s
Cock is a rejection of visual representation as much as it is an affirmation of
it. Whereas Hoolboom refuses to subscribe to one form of representation, he
places Franck and his lover in a wider context of moving image references that
represent the emotional turmoil of the narrator in the face of his lover’s death.
Mike Hoolboom, Letters from Home, 1996. 16mm, 15 minutes, still.
Ci%3E+Letters+from+Home+%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Mike+Hoolboom&link_id=5248.
. 336 .
HISTORIES | VÉCUS
Letters from Home is based on a speech given by gay activist and film scholar
Vito Russo about living and surviving with AIDS at a diverse yet united
community-held ACT UP demonstration in 1988. The film is a poetic collage
of home videos, found footage materials, archival films, and hand processed
images about a group of Toronto-based artists living with AIDS. With multiple
narrators sharing their stories, Letters from Home is a multi-faceted portrayal
of the everyday prejudices PWA (People with AIDS) experience in everyday life. Hoolboom’s different formal approaches identify prejudiced and
misinformed assumptions about the transmission of HIV/AIDS, its progression,
and its prognosis held by the uneducated public. The film ends with a shot of
Hoolboom himself looking directly into the camera, anticipating the final and
most autobiographical film of the trilogy.
Mike Hoolboom, Positiv, 1997. 16mm, 10 minutes, screenshot.
. 337 .
Histories | Vécus
Positiv, the third and last part of the AIDS-Tryptichon, is one of Hoolboom’s
most personal accounts about living with HIV/AIDS. Like Franck’s Cock,
Hoolboom’s meditative contemplation unfolds on a screen divided in four
quadrants, with a headshot of the director in the upper-right corner, taking
the place of Franck’s lover. But whereas Franck’s Cock showed a relatively strict
organisation of the other three quadrants, Positiv presents a less organized
flow of images. References to pop culture are interspersed with educational
films and home movies showing Hoolboom in his everyday life. While the
quadrants sometimes illustrate Hoolboom’s monologue, they also form
independent visual essays that enable the spectator to find several entrance
points to develop their own ideas and relate them to the film’s emotional
journey that is a kaleidoscope of the visual memories of Hoolboom and his
generation.
Notes
1 Thomas Waugh called the trilogy the AIDS-Tryptichon in an article
on Hoolboom’s work. “Mike Hoolboom and the Second Generation
by Thomas Waugh (2002),” Mike Hoolboom, accessed October 19,
2013, http://mikehoolboom.com/?p=8721.
Bibliography
Assmann, Jan, and John Czaplicka. “Collective Memory and Cultural
Identity.” New German Critique 65 (1995): 125-133.
Aaron, Michele. “The New Queer Spectator.” In New Queer Cinema:
A Critical Reader, ed. Michele Aaron, 187-200. Edinburgh: Univerisity of
Edinburgh Press, 2004.
. 338 .
Histories | Vécus
Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. Queer Images: A History of Gay
and Lesbian Film in America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Erll, Astrid, and Ansgar Nünning, eds. A Companion to Cultural
Memory Studies. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010.
Farmer, Brett. Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male
Spectatorships. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000.
Hoolboom, Mike. Franck’s Cock. http://mikehoolboom.com /?p=400.
____. Letters from Home. http://mikehoolboom.com/?p=398.
____. Panic Bodies. http://mikehoolboom.com/?p=823.
____. Plague Years: A Life in Underground Movies. Toronto: Yyz Books,
1998.
Waugh, Thomas. “Mike Hoolboom and the Second Generation by
Thomas Waugh (2002).” Mike Hoolboom. Accessed October 19, 2013.
http://mikehoolboom.com/?p=8721.
. 339 .
Politics and Ac tivism | Politique et ac tivisme
Politics & Activism
Politique et activisme
Globalization, Fear, and Insecurity:
Adrienne Johnson
At the Heart of Coalition:
John Greyson and Trevor Anderson
Punk’d: The Works of BGL
and Kay Burns
Theatre and Objecthood: The Anarchistic
Interventions of Geoffrey Farmer
and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
Aesthetic Worldmaking:
Ecology and the Senses in the
Work of Sarah Anne Johnson and
Penelope Stewart
Barbara Wisnoski
Traces
Hannah Morgan
. 340 .
Globalization, Fear and
Loving the “Other” in the
Works of Deanna Bowen
and June Clark
Adrienne Johnson
***
Fear and domination have been the means toward many ends since the dawn of
human existence. As in centuries past, through images and words, hegemonic
forces today continue to collude tirelessly to maintain the dominance of an
essentialist status quo. Perhaps the most vexing four letter-word of human
history, “race” – a word synonymous with power – persists as a “socially, not
biologically constructed category that has stratified and negatively affected
humans for generations.”1 In intricate combinations, images and words make
real our ‘Axis of Evil’, ‘Welfare Queens’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘visible minorities’
and ‘distinct societies.’ Underscoring these hierarchal and divisive terms are
. 341 .
insecurities and fears rooted in ethnocultural difference; an intriguing point
of exploration in the Canadian context, as this country has predominantly
succeeded in maintaining its ethos as a benevolent and harmonic cultural
mosaic. However, Canada’s cultural undercurrent of polite racism does not
equate an absence of racism, if anything its reveals the depth of the topic’s
repression and denial.
Exploring how racialized peoples’ worlds are affected by racially and sexually
divisive mechanisms and ideologies, the works of Deanna Bowen (b. 1969)
and June Clark (b. 1941) beg the question: “how do we begin to love the other
when we cannot love the ‘Other’ within?”
Deanna Bowen, Production still from The Klan Comes to Town.
Recorded January 5-6, 2013 at Art Gallery of York University, Toronto.
Photo Credit: Michelle Pearson Clarke.
. 342 .
Deanna Bowen, The Klan Comes to Town, 2013.
Reproduction Grand Dragon Calvin Craig Ku Klux Klan Robe, satin, embroidery, variable dimensions.
Photo Credit: Cheryl O’Brien, Courtesy of The Art Gallery of York University.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/invisibleempires.html.
. 343 .
The Klan Comes to Town (2013) is a recreation of a televised interview from the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s television program This Hour Has Seven
Days (1964-1966).2 Twenty-minutes in length, the work re-enacts the interview
between: Calvin Craig, Grand Dragon of the Georgia Realm of the United
Klans of America and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK); fellow Klansman
George Sleigh; Civil Rights activist Reverend James Bevel; and the show’s host,
Robert Hoyt.
This interview occurred amidst a tide of several high profile acts of violence
upon African Americans during the American Civil Rights Movement (195568) in North America, in particular: the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
in Birmingham, Alabama of 1963, in which four black girls between the ages
of eleven and fourteen were murdered by a bomb planted in the church
basement by members of the Ku-Klux-Klan; the assassination of Medgar Wiley
Evers on June 12, 1963, an anti-segregation civil rights activist from Mississippi;
the assassination of Malcolm X (né Malcom Little), a minister, human rights
activist, and prominent spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, on February 21,
1965, as well as the assassination of African American civil rights activist, Martin
Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Bowen’s filmed re-enactment is presented in
concert with installations, including a meticulous replica of the This Hour Has
Seven Days set, and three store mannequins dressed in impeccably reproduced
Klu-Klux-Klan outfits as worn by Klansmen in the 1968 interview.
. 344 .
Deanna Bowen, “1911 Anti Creek-Negro Petition” from Immigration of Negroes from
the United States to Western Canada 1910-1911, 2013.
Inkjet print on archival paper, 21.59 × 27.94 cm. Edition 1/2. Archival Permissions: Library Archives
Canada. Photo credit: Michael Maranda, Courtesy of The Art Gallery of York University.
http://www.deannabowen.ca/works/invisibleempires.html.
Popular images of Canada show few apparent connections to the KKK, much
less associations with racism and intolerance - an impressive feat considering
that Canada’s institutionalization of multiculturalism, a cornerstone of
Canadian identity, occurred in 1982,3 and notably, only a year before Canada’s
last recorded segregated school was closed in Nova Scotia.4 Differentiating
ourselves from our American neighbours is among the compulsive national
pastimes of Canadians in virtually all spheres of life. It importantly facilitates
the moral high ground from which Canada gains and seeks to maintain its
imagined harmonic cultural mosaic. Yet it must never be forgotten that such
a publicly hateful organization, with political power no less, has a historical
legacy in Canada. Digging beneath the rhetoric of Canada’s popular narratives,
. 345 .
Bowen’s installation, 1911 Anti Creek-Negro Petition (2013) is a presentation of
236 letter-size photocopies of signatures from White Amber Valley (Alberta)
residents who petitioned against African American immigration to Canada.
In the United States between 1900 and 1911 there was a combination of poor
agricultural conditions, a depressed economy, and increasing Jim Crow racism
in the United States - the institutionalized oppression of African Americans
from 1875-1965 in affording them access, participation, and equity within all
strata of American society that psychologically and literally reinforced the
superiority of whites over blacks. Dr. David Pilgrim, Director of the Jim Crow
Museum of Racist Memorabilia (Ferris State University, Michigan) describes the
reach of Jim Crow laws on African Americans stating:
Jim Crow segregation was so pervasive that it was omnipresent,
that it was in every aspect of American Society. Every major
societal institution: the family, the government, the media, the
military, higher education; all major American institutions bought
into the idea that whites were superior to blacks in all ways that
mattered. In every day in every aspect of the society, the racial
hierarchy was cemented and manifested.5
This situation led to the immigration of African American farmers from
the American Midwest, notably, Oklahoma, to Canada’s prairie provinces.6
Incentives that made Canada particularly attractive to African American
farmers were announcements of cheap farmland subsidized by an intense
federal campaign to bolster the Canadian population and its agricultural
industry. The glaring problem, however, was that Canada’s vision of who and
. 346 .
what characterized desirable immigrants did not include blacks – American,
Canadian and/or otherwise. This demographic was not welcome, and they
often had to pay higher sums than whites for land, and faced racism. In
this way, the stark serialism in the presentation of the petition signatures
unapologetically calls out the legacy and prevalence and at times, the
anonymity of xenophobia in Canada. In their curated presentation, the
signatures float as aesthetic and legal documents that attest to a rooted culture
of fear of the black subject as conceived physically and psychically in the minds
of white Canadians, as well as the systemic and institutionalized networks of
anti-black racism that perpetually prevent this same group of Canadians from
benefiting and participating in the same societies and in equivalence to their
white counterparts. This further develops the slippery slope of democracy
and the ways in which fear and its twin, hate, are internalised and performed.
Completing the selection of works by Bowen is the piece Interview with
Clayton Ruby (Wednesday, 24 November 2010), part of Bowen’s 2011 exhibition
Deconstruction of a Political Engagement (the Selma Project). Framed as an
“interdisciplinary intervention,”7 the exhibition engages with Bowen’s desire to
unpack what actions of black Canadian activism were taking place in Canada
during the period of the American Civil Rights Movement. Save for example a
text such as Dr. Leo W. Bertley’s, Canada and Its People of African Descent (1977),
popular Canadian discourse, literature, and the historical record, in contrast
to that of the United States, would suggest a black civil rights movement in
Canada never occurred. This obscurity of the literature and oral consciousness
of such a movement is part and parcel of the legacy of erasure of blackness
in Canada that especially excludes black Canadians as significant actors within
Canada’s dominant historical narratives. Equally disturbing is the awareness
. 347 .
and reliance on examples of African American social activism in Canada in
contrast to that of African Canadians.
Bowen’s twenty-four minute audio interview with Clayton Ruby (b. 1942), a
Canadian lawyer specializing in constitution, criminal, and civil rights, and a
member of the Order of Canada, effectively reveals Canadian connections to
the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Through Ruby’s recollections of his participation in protests, audiences are
given a peek into the psychology of white Canadian racial consciousness at
that time. At the time, Ruby was a young man in his twenties attending York
University in 1965, the year Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Selma, Alabama
preparing protests and rallies to ensure the Black right to vote in the American
South. Ruby was invited to work with the Student Union for Peace Action as
they coordinated a sit-in to be held at the United States Consulate in Toronto,
in March 1965, in solidarity with the American-based Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) against the anti-black voting discrimination
in Selma.
Indeed there were several actions in Canada that connected with the Civil
Rights Movement. Viola Davis Desmond was arrested in 1946 for refusing to sit
in the balcony of a Glasgow, Nova Scotia theatre designated for blacks. To put
this into context, Desmond’s act of resistance, which began to receive national
recognition in 2012 with her commemoration on a special edition Canadian
stamp, predates the more celebrated act of resistance by African-American,
Rosa Parks (1913-2005), who notoriously refused to sit at the back of a city bus.
A another example includes “The Dresden Incident” (1954), when two black
. 348 .
Canadians visiting the rural town of Dresden, Ontario – a site of historic social
and cultural value, seen as a beacon of hope to refugee African American slaves
of the Underground Railroad during the nineteenth century, which would also
become immortalised as the site and inspiration behind American author
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)8 – were refused service
in two restaurants. This occurred just a decade after the passing of Ontario’s
Racial Discrimination Act on March 14, 1944. Bringing to the fore complaints
of anti-black discrimination in the town of 2,034 people (12 percent of which
were black),9 upon hearing of this discrimination, the conservative newspaper
Toronto Telegram hired two black “testers”10 to visit establishments in Dresden,
a process which ultimately demonstrated Canadian anti-discrimination laws
to be impotent. This was most reinforced when County Judge Henry Grosh
overturned the convictions and penalties of two of the four tried restaurant
owners who admitted to refusing service to blacks, which simultaneously
undermined the Fair Accommodations Practices act (April 6, 1954) and the
Fair Employment Practices act (1951).11 Also, there was the “Sir George Williams
Affair (or Riot)” which began in spring 1968 at Sir George Williams University,
now a part of Concordia University’s downtown Sir George Williams Campus.
Students organized sit-ins to demonstrate their protests based on a complaint
by six black students against a biology professor alleged to be failing black
students. When the review committee dismissed the allegations of racism, the
plaintiffs and some two hundred other students occupied the Henry F. Hall
Computer Centre for fourteen days. On February 11, 1969 events on this same
campus took a violent turn developing into a full-scale riot. Fires were set in
the barricaded Hall Building, and equipment was hurled out of windows; in
the end, ninety-seven persons, black and white, were arrested, many more
injured, and the accused biology teacher was reinstated.12
. 349 .
June Clark, Formative Triptych Diptych I, 1990.
Series of photo etchings, 61 x 76.5 cm, series of duratrans in lightbox, 48 x 60 cm.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/formative10.htm.
June Clark, Formative Triptych, Diptych II, 1990.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/formative10.html.
. 350 .
June Clark, Formative Triptych: Diptych III, 1990.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/formative11.html.
Continuing this exhibition are two works by Canadian-based artist, June
Clark. The work, Formative Triptych (1990), presents three black and white
photographic transparencies in light boxes, producing the effect akin to
advertisements seen on public bus shelters. Imposing and biographical in
effect, the photographs used in Diptych’s I and II depicting Clark at ages of
seven and nine, were pulled from the artist’s family photo album; the third
however is a photo of American Bessie Smith (1894-1937) who was one of the
most successful blues singers of the 1920s. Beside each image are ponderous
quotations, words passed on to Clark by her sisters and grandmother over
the years. Engaging with memory, oral history, and notions of belonging,
Formative Triptych presents a cautionary tale of the black experience:
. 351 .
perception of one’s self against societal perceptions and expectations of blacks
of the African diaspora and notions of blackness. This phenomenon, “doubleconsciousness,” 13 was most eloquently coined and captured by African
American sociologist and civil rights activist, W.E.B Du Bois. Touching on the
themes of perception and time, of the images Clark says, “the photographs
presented themselves, then the texts came, and it was almost as if that’s why
I made those photographs some 20 years ago.”14
June Clark, Untitled, 1987.
Photo-etching, 25.5 x 33.5 cm.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/untitled01.html.
. 352 .
Clark’s photo-etching Untitled (1987), a grainy black and white photograph
of Clark’s stomach revealing a natural effect of childbearing, provokes a
similar commentary on hegemonic standards, otherness, and perception.
This photograph originates from a studio workshop Clark took in the
1970s with Montreal-born artist and instructor, Arnaud Maggs (1926-2012).
Maggs assigned a project involving repetition that led to Clark taking serial
photographs from the vantage of her navel as well as pictures of people’s
navels. Years later at York University while studying printmaking, during a
Master’s studio art class critique, Clark presented that series including the
portrait of her midsection. The photograph of Clark’s stomach provoked
such a visceral reaction Clark continued to work further with the image of her
midsection, ultimately inscribing her thoughts on motherhood and beauty.
Untitled (1987) can be seen as more than a feminist intervention, and rather
into a pointed confrontation of Eurocentric informed standards that support
whiteness’ superiority – beauty among them. Ceaselessly pathologizing and
positioning blackness as the antithesis of whiteness in life and the imagination,
one wonders if the black body can surpass the barriers of the color line, to
which Bois, aptly yet temporally limitedly noted as being “the problem of the
twentieth century.”15
. 353 .
June Clark, Dirge, 2003-04.
Oxidized metal on canvas, 91.5 x 130.3 cm.
http://www.juneclark.ca/pages/coll125.html.
Closing this exhibition is Clark’s Dirge (2003-04), which is a recreation of the
American flag through rusted pieces of metal and wire mounted on canvas.
The American flag is an image frequently returned to in Clark’s work. Clark’s
workings with the American flag often manifest in response to globalized,
maleficent, and seemingly faceless institutionalized systemic forces that
govern nations, as well as intimate issues of belonging and citizenship, which
was once tested through Clark’s abrupt departure from the United States
in 1968. Commenting on the subject of belonging and her work with the
American flag, Clark states,
With my work I’m always going from the point of view of being
American, I’m sure of it. One of my friends who is also a curator,
has said she would like to do a show of all the American flags; I’ve
. 354 .
done the American flag in so many different ways because, when
I’m angry with America, when I love it… so I think that all of my
work is done from that point of view, of how I see myself in the
world or how I see the country I was born in in the world.16
The works of Bowen and Clark form the basis for an extended discussion
on racial inequality and the anxieties and fears of and toward the black
body and blackness. In a stroke of strategic curatorial innovation, even
though, for instance, two black men are present as cast members in Bowen’s
video reproduction of the This Hour Has Seven Days interview, the artist
overwhelmingly renders the black body piercingly invisible throughout
her installations. The black body remains in the psychic realm, prompting
more than a confrontation with the rootedness of anti-black sentiment
held by non-black Canadians. Importantly, the invisibility of the black body
culminates in an unapologetic exhibition of whiteness’ imaginings and
responses to the black subject. In perfect concert, force, and contrast to
Bowen, Clark makes the black body visible – viewers are confronted by black
bodies and at times black gazes. The histories of Eurocentric hegemonic
projections are inscribed, equally critiquing, exploring, and penetrating the
psychic and physical anxieties as held and performed by non-blacks of the
black body and blackness. Often representing her own image in her work,
the subject is not exclusively (if at all about) Clark herself. Her figuration is
rather a point of entry into thinking of larger systems of representation and
conceptualizations of black persons and blackness, which are inextricably
tied to Canada’s practiced relationships with black and racialized persons,
including Indigenous, Asian, Jewish, and Muslim peoples and their sense
of citizenship and well-being. When African American professor, academic,
. 355 .
activist, and philosopher Cornel West asks, “How does one come to accept
and affirm a body so despised by one’s fellow citizens?”17 West critiques not
only how the black body is contrived in the imagination, and is inextricably
tied to worldly treatments of the physical black body, but he further critiques
if not questions the effectiveness of liberal equity discourses and legislation if
fundamental steps are not implemented to counter institutionalized systemic
racism against blacks of the African diaspora.
Virtual Exhibition:
I conceptualize this virtual exhibition as being immersive and interactive. It
would open with a video showing the Earth’s continental drift over the last
250 million years (i.e. http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/outreach/animations/
anim_pangaea/Resources/anim_pangaea.mov) to draw attention to the
origins of the first humans on the African continent. As the animation reaches
the present-day position of the continents, there will be a zoom-in on Africa,
followed by a fade-in on Canada, before the screen fades black. The curatorial
statement will next appear, followed by the works in the exhibition. Bowen’s
Interview with Clayton Ruby (Toronto, ON, Wednesday, 24 November 2010),
which is audio only, will be prefaced by a brief synopsis, and credit information.
To play the interview, the viewer will click on the title. Upon doing this, all
active buttons will disappear leaving the entire screen black, leaving only a
faintly visible media player whose buttons become clearly visible on mouseover. Each time visitors visit the website the works will be presented in a
different order to mirror the heterogeneity of persons of black heritage and
their experiences, and to also avoid suggesting a singular chronology. Visitors
will have navigation access to zoom, language, grid-view option, social media,
contact, pause/play functions, as well as links to artist’s web pages.
. 356 .
Notes
1 Sylvia D. Hamilton, “Stories from The Little Black School House,”
in Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation Through The Lens of Cultural
Diversity. eds. Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar, and Mike DeGagne
(Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series, 2011), 93.
2 Youtube.com Video: “The Klan Comes to Town” from This Hour Has
Seven Minutes, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Studios, Toronto,
October 24, 1965, accessed February 25, 2014, http://youtu.be/
xHt7SFUEiMw.
3 Marc Leman, “Canadian Multiculturalism,” accessed March 4,
2014, http://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.
htm#CHRONOLOGY.
4 Black History Canada, “End of Segregation in Canada,” accessed
November 22, 2013, http://www.blackhistorycanada.ca/events.
php?themeid=21&id=9; The Little Black School House, directed by
Sylvia Hamilton, (2007) 60:00 min.
5 Emphasis added. Dr. David Pilgrim, “Video Spotlight,” Jim Crow
Museum of Racist Memorabilia, 3:18-4:12, last accessed February 14,
2014, http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/index.htm.
6 Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History, 2nd ed. (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), 300-303; Gregory P.
Marchildon, Immigration and Settlement, 1870-1939: History of the
Prairie West Series, vol. 2 (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre,
2009), 4-6; R. Bruce Shepard, “Plain Racism: The Reaction Against
Black Immigration to the Canadian Plains,” in Immigration and
. 357 .
Settlement, 1870-1939: History of the Prairie West Series, vol. 2 (Regina:
Canadian Plains Research Centre, 2009), 483-87.
7 Deanna Bowen, “Works,” Deconstruction of a Political Engagement
(the Selma Project), accessed December 28, 2013, http://www.
deannabowen.ca/works/DoP.
8 Ontario Heritage Trust, “Hugh Burnett and the National Unity
Association (plaque comemoration document),” accessed February
28, 2013, http://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/CorporateSite/media/oht/
PDFs/Hugh-Burnett-NUA-ENG.pdf; Pat McNealy, “Dresden’s Color
Bar Still Up, Rap Daley Failure to Apply Law,” Toronto Star, Saturday
October 30, 1954, accessed March 1, 2014, http://0-search.proquest.
com.mercury.concordia.ca/docview/1434437645?accountid=10246.
9 Julian Biggs, “On the Spot,” National Film Board of Canada,
Documentary, 30 mins (00:18-00:21, 1954), accessed February 28,
2014, https://www.nfb.ca/film/dresden_story.
10 Black History Canada, “Timeline: 1900-present,” accessed February
28, 2014, http://blackhistorycanada.ca/timeline.php?id=1900.
11 Pat McNealy, “Demand Frost Plug Loophole in Racial Discrimination
Bill,” Toronto Star, Saturday September 17, 1955, accessed March 1,
2014, http://0-search.proquest.com.mercury.concordia.ca/docview/4
33481023?accountid=10246.
12 Black History Canada, “Sir George Riot,” accessed December 28, 2013,
http://www.blackhistorycanada.ca/events.php?themeid=21&id=10;
Tracey Lindeman, “A look back at Montreal’s race-related 1969
Computer Riot,” accessed March 13, 2014.
. 358 .
13 Du Bois’ thoughts on this subject are extensive. He writes, “it is a
peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always
looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s
soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and
pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls,
two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in
one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being
torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history
of this strife - this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to
merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging
he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish
to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world
and Africa. He wouldn’t bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white
Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the
world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a
Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his
fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly
in his face.” W. E. B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover
Publications, 1903), 2-3.
14 Skype interview with June Clark, December 28, 2013, 32:21-33:20.
15 W. E. B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover Publications,
1903), 34. The full sentence reads, “The problem of the Twentieth
Century is the problem of the color-line.” Indeed, written 111 years
from the time of writing this essay, one wonder’s when and how
this barrier will – if ever – be surpassed.
. 359 .
16. Skype interview with June Clark, December 28, 2013, 06:07-07:00.
17 Cornel West, Race Matters (Beacon Press: Boston, 1993), 85.
Bibliography
Biggs, Julian. “On the Spot.” National Film Board of Canada. 30 mins
(00:18-00:21, 1954). Accessed February 28, 2014.
Black History Canada. “End of Segregation in Canada.” Accessed
November 22, 2013. http://www.blackhistorycanada.ca/events.
php?themeid=21&id=9.
____. “Sir George Riot.” Accessed December 28, 2013.
http://www.blackhistorycanada.ca/events.php?themeid=21&id=10.
____. “Timeline: 1900-present.” Accessed February 28, 2014.
http://blackhistorycanada.ca/timeline.php?id=1900.
Bowen, Deanna. “The Klan Comes to Town.” 19:35 min. A portion of
Deanna Bowen’s Invisible Empires. Published February 10, 2013.
http://youtu.be/xHt7SFUEiMwhttp://youtu.be/xHt7SFUEiMw.
Hamilton, Sylvia D. “The Little Black School House.” 60 min. (2007).
____. “Stories from The Little Black School House,” in Cultivating
Canada: Reconciliation Through The Lens of Cultural Diversity. Eds.
Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar, and Mike DeGagne. Ottawa:
Aboriginal Healing Foundation Research Series, 2011.
Leman, Marc. “Canadian Multiculturalism.” Febraury 15, 1999.
Accessed November 20, 2013. http://publications.gc.ca/Collection-R/
LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.htm#CHRONOLOGY.
. 360 .
McNealy, Pat. “Demand Frost Plug Loophole in Racial Discrimination
Bill.” Toronto Star (Saturday September 17, 1955). Accessed March 1,
2014. http://0-search.proquest.com.mercury.concordia.ca/docview/1
433481023?accountid=10246.
____. “Dresden’s Color Bar Still Up, Rap Daley Failure to Apply Law.”
Toronto Star (Saturday October 30, 1954). Accessed March 1, 2014.
http://0-search.proquest.com.mercury.concordia.ca/docview/143443
7645?accountid=10246.
Marchildon, Gregory P. Immigration and Settlement, 1870-1939: History
of the Prairie West Series. Vol. 2. Regina: Canadian Plains Research
Centre, 2009.
Ontario Heritage Trust. “Hugh Burnett and the National Unity
Association (plaque commemoration document).” Accessed
February 28, 2013. http://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/CorporateSite/
media/oht/PDFs/Hugh-Burnett-NUA-ENG.pdf.
Pilgrim, David. “Video Spotlight.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist
Memorabilia video. 22:49 min. Accessed February 14, 2014.
http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/index.htm.
Shepard, R. Bruce. “Plain Racism: The Reaction Against Black
Immigration to the Canadian Plains.” In Immigration and Settlement,
1870-1939: History of the Prairie West Series. Vol. 2, ed. Gregory P.
Marchildon, 483-87. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, 2009.
West, Cornel. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Winks, Robin W. The Blacks In Canada: A History. 2nd ed. Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.
. 361 .
At the Heart of Coalition:
John Greyson and Trevor
Anderson
***
At the Heart of Coalition examines how queer activists have created and
strengthened political coalitions through video technologies and nontheatrical exhibition networks, and have ultimately shaped queer movements
worldwide since the 1980s. The exhibition features two Canadian artists
whose productions have played a crucial role in the formation of transnational
coalitions in the fight against homophobia, discrimination, and social neglect:
John Greyson (b. 1960) and Trevor Anderson (b. 1972).
John Greyson’s and Trevor Anderson’s work follows in the tradition of activist
filmmakers who established film as a central tool for the queer movement,
and made cinema more than a place to get lost in thoughts by projecting
. 362 .
one’s own fantasies on the big screen. Yet, while the cinema had always
been a meeting place for queer individuals, where they could build and
experience a feeling of community by watching and discussing films, Greyson
and Anderson embrace inexpensive and easier-to-handle film technologies,
as well as alternative exhibition spaces outside multiplexes and art-house
cinemas, in order to reach a wider audience and gain political attention with
their films.
This exhibition depicts the impact of alternative films produced and
distributed with the specific intention of encouraging the formation of
political coalitions. The focus is on two specific cultural, historical, and political
moments in which new media technologies altered queer politics. On the
one hand, the exhibition presents how Greyson used video technologies at
the height of the AIDS-crisis in the late 1980s as a means to give people living
with AIDS and AIDS-activists a voice, in order to counter mass-media hysteria
and correct common misinformation about HIV/AIDS, screening them in
varied settings such as activist meetings, shopping malls, and art galleries.
On the other hand, the work of self-taught filmmaker Anderson addresses
the ups and downs of living as an openly gay man in Edmonton, Alberta.
His autobiographically influenced films, oscillating in style between essay,
documentary, and experimental film, can be viewed on his personal website
that connects provincial Canada with the rest of the world by asking stillpersistent questions about homophobia in the 21st century.
. 363 .
John Greyson, The ADS Epidemic, 1987. Video, 4 minutes, screenshots.
The AIDS epidemic gripped Canada in the 1980s. The prejudice of the Catholic
masses, ignorant politicians, doctors’ misinformation, panicky sex-education,
high-school jocks’ jokes, and exploitative press coverage of the AIDS-crisis
infected Canada’s public with an “acquired dread of sex.” Playing with the
then-new genre and visual language of music video, John Greyson’s The ADS
Epidemic is a humoristic plea for the acknowledgement of the fact that sex
can be safe, and even more importantly, that safe sex can be fun. Loosely
based on Thomas Mann’s novella The Death in Venice (1912) about a middleaged professor who is falling for a pre-pubescent boy, Greyson’s take on the
story has a happy ending: whereas the once-liberal Aschenbach perishes
from an attack of ADS, Tadzio manages to fight the epidemic threat, enjoy
safer sex, and confront the plague of bigots populating Canada. With an
original soundtrack by Glenn Schellenberg, The ADS Epidemic, first screened
in a shopping mall, proclaims that sex must not necessarily lead to a “Death
in Venice” and that everybody should fight to free Canada and the rest of the
world from all symptoms associated with the “acquired dread of sex.”
. 364 .
John Greyson, The Pink Pimpernel, 1989. Video, 32 minutes, screenshots.
. 365 .
The place is Toronto, the year, 1989. In the face of thousands of people
dying of AIDS-related illnesses, The Pink Pimpernel is striking terror into the
establishment’s heart. Political immobility, the wildcat medication of people
living with AIDS with the highly toxic drug AZT, the mysterious avenger of the
damned smuggled alternative, and unapproved drugs over the US-Canadian
border, provoked discussions on governmental drug policies, AIDS-activism,
and safer sex. John Greyson’s agitprop remake of Harold Young’s British
adventure film The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) is told on three narrative levels. First,
Greyson portrays a couple composed of two ostensibly different individuals.
Whereas one half of the couple is a passionate AIDS-activist full of admiration
for the Pink Pimpernel’s action, the other half is more interested in the latest
celebrity gossip than counter-political actions. While the story around the
hero unfolds, the film is interrupted by four safer sex commercials, stylistically
inspired by Jean Genet, Andy Warhol, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Norman
McLaren. Moreover, AIDS-activists argue in interviews for better healthcare
policies in Canada and improved international collaboration in the search for
well-tolerated and effective medication. Third, while they are talking about
this political frenzy, scenes from The Pink Panther Show (1969-1979) illustrate
the movement’s agenda in the background, challenging the rich white man
by means of wit, not violence.
. 366 .
John Greyson, The World is Sick, 1989.
Video, 38 minutes, screenshots.
John Greyson’s video The World is Sick (1989) critiques issues surrounding the
5th International AIDS Conference, which was held the same year in Montreal.
Scientists, the pharmaceutical industry, politicans, and sex educators met
in Canada for the first time to discuss global strategies for the fight against
AIDS. Among them was John Greyson, who, equipped with a simple videocamcorder, attended the conference in order to document the hypocritical
event, where people living with AIDS and activists were underrepresented.
Greyson’s aim was to film the demonstrations announced by activists against
the elitist gathering, interview international grassroots AIDS-educators, and
document the opportunistic, econmy-driven agenda of AIDS experts. The
documentation of the events and interviews are framed by the fictional story
of a CBC reporter, who gets kidnapped by AIDS-activists, becomes seduced
by her kindappers’ politics, and joins their ranks in the fight against the global
exploitation of the “AIDS-Epidemic.”
. 367 .
Trevor Anderson, Punchlines, 2009. 5 minutes, screenshots.
http://www.dirtcityfilms.com/films/punchlines.
Born in 1972, Trevor Anderson was nine years old when the New York Times
published the first article about a new, mysterious disease that doctors had
diagnosed in gay men in urban areas, and it was during his pre-adolescent
and teenage years that AIDS-activist groups in the United States and Canada
began producing videos to recruit people for their cause. Anderson’s
Punchlines (2009) offers insights into the life of a gay boy in provincial Canada,
who is bullied for being an “annoying little Gaylord” by his classmates and
whose closest ally is his mother, who tries to teach him how to throw a punch
in the kitchen. Revisiting his adolescence through a montage of movie and
television scenes filmed with his camera from a television set, Anderson
modifies iconic images from classics such as Full Metal Jacket (1987), The Wizard
of Oz (1939), and The Blue Lagoon (1980) to depict how one magic day he found
a way to use his creativity to fight for acceptance.
. 368 .
Trevor Anderson, Rock Pockets, 2007. 6 minutes, screenshots.
http://www.dirtcityfilms.com/films/rock-pockets.
At the age of ten, Trevor Anderson visited a fair in his hometown of Edmonton,
Alberta. Despite the glittering lights of the setting, he was upset by one thing:
seeing couples with their hands in each other’s back pockets walking around
the fair. At this moment, Anderson realized that it would not be that easy for
him to just walk around with a boyfriend with his hand in his partner’s back
pocket. Years later, Anderson dares to call his straight friend – known for his
fondness of tight jeans – to prove a point and walk together at the fair, with
their hands firmly placed on each other’s butt. Walking together, bathing in
the positive and negative attention the other visitors are paying to them,
Anderson’s emotions are diverse. On the one hand, the experience is nothing
like he thought it would be as a ten year-old boy as his friend is straight and
not his partner. On the other hand, he sees in his friend’s willingness to walk
with him, showing young children that same-sex-pocketing is possible, as
. 369 .
the heart of contemporary coalition. With a soundtrack by Anderson’s band
The Vertical Struts, old pictures of Anderson taken from the family album,
and footage shot at the Edmonton fair – only occasionally losing the sight of
Anderson and his friend’s backsides – Rock Pockets is a funny and insightful
view of a ten year-old boy’s ideas of sexual politics.
Trevor Anderson, The Island, 2009. 6 minutes, screenshots.
http://www.dirtcityfilms.com/films/the-island.
A simple idea proposed to Trevor Anderson in a piece of hate mail, sent by an
American “fan” - “Why don’t we put all faggots on an island where they can
give each other AIDS?” - served as the inspiration for this darkly humorous
short film. Fond of the idea of an “ass-munching diaspora” Anderson gets lost
in thought, and his walk through the snow-covered landscape of Alberta turns
into an animated tour of the exotic landscape of the “faggot-island.” There,
HIV-positive men are not outcasts, but form the centre of society, treated like
. 370 .
celebrities instead of sickos. Medication is freely available to everyone, and
even if someone does get terminally sick from an HIV-related illness, he is
worshiped like a god. Yet, as much as Anderson’s vigorous fantasy of faggotisland, brought to life by animator Rat Creek Design, seems inviting, he brings
us back to the ice-cold landscape of Canada, and reminds us how boring an
isolated life full of rum, unprotected sex, and gorilla masseurs would be.
Bibliography
Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. Queer Images: A History of Gay
and Lesbian Film in America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Crimp, Douglas. Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer
Politics. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004.
Gould, Deborah B. Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against
AIDS. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Hallas, Roger. Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer
Moving Image. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.
Longfellow, Brenda, Scott MacKenzie, and Thomas Waugh, eds. The
Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2013.
Phelan, Shane, ed. Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories.
New York: Routledge, 1997.
Waugh, Thomas. Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering
Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2006.
. 371 .
Punk’d: The Works
of BGL and Kay Burns
***
Trickster [trik-ster] noun: 1. A deceiver; cheat; fraud. 2. A person
who plays tricks. 3. A supernatural figure appearing in various
guises and typically engaging in mischievous activities, important
in the folklore and mythology of many primitive peoples and
usually conceived as a culture hero.1
A mythical character present in almost every culture, the figure of the
trickster is truly an essential, yet often overlooked, globally relevant archetype.
Represented either as a god, spirit, animal, or man, in the view of Carl Gustav
Jung, this archetype is the universal symbol of a chaotic deity, both good
and bad, acting as mediator between Man and God.2 Part of the collective
unconscious, the concept of the trickster was used by Jung to develop his
notion of the inner child in a text written in collaboration with Paul Radin
and Karl Kerényi, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. According
to cultural critic Lewis Hyde, the trickster is an ambiguous, ambivalent,
. 372 .
contradictory, and paradoxical figure who breaks the rules of the gods, to raise
awareness and challenge an oppressive system from within.3 Polymorphous,
a trickster may be of diverse background, and is never truly an individual. The
trickster is a catalyst and equalizer. It cleanses stagnant societies with dupery
and deceit. Artists have taken on this role many times. A few of the more
eloquent examples of this are the Quebec-based collective BGL, composed of
Jasmin Bilodeau (b. 1973), Sébastien Giguère (b. 1972) and Nicolas Laverdière
(b. 1972), and Newfoundland-based artist Kay Burns. Both BGL and Burns
challenge the authority of spaces of knowledge such as the museum and
institutions of higher education. The work in this exhibition uses irony as a
rhetorical trope. These artworks challenge the viewer, as they require both
an understanding of the original meaning behind the work, and the artists’
attitude towards it.4 Here, the artists play with the viewer and with perceptual
codes, revealing their ease with irony - always at the institution’s expense.5 To
complicate this further, their works present a singular relation to materiality, or
lack thereof. Indeed, BGL’s performative installation and Burns’s performance
eschew the transient nature of many art objects; both works are ephemeral
and immaterial, except for documentation in the form of photographs and
videos. The pieces thus involve elaborate and multi-levelled tricks played on
the institution, the viewer, and the art historical canon. True modern tricksters,
these artists hijack authoritative spaces of knowledge and culture to reveal
the inherent absurdity of these sites, and the blind faith we have in them. As
such, BGL and Burns make it their mission to question the authoritative and
dominant voice.
. 373 .
BGL, Artistique Feeling II, 2008.
Canadian 20 dollar bills, currency counter, aerial platform lift.
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNmnbjRZ7mc & http://www.akimbo.ca/akimblog/?id=246.
. 374 .
In 2008 BGL produced Artistique Feeling II, a minimal, yet high impact
performative installation. The installation consists of an aerial platform lift with
a currency counter on top that spits Canadian twenty-dollar bills at regular
intervals. It was the trio’s initial intention that these bills would rain down on
visitors. This work was created in response to an invitation from the National
Gallery of Canada for the artists to participate in the exhibition “Caught in
the Act: The Viewer as Performer.” Following a global wave of interactive and
relational museum exhibitions, “Caught in the Act” highlighted the artistic
endeavour of transforming the passive viewer into active participant in the
artwork. Surprisingly, BGL’s Artistique Feeling II did not allow for such active
participation. As we can see in the photograph and video, the National
Gallery set up a perimeter of stanchions around the aerial platform lift to
dissuade visitors from taking a twenty-dollar bill with them. A security guard
was also assigned the surveillance of any stray bills that would have flown
past the barrier. Here, the artists’s intent is in opposition to the museum’s
conservation mandate and its desire to protect the art object. The playful and
highly humorous installation is in fact severely critical of the museum and its
presumed role as a site of undeniable knowledge and truth. The installation,
with its unglamorous aerial platform lift, parodies the staid qualities of the
National Gallery’s architecture and its proximity to the Canadian Parliament.
This is perhaps a direct comment on both institutions’ domineering role
and attitude towards artists. It remains a mystery whether BGL truly believed
the museum would let the visitors take the money or not. Nevertheless, the
absurd attitude embedded in Artistique Feeling II makes it one of the best tricks
on a museum ever attempted.
. 375 .
Kay Burns, I. Taylor Research presents… A View from the Edge, 2003 – present.
Six performance lectures presented to date, each one adapted for the location.
http://www.kayburns.ca/Performance.html.
. 376 .
Iris Taylor is the performance persona used by artist Burns since 2003. Through
tours, talks, conferences, and lectures Burns has presented Taylor as an
independent historian, researcher, ethnographer, and proud representative of
the Flat Earth Society. The Flat Earth Society’s aim is threefold.
1. To restore humanity’s faith in Common Sense.
Seeing is believing. For hundreds of years humankind has been blinded by metaphysics, brainwashed
by popular fallacies and bullied into denying the
evidence of one’s own sense. The Flat Earth Society
stands for a renewed faith in the basic truth of sense
experience. 2. To combat the fallacious deification
of the sphere which, ever since the sly deception
of Pythagoras, has warped western thought. 3. To
spearhead humankind’s escape from his/her metaphysical and geometrical prison by asserting that
science, like philosophy and religion, is ultimately
metaphorical and therefore that reality as we verbalize it is ultimately metaphorical, and therefore that
reality as we verbalize it is essentially mystical and
poetical.6
Through Iris Taylor, Burns appropriates the syntax and behaviour of academia
for her nonsensical research. This satire of research, academia, and higher
education in general criticizes methods of handling and disseminating
information. In her performance lecture I. Taylor Research presents…A View from
the Edge, which she has performed six times with each performance adapted
. 377 .
to its location (Belfast, Dawson City, Ottawa, and so on), she questions historical
and scientific truth, and studies traditional presentation technologies. During
her presentation, she initiates herself into the Flat Earth Society by crushing a
globe by jumping on it. She also recruits two new Flat Earth members from
the audience. Her performance highlights the gap between scientific and
proven knowledge (the fact that earth is round) versus lived experience (the
feeling that earth is flat). Her objective is to give the voice of the individual
and her or his mundane experiences the same importance as the voice of
researchers who attempt to order existence with facts.
In this exhibition, the dominant voices of museums and institutions of higher
education are questioned and mocked by the trickster-artists BGL and Burns.
These artists use tactics of irony and humor as means to highlight the false
power said institutions hold. When watching videos of these performances,
viewers are invited to reconsider their preconceived views about museums
and academia, and to consider their personal experiences as being just
valuable as institutional discourses.
Virtual Exhibition
The design of this online exhibition will echo the playful humour of the
artworks. Artistique Feeling II and I. Taylor Research presents… A View from the
Edge play tricks on the viewer and the institution, and my design will be in
keeping with these strategies. The website will open with a “404 Error” page,
which appears when a web page does not exist.7 The letters will slowly change
to the title of the exhibition, Punk’d, which the user can click to enter the
. 378 .
exhibition. The visitor will next be greeted by the curatorial rationale, followed
by links to the works placed at the bottom of the text. A composite Google
Street View image will open, placing the viewer in the middle of a street, with
a University on the right hand side, and a Museum on the left hand side. The
buildings will be non-descript composites of many museums and universities,
as to not target any institution. When the visitor mouses-over, the name of
the artists will appear: BGL on the Museum, and Burns on the University. For
each work, when the visitor clicks on the building, they will be brought to the
video of the performance playing in full screen. At the bottom of the page
are five tabs: biography of the artist, resume, an interview about the specific
piece and the concept of artist as trickster, and the label for the work – which
will automatically open once the video is done. For BGL’s Artistique Feeling II, I
would like to have images of twenty-dollar bills falling down on the web page,
as well as a pop-up survey that asks the visitor a hypothetical question: if they
were the curator responsible for this exhibition, would they let visitors take
the twenty-dollar bills or not, and why? As for Burns’ page, a pop up window
would advertise Iris Taylor’s next conferences and lectures, as her project is still
ongoing. When clicking on the tabs, a blurred still of the video will be used
as background upon which the different texts will appear. A “play” button will
stay at the bottom of the screen, allowing the visitor to play the video as many
times as she or he wants.
. 379 .
Notes
1 “Trickster,” Dictionary.com, accessed December 8, 2013,
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trickster?s=t.
2 Carl Gustav Jung used the concept of the trickster to develop his
notion of the inner child. According to Jung in a text written in
collaboration with Paul Radin and Karl Kerényi, The Trickster: A Study
in American Indian Mythology, the inner child, or trickster, is part of
our collective unconscious.
3 Lewis Hyde, “Introduction,” in Trickster Makes This World: Mischief,
Myth and Art (New York: North Point Press, 1998), 7.
4 Linda Hutcheon, Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony
(London: Routledge, 1994), 5.
5 Nathalie Heinich, Le Triple Jeu de l’Art Contemporain: Sociologie des
Arts Plastiques (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1998), 187.
6 Kay Burns, “Aims of the Flat Earth Society,” ITaylorResearch.com,
accessed December 6 2013, http://www.itaylorresearch.com/fes_
info.html.
7 The first 4 indicates the error in the request, here a wrong URL, and
the last 4, the problem caused by this error, a resource not found.
. 380 .
Bibliography
Halkes, Petra. “Caught in the Act: The Viewer as Performer.”
Border Crossings 109 (March 2009). Accessed February 13, 2013,
http://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/caught-in-the-actthe-viewer-as-performer.
Heinich, Nathalie. Le Triple Jeu de l’Art Contemporain: Sociologie
des Arts Plastiques. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1998.
Hutcheon, Linda. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony.
London: Routledge, 1994.
Hyde, Lewis. “Introduction.” In Trickster Makes This World:
Mischief, Myth and Art, 3-17. New York: North Point Press, 1998.
Paul Radin, Karl Kerényi, and Carl Gustav Jung. The Trickster:
A Study in American Indian Mythology. New York: Schocken
Books, 1972.
. 381 .
Theatre and Objecthood:
The Anarchistic
Interventions
of Geoffrey Farmer
and Luis Jacob
Jessica Kirsh
***
interviewer “How do artists classify materials that resist classification?”
g eof frey farmer “The artist classifies the anarchism as art.”1
Geoffrey Farmer (b. 1967, Vancouver) and Luis Jacob (b. 1970, Lima, Peru)
display a mode of art making that suggests the influence of anarchist philosophies. Their complex collages, installations, and performances generate
a theatricalization and animation of objecthood, serving to re-contextualize
. 382 .
histories and cultures in order to break down preconceived hierarchies, and to
bridge the gap between self and other. United by anarchist politics of refusal,
negation, zero-ness, and silence, they are prime examples of contemporary
artists who perpetuate action: their focus on community is motivated by the
micro-political, giving a voice to those individuals who exist outside of dominant social, political, and cultural systems.
Nineteenth-century anarchist philosophy was influential to some of the
most progressive artists of recent time - Gustave Courbet, Pablo Picasso, and
Marcel Duchamp for example. The principle theorists devoted to this ideology
introduced some revolutionary ways of thinking: Max Stirner advocated the
glorification of the working class; Mikhail Bakunin encouraged creativity
through destruction; and Peter Kropotkin promoted organic systems of
mutual aid. Riddled with tribulations and yet fundamentally utopic in nature,
the concepts of anarchism are important to the practice of contemporary
art as showcased in this exhibition Theatre and Objecthood. The works by
Farmer and Jacob echo an intrinsically anarchist mantra, modeled after the
theories of the writers just mentioned, which insists that artworks do not
perpetuate but rebel against an age or civilization.
. 383 .
Geoffrey Farmer, The Last Two Million Years, 2007. Foamcore plinths, perspex frames, and cutouts
from selected pages of the history-book The Last Two Million Years. Dimensions variable.
http://catrionajeffries.com/artists/geoffrey-farmer/works/.
Geoffrey Farmer, The Last Two Million Years, 2007. Foamcore plinths, perspex frames, and cutouts
from selected pages of the history-book The Last Two Million Years. Dimensions variable.
. 384 .
A Vancouver-based artist, Farmer is fluent in almost all types of media - from
photography to collage, installation to video. Regardless of his means of
execution, the artist creates a revolutionary theatre of history to communicate
his disappointment with contemporary society, especially regarding gender
stereotypes and issues of globalization.2 His often site-specific, multi-layer
stages project a spotlight on an incongruous mob of actors, thus destroying
preconceived hierarchies and pre-established orders in favour of new types
of historical meaning. His montages ignite issues of status, equality, cultural
diversity, and audience participation.
To create the installation The Last Two Million Years (2007), Farmer cut out
the figures and objects illustrated in a volume published by Reader’s Digest,
which included images of Picasso, World War Two soldiers, Martin Luther
King Jr., Friedrich Nietzsche, Brooke Shields, and Mahatma Gandhi. Farmer
assembled these incised images in an incongruous, yet sensual mise-enscène.3 In this work, Farmer demonstrates the processes of fragmenting
and ordering as ways of creating a harmonious assemblage of new and
unexpected visual associations.4 Thus, he obfuscates significant collective
memories, and also disrupts corresponding societal structures. By abolishing
the cultural repositories of various countries, he offers new ways of building
history and economy. In an intrinsically anarchist spirit, Farmer ridicules preexisting structures of understanding - such as the agency of museological
conventions. The Last Two Million Years throws into question the meaning
of objects in favour of a new configuration. The artist is suggesting
that value is not attributed to objects and images through memory or
archiving, but instead through a process of association and re-appropriation.
. 385 .
This chaotic archive – a disorderly and disrupted crowd of images that fluctuate
between truth and fiction – represents a new portrait of humanity.5
Geoffrey Farmer, The Surgeon and The Photographer, 2009-2013.
Paper, textile, wood and metal. Dimensions variable. Installation view.
Geoffrey Farmer, The Surgeon and The Photographer, 2009-2013.
Paper, textile, wood and metal. Dimensions variable. Installation view.
. 386 .
Farmer’s installation The Surgeon and the Photographer (2009-2013) has been
described as the gathering “365 of the most disturbing glove puppets […]
in a scene of riotous excess.”6 This work seems to be motivated by a nihilistic,
Dadaist spirit, as evident in the artist’s re-appropriation of photomontage,
which he employs to criticize the violent nature of the world today. The
puppets, which are collaged out of images from pop culture and art history,
are static and have no human puppeteer, but nonetheless have an air of vitality.
The artist has combined source material that stretches across time and space:
what appears to be a farmer, a dancer, a priest, a bumpkin, or a warrior may be
holding an incongruous object such as a Blackberry, an owl, a pack of Lucky
Strike cigarettes, and/or a Grecian urn.7 These three-dimensional characters,
which are grouped in a lawless fashion, have been gathered together in a
political assembly. Some figures hold protest signs that read: “I’m hungry
please help,” “Gay is good, gay is proud, gay liberation,” and “Prochoice kills
babies.” These puppets personify the mutual condition of humanity, wherein
each puppet seems to have bodily desire and individual emotion. Farmer pays
particular attention to workers and the proletariat class, whose labour and
work ethic was much explored by Stirner. However, Farmer replaces realism
with the language of dreams to represent the inscrutable nature of the
physical world.8 His work, which has been described as “anti-social monkey
play,”9 and quietly, yet violently discourages any notion of linearity, causality,
or continuity in socio-cultural history. Farmer’s installations are modeled on
the Wagnerian concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, which
proposed a synthesis of the arts. According to this concept, the performance
spills out into the audience and invites the spectator to join in, inducing a
desire for change. Following a similar method, Farmer’s work is a call to action,
both at an individual and collective level.
. 387 .
Luis Jacob, Anarchist Sandwich Party: Bloor/Danforth Subway, 2004.
Ballpoint pen on paper, suite of five, 44 x 50 in. Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario.
http://www.birchlibralato.com/artists/?work=712,
Luis Jacob, Anarchist Free School Minutes, 1999.
Typewritten paper, each framed work 10 x 8 ½ in.
. 388 .
Jacob, like Farmer, is a conceptual inter-media artist interested in the semantics
of existence, the subjectivity of aesthetic experience, and social interaction.10
He subverts conventions of viewing and understanding, and favours more
active participation in the creation of knowledge. His works address feelings
of dislocation, otherness, and strangeness.11 Jacob has developed strong
anarchistic sensibilities since the late 1990s by creating performances that
encourage public communication, political thought, and social harmony.
In 1999, he co-founded the Anarchist Free School with Alan Antliff, an anarchist
activist, art critic, and author; this project acted as a Toronto DIY educational
resource that taught theories of active resistance.12 The group held meetings
in which they expressed ideas and made collective, consensual agreements,
which were then recorded and displayed in the work titled Anarchist Free
School Minutes. The installation includes a reading area, allowing viewers the
opportunity to educate themselves on the subject of anarchism by reading
through the collaborative notes and research. On another occasion, in 2003,
Jacob enacted the project Anarchist Sandwich Party, where each participant
brought an ingredient onto the subway and contributed to the assembling of
sandwiches as they rode the subway.13 At the end of the line they shared their
food with other passengers, igniting a ritual that called for public involvement.
Scenes from this event were recorded through a series of ballpoint pen
drawings - a more sensual process than photographic documentation, which
is a more typical mode for recording performative works. Common to both
of these activities is Jacob’s investigation of law as the perpetuation of a social
order based on the fixed binary between the powerful and the powerless.14
He opens up the notion of mutual aid, as theorized by anarchist thinker Peter
Kropotkin and his idea of “the universal law of organic evolution.”15
. 389 .
Luis Jacob, Albums, 2000-onwards.
Mixed media collage. Installation view. Dimensions variable.
http://www.birchlibralato.com/artists/?artist=16.
Luis Jacob, Albums, 2000-onwards.
Mixed media collage. Dimensions variable.
http://www.birchlibralato.com/artists/?artist=16.
. 390 .
In the series titled Albums (2000-ongoing) Jacob creates laminated collages
from images cut from magazines and books, which he calls “image banks.”16
This series concentrates on object theory and the concept of thingness,
and because of this the framing of the work is very important. The aesthetic
potential of the image and the act of looking on the part of the viewer become
central to the object’s performativity. Similar to Farmer’s installations, Jacob’s
work plays with pre-existing cultural elements to create new meaning, or as
he calls it “visual rhyming.”17 The value of these artifacts lies in their potential
for personal and collective memory. How does their significance differ when
placed in a new archive, or a new context? What the artist is especially
interested in is the traces, or contexts, of these images - whether yellowing
from time or newly printed on glossy paper. These material factors allow us
to investigate the ways in which these objects carry meaning from different
worlds - since they are not freely floating through time and space. Instead
they break down boundaries between theatre and reality, meaning-makers
and meaning-markers. We are encouraged to analyze these objects rather
than revere them; Jacob puts them to use to enable freedom.
The type of anarchism that Farmer and Jacob harness does not have a caustic,
violent character often associated with the political ideology of anarchism.
Rather, their works belong to the tradition of rebellion against hegemonic
capitalist projects that encourage hierarchical structures, and hence, inequality.
Farmer’s gallery installations and Jacob’s public performances attempt to
energize the spectator in the pursuit of social justice and the achievement of
universal human rights. These artists encourage the viewer not only to express
his or her own subjectivity, but also to experience through others, individually
and collective engaging with anarchistic attitudes and ideas.
. 391 .
Notes
1 Lee Henderson, “Quasi Models: Thising and Thating in the World of
Geoffrey Farmer,” Border Crossings 27, no. 2 (2008): 62.
2 Colin Glen, “Geoffrey Farmer: The Last Two Million Years,” Art Monthly
312 (2007/8): 29.
3 Rachelle Sawatsky, “Geoffrey Farmer: Vancouver,” Art Papers 34, no. 3
(2010): 44.
4 Henderson, 62.
5 Kim Dhillon, “Geoffrey Farmer,” Frieze Magazine 112 (2008), accessed
February 8, 2014, http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/geoffrey_
farmer/.
6 Marcus Field, “The Puppet Parade,” Crafts 242 (2013): 33.
7 Laura Cumming, “Geoffrey Farmer: The Surgeon and the
Photographer,” The Guardian (7 April (2013), accessed February 8th
2014: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/apr/07/
geoffrey-farmer-marcel-dzama-review.
8 Field, 34.
9 Henderson, 62.
10 Timothee Chaillou, “Interview with Luis Jacob,” ETC. 94 (2011): 33.
11 Alan Antliff, “Anarchy at Documenta,” C Magazine 95 (2007): 14.
12Ibid.
13Ibid.
14 Antliff, 16.
. 392 .
15 Ibid, 18.
16 Chaillou, 33.
17Ibid.
Bibliography
Antliff, Alan. “Anarchy at Documenta.” C Magazine 95 (2007): 14-19.
Balzer, David. “Question of Framing.” Canadian Art 28, no. 2 (2011):
80-83.
Chaillou, Timothee. “Interview with Luis Jacob.” ETC. 94 (2011): 33-40.
Cumming Laura. “Geoffrey Farmer: The Surgeon and the
Photographer.” The Guardian (7 April 2013). Accessed February 8,
2014, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/apr/07/
geoffrey-farmer-marcel-dzama-review.
Dhillon, Kim. “Geoffrey Farmer.” Frieze Magazine 112 (2008). Accessed
February 8, 2014, http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/geoffrey_
farmer/.
Field, Marcus. “The Puppet Parade.” Crafts 242 (2013): 33.
Glen, Colin. “Geoffrey Farmer: The Last Two Million Years.” Art Monthly
312 (2007/8): 29-30.
Henderson, Lee. “Quasi Models: Thising and Thating in the World of
Geoffrey Farmer.” Border Crossings 27, no. 2 (2008): 62-68.
Hickey, Andria. “Luis Jacob: Without Persons.” Art In General. Posted
in 2010. Accessed February 8, 2014. http://www.artingeneral.org/
exhibitions/501.
. 393 .
Pontbriand, Chantal. “Idea of community.” Parachute: Contemporary
Art Magazine 101 (2001): 6-10.
Sawatsky, Rachelle. “Geoffrey Farmer: Vancouver.” Art Papers 34, no. 3
(2010): 44-45.
. 394 .
Aesthetic Worldmaking:
Ecology and the Senses
in the Work of Sarah Anne
Johnson and
Penelope Stewart
Barbar a Wisnoski
***
It is ironic that as globalism and globalization take hold across discourses of
the arts and humanities, our awareness of the concrete subject at hand – the
earth – is often undermined. The term “earth”, which refers to the celestial
body known as Earth, also means dirt - the “ecstatic skin of the earth,”1 as it is
so expressively described by arborist William Bryant Logan. This tremendous
gift houses the myriad flora and fauna upon which we and all other creatures
depend.
. 395 .
A range of art practices at the beginning of the twenty-first century have
been fuelled by the quest for a balance between human and natural systems
– an endeavour that is increasingly at odds. From poetic gestures that speak
in visual metaphors, to grassroots activism that advocates for practical
intervention in social contexts, artistic voices have sustained an argument for
a responsible rather than exploitative engagement with the physical world.
An implicit question persists: in this chaotic era of political uncertainty and
environmental crisis, what is the value of an aesthetic act or an aesthetic
object? Where can our efforts be most effective on the art-life continuum?
These questions themselves reveal a bias that suggests the barometer of value
depends on utility or political results - not on what the artwork says, but on
what it does. In the field of contemporary art there is growing tacit approval
for politically engaged relational practices that instrumentalize community
life over more traditional aesthetic practices that create “mere” beauty or
spectacle. Are these the only two choices?
In The Politics of Aesthetics the French philosopher Jacques Rancière dispels
the false dichotomy between art and politics, reminding the reader that to
declare art politically engaged is to make a category mistake. As he states:
“An artist can be committed, but what does it mean to say that his art is
committed? Commitment is not a category of art. This does not mean that
art is apolitical. It means that aesthetics has its own politics, or its own metapolitics.”2 By this, Rancière does not mean that aesthetics and politics do not
mix, or that they are conflated as one. Rather, his concern is “to point out the
aesthetic dimension of the political experience”3 to argue for a redefinition of
the aesthetic as inherent in politics.4 He writes, “‘aesthetic’ […] is not a matter
. 396 .
of art and taste; it is, first of all, a matter of time and space, […] as forms of
configuration of our ‘place’ in society.”5 The meta-politics of aesthetics “views
‘political’ matters as appearances covering the real mechanisms of social life
and the true forms of community; it proposes therefore to shift from the stage
of appearances [...] to the ‘true’ stage where the forms of collective life are
produced and can be transformed.”6
The artworks by Sarah Anne Johnson (b. 1976, Winnipeg, Manitoba) and
Penelope Stewart (born in Montreal, Quebec) in this exhibition deal with the
raw stuff of life. Johnson documents the extreme bodily pains and pleasures
of tree-planters who live in the remote bush. Stewart moulds kilogram upon
kilogram of the miraculous stuff of regurgitated bee vomit otherwise known
as beeswax. Through installation and photographic representation, the artists
create spaces that hinge on their capacity to evoke in the viewer visceral
sensations and layers of affect.
How do the human senses relate to politics? By “distribution of the sensible,”
the subtitle of his book, Rancière refers to “the sensible delimitation of what is
common to the community, the forms of its visibility and of its organization.”7 In
other words, he is describing the very conceptual framework that determines
what we perceive and thus how we act. Through their aesthetic work, Johnson
and Stewart engage the sensory realm, either literally or metaphorically.
Johnson presents the kinaesthetic wisdom of the body that endures the
discomforts of extreme labour for the rewards of community and spiritual
gratification. Stewart creates a sensorially charged space where touch and
smell evoke longing and wonder at the mysterious world of bees.
. 397 .
Through their artistic messages, the artists remind us of the connection
between the senses and politics, inviting the possibility of political change.
In concert with Rancière’s concept of aesthetics, a recently emerging field
of scholarship known as the anthropology of the senses examines how
sensory experience shapes people’s understanding of and interaction with
the world. In his book Empire of the Senses, David Howes describes research
that investigates how our body learns and knows, and proposes that the
experience of bodily feeling is central to human consciousness, turning the
Cartesian syllogism “I think; therefore, I am” into “I feel; therefore, I am.”8 This
certainly may seem true on an intuitive level; that is, it may feel true. In the
case of Johnson’s and Stewart’s art practices, the sensory world actively links
percept and concept - for both the subjects of the artworks and, by extension,
for their viewers.
Sarah Anne Johnson, Untitled, orange duct tape, 2003-2004.
Chromogenic print from the Tree Planting Project series, dimensions variable.
http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=674&Body=Tree%20
Planting%20Project.
. 398 .
We begin with images from Johnson’s first major body of work, the Tree
Planting Project (2002 -2005). These photographs document her experience
working in tree planting camps in northern Canada. Known by adventurous
young adults as being brutally strenuous but relatively lucrative seasonal piece
work, tree planting entails months spent in temporary work camps set up by
reforestation companies in remote, deforested areas. In spite of, or because
of, the extreme working and living conditions, the mystique of treeplanting
and sense of community it engenders is described by Johnson as “the closest
thing I’ve found to Utopia.”9
In Untitled, orange duct tape (2003-2004), the camera focuses on the battered
hands of a young man seated on a wooden crate or wagon. His arms and
bare hand are caked with dirt, as are his trousers. Below his knees we see what
appear to be makeshift boots or socks, providing the man’s vulnerable ankles
with extra protection from voracious mosquitoes. The image contains a range
of colouring from cool to warm that directs the viewer’s gaze. The subject sits
on a wooden ledge of white and light grey; the surrounding forest and his
clothes, which predominate the picture field, are green. This sets up a path for
the viewer to focus on the pinnacle of this image: the figure’s wounded fingers
bandaged with bright orange duct tape. That miraculous improvisational
tool used everywhere to fix a myriad of temporary calamities, duct tape is a
staple in tree planting camps where supplies are limited and resourcefulness
is critical. Hands are everything in this job, where the gruelling, repetitive task
of thrusting tree seedlings into the ground quickly and efficiently subjects
fingers to constant abrasion and irritation by rough, often chemically treated,
saplings. In this image, Johnson connects the terrestrial body to the mysterious,
celestial magic act that repairs a damaged forest.
. 399 .
Sarah Anne Johnson, Duct Tape Boots and Skirts, 2003-2004.
Planting%20Project.
. 400 .
In the foreground of the photograph Duct Tape Boots and Skirts, silver duct
tape holds together the beat-up boots of two young women, offering more
evidence of hard work and practical ingenuity. However, above their mudspattered pants and leggings, in delicate pink, we see the hems of improvised
formal wear – odd bits of fabric, perhaps a curtain, a plastic bag, a nightgown
– gathered and perhaps held together at the waist with duct tape. Worn in a
playful, irreverent tone with a nod to the fashion, pastimes, and concerns left
behind in the city, this image speaks eloquently of the intimate camaraderie
and freedom enjoyed in this gritty paradise.
Sarah Anne Johnson, Jess, 2003-2004.
Planting%20Project.
. 401 .
In this portrait, Jess (2003-2004), a woman gazes directly and wearily at the
camera after a long day of hard labour. A serene, resolute expression on
her face hints at the beginnings of a satisfied grin. Her hair, face, and jacket
are caked in mud - and she does not seem to care. Tree planting camps are
isolated places with few mirrors, and so urban grooming habits quickly lose
their urgency and appeal. A scruffy, uniform look takes over in which strength
of character and individual personalities start to shine.
Sarah Anne Johnson, Kate, 2003-2004.
Planting%20Project.
Some of the images in this Tree Planting Project series include figures Johnson
has crafted from moulding clay that recreate scenes from her memories of
tree planting. Kate (2003-2004) depicts a woman lying outside on the forest
floor on a moonlit night. To all appearances, she is bathed and wearing a fresh
. 402 .
change of clothes; she seems relaxed and comfortable on the bare ground
as she holds a small twig. Is she lost in reverie or can she, in this moment, as
in William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, “see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a
Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity
in an hour?” Her simple, unscripted encounter with nature reveals the effect of
sustained outdoor, physical labour - a sensory education that builds a strong
relationship with the natural environment.
Sarah Anne Johnson, Tree Planting, 2003-2004.
Planting%20Project.
. 403 .
In the photo Tree Planting, Johnson has created a miniature tableau in which
workers replenish with seedlings the shockingly barren landscape of a clearcut forest. In an effective combination of reality and artifice, the figures,
shaped from modelling material, are placed in a landscape setting created
from actual dirt and twigs. The image conveys arduous kinaesthetic activity
in which workers engage in an active relationship with nature unimaginable
for a city-dweller who experiences nature primarily through images. Body
and earth are connected through physical labour in the virtuous ecological
act shown in this photograph. As philosopher, mystic, and political activist
Simone Weil states, “‘He who is aching in every limb, worn out by the effort of
a day of work, that is to say a day when he has been subject to matter, bears
in his flesh the reality and beauty of the universe.”10
With this series Johnson advocates – without proselytizing – for an engaged
relationship with the environment. She states, “I used to think that art could
start revolutions. I wanted to believe that so badly,” but she came to have a
more seasoned view about art’s relationship to polemic. Art does not start
revolutions. Rather, she believes it “can be part of our evolution, which is way
more powerful and important. Revolutions come and go – evolutions are
forever.”11
. 404 .
Penelope Stewart, Daphne, 2013.
Beeswax tile installation, 3000 4 x 4 in. square relief tiles and three-dimensional objects. 432 x 120 in.
Santa Barbara, Pavilion Gallery, Ganna Walska Lotusland.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/daphne/.
Stewart creates sensory architecture that immerses visitors in a haptic experience. This portion of the exhibition includes photographs taken in the artist’s
studio, as well as photo documentation of Daphne, an installation Stewart
created as artist-in-residence at a sprawling desert garden estate in southern
California. Although Stewart’s poetic intentions are clearly evident in her wax
installations, it is through a recognition of the relationship of the senses to
politics that we can understand how this artwork functions to create ecological consciousness.
. 405 .
Stewart’s installations activate the senses through the intoxicating power of
beeswax. As Stewart describes the material, “Your whole body feels it. The
air is close and it feels suffocating, but there’s a duality to the experience, of
being repelled and compelled by the smell. People would put their hand
to their chest and say ‘oh, I can hardly breathe’, but then would come back
to it. There’s a sense of being drawn in.”12 Through this work, it is clear that
the sense of smell can spark our deepest emotions, which in turn generate
thought, discussion, and even action.
Penelope Stewart, studio image showing the artist sculpting the petals of a succulent plant,
which is the first step in the creation of rubber molds for Daphne,
Stewart’s wax tile installation at Lotusland.
http://penelopestewart.ca/blog/excess-repetition-accumulation-transformation/.
. 406 .
Stewart started using wax as a material while working on moulds for a project
in a foundry. As she discovered, in this process the wax melts, disappears, and
a small world remains - but it was the wax itself that Stewart loved. After each
exhibition, she recycles the wax from the project, and reuses it for her next
installation. She explains, “It’s about the transformation of it, when I melt it
down again – it could be this today and something else tomorrow.”13 Stewart’s
overall design for Daphne (2013) was inspired by the lush, exuberant plantings
at the estate where her residency was housed. This piece exudes the themes
of excess, repetition, accumulation and transformation that she found there.
Her working process echoes the natural cycles of growth and renewal. As a
maker, Stewart acknowledges that an awareness of her raw material is never
far from her mind. Describing a day of work at Lotusland, Stewart remarks on
her constant connection to the materiality of beeswax: “The day I melted the
lovely brown wax I soon had at least 40 bees visit.” 14 As viewers, our senses
are a conduit to the reality of the bees’ environment that informs her work.
. 407 .
Penelope Stewart, Parois, 2007.
Beeswax tiles (approximately 4000), room size 120 x 120 x 120 in.
Permanent installation at Musée Barthète, Boussan, France.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/parois/.
Along with their olfactory impact, Stewart’s dazzling installations compel
visitors to touch – an impulse that she actively encourages, and which is
forbidden in most museum or gallery settings. What do we learn from our
bodily experience of the work that we would not know if we only looked?
What do we miss when we view it once removed, in a photographic image?
The glowing warmth of the material, here illuminated at night in Parois (2007),
draws the audience to touch the piece. Its engaging plastic quality almost
defies us to scratch, press, and pinch, and join in the making of the elaborately
worked surface.
. 408 .
Penelope Stewart, Daphne, 2013.
Beeswax tile installation, 3000 4 x 4 in. square relief tiles and three-dimensional objects.
432 x 120 in. Santa Barbara, Pavilion Gallery, Ganna Walska Lotusland.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/daphne/.
. 409 .
The meaning of Stewart’s artwork cannot be divorced from the fragile global
ecology of bees. By creating these spaces of metaphor in which we commune
vicariously with the bees, she demonstrates her version of quiet activism.
During her stay at Lotusland, Stewart felt like she was “living in a magical
place”15 whose spell she did not want to break. Daphne is a poetic piece in
response to the place and the woman who created it, eccentric Polish opera
singer and garden designer Ganna Walska. As Stewart says of the piece, “it was
a big poem I was putting on the wall.”16 The site itself imbues the artwork with
significance. Visitors were moved by the connection to the life cycle of the
bees that the work’s setting suggested. The body’s sensual experience of the
space solidifies Daphne’s gently political message.
Rancière’s notion of ‘heterology’ is an apt description of the work of Johnson
and Stewart. He is sceptical of the notion of utopia to describe collective efforts
to reconfigure experience.17 Rather, art and politics are practical, present-tense
“heterotopias.”18 “Heterology” refers “to the way in which the meaningful
fabric of the sensible is disturbed [...] The dream of a suitable political work of
art is in fact the dream of disrupting the relationship between the visible, the
sayable, and the thinkable without having to use the terms of a message as a
vehicle.”19 Johnson and Stewart advance their political dreams through subtle
and surprising means. Not only do the senses vivify their politics, but in many
ways, the aesthetic, sensual realm evoked by their artwork, such as the call to
dwell more genuinely in the body, is, in and of itself, a political message.
. 410 .
Virtual Exhibition
Designing an online presentation of the photo-based work of Johnson – one
which offers a clear, straightforward layout of images and easy navigation to
supporting text and links – would seem to present no specific challenges.
However, to limit this virtual exhibition to visual experience only would
constitute a sensual deprivation that contradicts the artistic intentions of both
Johnson and Stewart. The outdoor world that Johnson documents could be
more effectively evoked by using technology to simulate the experience of
lying on the rough ground, putting our hands in the dirt, feeling the sting
of a sunburn, or hearing mosquitoes buzzing around one’s head. Similarly,
the quality of aesthetic experience one enjoys while visiting a Stewart wall
installation could be evoked, so that surfaces emanate the same smell and
create the same desire to touch as when encountered in real life. In the
absence of Aldous Huxley’s Feelies technology from Brave New World (as in,
“Going to the Feelies this evening, Henry?”),20 I would like to implement a trial
of the nascent tactile technology “Surround Haptics” from Disney research
studios, which delivers physical sensations in conjunction with viewers’ visual
experience. The tactile pads of Surround Haptics can be fitted to a chair or
worn directly on the body and combined with digital smell technology such
as Scentcom (although it is still in the research and development) or, in a
pinch, Smell-o-Vision, the 1960s system used in movie theatres that emit a
choice of 30 odours during a film projection. With visual, aural, tactile, and
olfactory elements accounted for, four out of a possible five dimensions of
sensory stimulus will be simulated online.
. 411 .
In the event that these technologies fall short, low-tech options can be
considered, including simple Apple-type touch-screen zoom technology,
to provide an intuitive way to examine dirt-covered skin and wax surfaces
in detail. Online video tours, accessible on the Home page, may also be a
desirable alternative to static images in the case of Stewart’s Lotusland
installation site.
Notes
1 William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth (New York: W.
H. Norton, 2007).
2Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the
Sensible (London; New York: Continuum, 2006), 60.
3 Slavoj Zizek, afterword to The Politics of Aesthetics, 76.
4 Jacques Rancière, “From Politics to Aesthetics?” Paragraph 28 (2005):
13.
5Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, 40.
6 Ibid., 41.
7 Ibid., 63.
8 Ibid., 12.
9 David Howes, Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader (Oxford;
New York: Berg, 2005), 164.
10“Collection Online | Sarah Anne Johnson. Tree Planting. 200205 – Guggenheim Museum,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
accessed December 1, 2013, http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/
collections/collection-online/artwork/21634.
. 412 .
11 Yi-Fu Tuan, “The Pleasures of Touch” in Book of Touch, ed. Constance
Classen (Oxford; New York: Berg, 2005), 78.
12Amy Smart, “Art doesn’t have to start revolutions, says artist Sarah
Anne Johnson,” Times Colonist, posted March 12, 2013, accessed
January 2, 2014, http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/visualarts/art-doesn-t-have-to-start-revolutions-says-artist-sarah-annejohnson-1.90047#sthash.JrfYRveE.dpuf.
13 Telephone interview with Penelope Stewart on December 2, 2013.
14Ibid.
15“Penelope Stewart – Setting up the studio,” accessed November 30,
2013, http://penelopestewart.ca/blog/setting-up-the-studio/.
16 Telephone conversation with Penelope Stewart on December 2,
2013.
17Ibid.
18 However, as the Internet becomes “the primary medium with which
most art practitioners learn about new artworks and exhibitions, the
subsequent in situ viewing of artwork constitutes a doubling of the
art experience.” See Carson Chan, “Measures of an Exhibition: Space,
Not Art, Is the Curator’s Primary Material,” Fillip 13 (Spring 2011),
accessed November 17, 2013,
http://fillip.ca/content/measures-of-an-exhibition.
19 Ibid., 63.
20 Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (London: Chatto & Windus, 1970), 27.
. 413 .
Bibliography
Chan, Carson. “Measures of an Exhibition: Space, Not Art, is the
Curator’s Primary Material.” Fillip 13 (Spring 2011): 28-37. Accessed
November 17, 2013. http://fillip.ca/content/measures-of-anexhibition.
Classen, Constance. The Book of Touch. Oxford; New York: Berg, 2005.
de Cauter, Lieven, Ruben De Roo, and Karel Vanhaesebrouck. Art
and Activism in the Age of Globalization. Rotterdam: NAi, 2011.
Howes, David. Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader. Oxford;
New York: Berg, 2005.
____. Sensual Relation: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social
Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Logan, William Bryant. Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth. New York:
W. H. Norton, 2007.
Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the
Sensible. London; New York: Continuum, 2006.
____. “From Politics to Aesthetics?” Paragraph 28, no. 1, (March 2005):
13-25.
. 414 .
Traces
Hannah Morgan
***
The place in which we live is inextricably linked to our experiences and the
responses they evoke during our lives. A mutual shaping of a person by and
environment by cultural context inevitably shapes both people and their
environments. In this process, space becomes place through contact with
human presence. As we are influenced by different places encountered over
time, we also embody the diverse experiences of multiple places. Indeed,
we infuse memory and identity into our environments and create our own
cultural geographies through experienced spaces.
Relationships can be formed between artists and places through interactions
that blend nature with culture. Art historian Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann, a
specialist in European art and architecture in its global context, writes: “art
results from or expresses a response to geographic circumstances, either
directly, or in the way that such conditions have shaped human difference
that have led to the production of distinctive kinds of objects.”1 The artists
. 415 .
Marlene Creates (b. 1952) and Vessna Perunovich (b. 1960) demonstrate this
responsive interaction with geographic locations in their performative works,
which explore the impact of the environment upon themselves and vice versa.
A physical presence or imprint of the human body in relation to its geography
is central to the ideas that motivate the works of these two artists. Placing
themselves in direct contact with their surroundings, the artists emphasize
the tactile and ephemeral relationship of person and location in their artistic
productions. Whether commenting on natural or cultural environments
that they come into contact with through their art practices, both examine
their heightened sensitivity and awareness of their own bodies in particular
places. These artists document their lived experiences of these locations
using video, photography, and installation either to preserve the physical act
of their performances or to capture the traces left behind. Producing art that
is autobiographical, interrelation, and communal, Creates and Perunovich are
interested in how we are losing contact with our surroundings, and the ways
we might stay in touch with people and places.
. 416 .
POLITICS and AC TIVISM | POLITIQUE et AC TIVISME
Marlene Creates, Sleeping Places, Newfoundland, 1982.
Sequence of twenty-five black and white photographic prints, selenium-toned silver prints, 27 x 39 cm.
http://www.marlenecreates.ca/works/1982sleeping.html#thumb.
In one of her “most intimate projects about meeting the land,”2 Sleeping Places,
Newfoundland (1982), Creates set out across Newfoundland for a journey
of two months. In this work, the artist connected with outdoor spaces by
sleeping there for a night. The black and white photographs show the imprints
left by her sleeping body in the wild tangles of reed and grass-carpeted fields.
Sleeping Places explores the idea of being exposed to the natural world while
in the most vulnerable state of unconsciousness – sleep – and by so doing
reacquaints the viewer with a sense of belonging to nature. The impressions
of Creates’s body on the land also suggest that the land itself has a memory
. 417 .
and can be just as vulnerable to our presence. By sleeping in the barrens of
the Newfoundland landscape, Creates calls to our attention the relationship
many urban-dwelling Canadians no longer have with the landscape. Many of
us have become uncomfortable in our natural environment due to our lack
of engagement with it, resulting in a lack of consideration for its fragility. By
showing the viewer her direct and raw contact with a natural place, the artist
creates a viewing experience that arouses an innate awareness of our own
tenuous human nature.
Marlene Creates, A Hand to Standing Stone, Scotland, 1988.
Sequence of twenty-two black and white photographs, selenium-toned silver prints, 20 x 30cm.
http://www.marlenecreates.ca/works/1983hand.html.
. 418 .
A Hand to Standing Stone, Scotland (1988) by Creates is from a series of
photographs taken on a pilgrimage across Scotland. Creates undertook this
journey to encounter the ancient metamorphic stones of the Outer Hebrides,
a group of islands off Scotland’s north-western coast. In one photograph
Creates places her palm against the surface of a rugged cold stone that
show layers of the geological history of the land. One can imagine that for a
moment the stone chilled against her hand, but then embraced her warmth
as the exchange of human body and nature continued. Creates invites
us to consider what else has brushed across this course surface. The artist
is intrigued by the notion of place, along with the layering of natural and
human existence and the histories of a landscape.3 When the artist ventured
out to these remote locations, she uncovered a sense of the histories of these
stones as a result of her tactile presence. Her touching becomes one more
layer of memory, both natural and historical, added to this specific location.
This connection does not only go one way, however, for the artist feels there
is a spirit to the landscape that will in turn effect her own history of this
experience. What will she find, see, or feel in these environments and how
will it leave its traces on her own memory? The exchange pictured in each of
these photographs is a mutual one, wherein her hand touches the ancient
metamorphic rocks that originated from the crust.
. 419 .
Marlene Creates, Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road, 2007-present.
Series of black and white photographs, selenium-toned silver prints, 27 x 39 cm.
http://www.marlenecreates.ca/works/2007larch.html.
In 2007, twenty-four years after her journey to the Outer Hebrides islands of
Scotland, Creates brought the project closer to home to explore the six acres
of boreal forest in Newfoundland, where she lives. One photograph in the
series Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road (2007-present) shows
her left hand once again touching a natural form – an indigenous species of
tree – to create a moment of sensorial experience. Creates calls attention
to three levels of the inter-relationship with nature: first, the tree itself;
second, the forest eco-system where the tree grows; and third, the observer
connected through the impression of a hand.4 She asked herself why she
selected one tree from among so many, and what enticed her to recognize
. 420 .
its individuality in a forest of similar trees.5 In attempting to immerse herself
in the boreal forest, the artist found that certain trees conjured a sense of
“thisness” which attracted her attention.6 Creates is still working on this and
continues to forge new connections to the boreal forest through her visual
art practice and poetry.
Vessna Perunovich, [W]hole House of Exile, 2002-2003.
Sculptural and video installation, black elastic, hardware, video loop, sound, 108 x 78 x 96 in.
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/049_vessna_perunovich_12.html.
. 421 .
Perunovich’s [W]hole House of Exile (2002-2003), a sculptural and video
installation, explores the division between natural environment and human
experience. The skeletal shape of a house made from knotted black elastics
provides a strange impression of a cage-like space. While the shape of the
enclosure should suggest a home and place of comfort, the materials and
construction may cause a visitor a sense of discomfort. Perunovich plays
with multiple contrasts of inside/outside, fragility/resilience, and protection/
imprisonment that coincide with the spatial relationships within a landscape.
Resembling the bars of a prison, the sculptural component of the work
encases a man who stands at one side, motionless, his back to us, gazing at a
video of a full moon projected on the gallery wall. The multiple contrasts of
inside and outside, fragility and resilience, and protection and imprisonment
are made visible in these spatial interrelations of a night landscape and
an enclosed architectural environment. Engaging with the concept of
boundaries, Perunovich prompts the viewer to question the limits of this
man’s prison-like home, and the illusion of comfort and of discomfort it may
provide in relation to the limitless outer space of a moon-lit night. At what
point can a home become an isolating jail, or a cage become a protective
home? Perunovich is able to portray the boundaries of both home and cage
with this installation.
. 422 .
Vessna Perunovich, I Hug the World and the World Hugs Me Back, 2003.
Photograph of performance.
http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/049_vessna_perunovich_12.html.
Vessna Perunovich’s performance I Hug the World and the World Hugs Me Back
(2003) is a work in which she extends herself into the space of passers-by,
and offers them an embrace. The work took place in front of the American
artist Paul McCarthy’s sculpture Blockhead at the Tate Modern in London.
In this work – one of several of Perunovich’s performances in busy public
spaces – the artist reaches out to people in a hugging gesture while she is
simultaneously restrained by long red elastic bands crossing her body. In
doing so she not only pushes the boundaries of her own physical space,
but enters into another person’s space to question our personal barriers of
comfort and discomfort in relation to one another.
. 423 .
Perunovich encourages us to think about how we co-habitat a public place.
She asks us to consider whether the world can be a loving place where we
can reach out to one another to effect those around us as much as they may
have an effect on us. The embracing actions of the artist may imply that even
in densely populated cities where people do not know each we need to be
conscious of the human environment that surrounds us.
Vessna Perunovich, Stitching the Snow, 2012.
6:33 min., video.
The syncopated sound of whirring and clicking produced by a treadle
sewing machine aligns with the deliberate spiralled steps of Perunovich
in Stitching the Snow (2012). The documentation of this performance is a
stationary-shot video shot from an aerial point of view; the footage does not
include refocusing or camera movement, thus maintaining a single frame
and perspective. In this performance the artist suggests that each imprint
of human activity in the snowy ground is like a stitch on a piece of fabric.
Perunovich often conceptually incorporates aspects of fiber art into her
performances. She explains, “my videos, installations and performances are
usually conceptualized around the physical qualities of fabric and thread, or
. 424 .
the act of stitching and weaving.”7 In this work, the artist steps on a fresh blanket
of snow, registering a trail of movement on the result of a meteorological
occurrence. Then halfway through the documentation of the performance,
the artist suddenly begins moving backwards - and the footsteps disappear.
The video footage is reversed, making the entire process strangely surreal
as the space reverts back to its original state. Perhaps this circular pattern of
presence and absence is meant to be indicative of our desire to order and
structure nature, and nature’s response that human presence is temporary
and fleeting.
Creates and Perunovich approach place from different perspectives. Creates
engages with landscape and is attentive to environmental concerns caused
by the destructive impact people have had on nature.8 The spiral-like patterns
of Stitching the Snow echo the earlier imprints of Creates’s Sleeping Places, and
have a similar aesthetic relationship to the environment. The presence of
human activities that leave traces in the landscape creates a visual component
to their interaction with a space, and may be recognized as a signifying point in
which it becomes a place. For Creates, “the boundary of the self is understood
as porous, malleable, and expansive; it is a reflection of the condition of the
subject who must constantly negotiate his or her perceived or lived set of
differences to new and changing circumstances.”9 In her experiences of remote
natural spaces, Creates uses photographic prints to provide evidence of her
presence on the physical landscape - in order to consider the fundamental
relations between person and nature. The photographs – traces of her
consciousness – reach out to viewer often inspiring thoughtfulness towards
the natural environment. Perunovich’s works, in contrast, mainly occur in
places populated by people. Her performances, videos, and sculptural
. 425 .
installations are personal and social experiences of inhabited places, and
traces of human encounters with other people and nature.10 Despite these
differences, an awareness of landscape and the geographic nature of space,
and an understanding of the intimate fragile interactions of person and place
are key in the works of both artists.
Virtual Exhibition
In defining this virtual exhibition I want to concentrate on the experience
of space and place. The way in which an exhibition is displayed spatially is
particularly important to me. I would like to emphasize the concept of an
imagined space in this virtual exhibition. To do so, I want to use a blueprint
format, which would be the webpage itself. The space does not have to be
modelled after any real gallery and can have as many divisions as needed.
Instead of walking through the gallery space, the visitor will be able to follow
sight lines that are similar when reading, starting at the top left, moving
across and down, eventually ending at the bottom right, resembling the style
of a two-column newspaper. The virtual space becomes a gallery, and place,
through the viewer’s interaction with it and the artworks.
Each work would be in proportion to the space and “benches” would act
as sites of textual support. Clicking on a work or a bench would make the
image, video, or text come to the forefront of the webpage. A zoom feature
would be present for image access. This would allow the viewer to pass
over the image with the mouse to enlarge the sections of interest. Only
the image citation would accompany the works. If desired, a more detailed
description will be available when clicking on the nearest bench. In this way
. 426 .
the gallery experience is not completely lost, and the visitor could imagine
a real architectural place. The texts usually found in the exhibition catalogue
could be accessed through the found at the top left. Extra links such as artists’
websites will be located in the concluding space at the bottom right of the
web page. In this way a clear narrative could be set up and easily navigated.
This diagram gives a rough visual of what I have in mind.
. 427 .
Though maintaining the idea of a gallery, the virtual exhibition is not without
special characteristics as an imagined space. The blueprint would not contain
windows or doors giving it a surreal atmosphere. The only entrance would be
from above, from the visitor’s screen, making it an obviously imagined space.
The images included would rarely be installation shots, with the exception
of Perunovich’s [W]hole House of Exile, which would require installation
photographs. A particular issue arises with the video component of this work:
it would be interesting to have a filter between the visitor and the video for
this particular work on the website so that the visitor could watch the video
through bar-like lines. The house from the installation takes on the form of
a real home, that of the website visitor, transforming a space into a place
through an interaction with a virtual environment.
Notes
1James Elkins, Zhivka Valiavicharska, and Alice Kim, eds. Art and
Globalization. Vol. 1. (University Park: Penn State Press, 2010), 169.
2 Marlene Creates, “Sleeping Places, Newfoundland 1982,” last modified
2008, accessed October 12, 2013, http://www.marlenecreates.ca/
works/1982sleeping.html.
3 Creates, “A Hand to Standing Stones, Scotland 1983,” last modified
2008, accessed October 12, 2013, http://www.marlenecreates.ca/
works/1983hand.html.
4 Creates, “Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road (2007
and ongoing),” last modified 2008, accessed October 12, 2013,
. 428 .
5Leah Oates, “Impermanence and Temporality: Marlene Creates,
interviewed by Leah Oates,” NY Arts, last modified 2013, accessed
December 15, 2013, http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=5527.
6 Creates, “Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road (2007
and ongoing),” last modified 2008, accessed October 12, 2013,
7Gareth Bate, and Dawne Rudman, “Artist: Vessna Perunovich,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Interview 49,” World of Threads Festival,
last modified 2012, accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.
perunovich_12.html.
8Creates, “Marlene Creates,” last modified 2008, accessed October 12,
2013, http://www.marlenecreates.ca/bio.html.
9Andrea Kunard, “Between Two Points, Marlene Creates,” BlackFlash
Magazine, accessed October 12, 2013, http://www.blackflash.ca/
10Bate, and Rudman, “Artist: Vessna Perunovich, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada: Interview 49,” World of Threads Festival, last modified 2012,
accessed November 1, 2013. http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.
com/artist_interviews/049_vessna_perunovich_12.html.
. 429 .
Bibliography
Bate, Gareth, and Dawne Rudman. “Artist: Vessna Perunovich,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Interview 49.” World of Threads Festival.
Last modified 2012. Accessed November 1, 2013. http://www.
perunovich_12.html.
Creates, Marlene. “Marlene Creates.” Last modified 2008. Accessed
October 12, 2013. http://www.marlenecreates.ca/bio.html.
Elkins, James, Zhivka Valiavicharska, and Alice Kim, eds. Art and
Globalization. Vol. 1. University Park: Penn State Press, 2010.
Hajdin, Nives. “Vessna Perunovich Moves Beyond the Walls.”
Canadian Art. Last modified February 22, 2013. Accessed November
1, 2013. http://www.canadianart.ca/see-it/2013/02/22/vessnaperunovich/.
Kunard, Andrea. “Between Two Points, Marlene Creates.” BlackFlash
Magazine. Accessed October 12, 2013. http://www.blackflash.ca/
Oates, Leah. “Impermanence and Temporality: Marlene Creates,
interviewed by Leah Oates.” NY Arts. Last modified 2013. Accessed
December 15, 2014. http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=5527.
Perunovich, Vessna. “Bio.” Last modified 2013. Accessed November 1,
2013. http://www.vessnaperunovich.com/vessna.html.
. 430 .
Economy | économie
Economies
économie
China’s Path to Modernization
Tara Ng
New Age Spirituality in the Art of Tim
Whiten, Lauren Hall, and SCULTURE CLUB
Eleanor Dumouchel
Finding Beauty in the Everyday:
The Works of BGL and Zeke Moores
Green! Green! Green!: How Banal!
Pamela Mackenzie
Infinite Pleasure and Its Discontents:
The Visceral Pattern Installations of
Jennifer Angus and Penelope Stewart
Barbara Wisnoski
. 431 .
Economy | économie
China’s Path to
Modernization
Tar a Ng
***
Since the Chinese Communist Party’s policy reforms of 1978, China has
relentlessly pursued modernization in the areas of agriculture, industry,
national defense, and science, and technology.1 The shift from a socialist to a
market economy has brought unprecedented economic growth.2 For China,
the speed of development has been a defining marker of progress. Deng
Xiaoping, who led the 1978 policy reforms as then-leader of the Communist
Party, declared that “[l]ow-speed development is equal to stagnation or even
retrogression.”3 This aversion to moderation has led to tremendous physical
and social transformations in both urban and rural areas over a short span
of time, the consequences of which have been both positive and negative,
and at times unforeseeable. This exhibition explores some of these large-scale
. 432 .
Economy | économie
changes taking place in China today and the resilience of its people through
the works of photographers Greg Girard (b. 1955) and Benoit Aquin (b.
1963). In particular, this exhibition examines how the government’s focus on
urbanization as the primary driver of economic growth has affected socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.
Greg Girard’s Phantom Shanghai series (2001–2006) documents the transition
of the eastern coastal city of Shanghai from a neglected city brimming with
slums to “the most rapidly globalizing city in the world”4 and China’s largest city
by population with 23.8 million people.5 Deng Xiaoping’s call in the early 1990s
for Shanghai to “catch up” with the growing trend of globally oriented cities
in China spurred rapid urbanization.6 Between 1991 and 1995, nearly 975,000
households were evicted7 to make way for the more than 4,000 residential
high-rises and office buildings that form Shanghai’s skyline today.8 In addition
to capturing the final moments of these houses before they were destroyed,
Girard’s Phantom Shanghai series offers a glimpse into the lives of rural migrant
workers in Shanghai who are employed in construction and the demolition
of old buildings. Phantom Shanghai captures the counter-movements of
populations as evicted families relocate from urban to suburban areas and
migrant workers leave their rural homes to settle in the city’s centre.
China’s prioritization of economic growth and urbanization has resulted in
serious environmental neglect and deterioration. Aquin turns his attention
to the desertification crisis in northwestern China in his series The Chinese
“Dust Bowl” (2006–2007, 2009). Overgrazing, cultivation on marginal land, and
other unsustainable practices have transformed 400,000 square kilometres
of grasslands and cropland into desert.9 The depleted topsoil is the source
. 433 .
Economy | économie
of increasingly frequent sandstorms in China, Korea, Japan, and even North
America.10 Aquin’s series also captures life in Hongsibao, a town built by the
government in 1995 in Ningxia, China’s poorest province, to house 200,000
environmental refugees whose agricultural livelihoods have been lost to
desertification.11
Greg Girard, Neighbourhood Demolition, Yuyuan Lu, 2005. Chromogenic print.
http://www.greggirard.com/content/gallery/1003_P129-SH.jpg
. 434 .
Economy | économie
Greg Girard’s Neighbourhood Demolition, Yuyuan Lu (2005) offers a startling
glimpse into the physical and social upheaval affecting daily life in Shanghai.
Shot from a raised, distant perspective, the photograph depicts the walled site
of a neighbourhood demolition and the surrounding new city. A yellow sign
with red characters marks the area as a demolition site. Most of the houses have
been razed; the remaining few are glowing from within, remarkably showing
signs of life amidst the surrounding gray rubble. Indeed, several people are
gathered outside the houses – seemingly conversing – and several garments
are hanging on a clothesline, illustrating the residents’ continuation of daily life
even as the world around them is in the process of literally crumbling. Girard
notes that such scenes are common: “In a neighbourhood in its final stages of
demolition, amid the rubble and smashed buildings, it’s not unusual to see a
single stranded house, often half-demolished, glowing from within at night.
Indeed, an occupied home: with a family watching television, people cooking
and eating dinner, kids doing homework.”12
The disparity between the demolition site in the foreground and the residential
developments in the background of Girard’s photograph forms a scene verging
on the surreal; indeed, the foreground and background represent two distinct
worlds – the past and the present, the poor and the rich. The miniscule scale of
the old houses and their residents in comparison to the looming commercial
developments in the photograph speaks to the powerlessness of the socioeconomically disadvantaged and a general disregard for the preservation
of history. A monumental real estate advertisement in the background
promising luxury condos that will elevate one’s social status seems to mock
the circumstances of these soon-to-be relocated residents. Wu Hung explains
that “[u]ntil recently the Chinese were not allowed to purchase real estate,
. 435 .
Economy | économie
but there has been a change in property ownership, and a privately owned
apartment has become the ultimate proof of a person’s social and financial
status.”13 Because of their low socio-economic status, the evicted residents
of Shanghai are unable to afford the rising cost of living in the city and have
instead been relocated to distant suburbs.14 Girard’s deliberate framing of
the image cuts off part of the English word on the advertisement so that it
now reads “KING.” Is this perhaps a comment on high-priced real estate as
a powerful force shaping the landscape of Shanghai? Or is it referring to the
authoritarian government’s display of power through economic growth?
Greg Girard, Migrants on Sidewalk, Yuanmingyuan Lu, 2005. Chromogenic print.
http://www.greggirard.com/content/gallery/1020_P80-SH.jpg
. 436 .
Economy | économie
Rapid development demands cheap manual labour. In Shanghai, the majority
of the city’s three million migrant workers are peasants from farming villages
in the neighbouring provinces of Jiangu and Anhui.15 About one million
are employed at 6,000 construction sites throughout the city.16 Because of
their low income, most migrant workers cannot afford to rent an apartment.
Girard’s Migrants on Sidewalk, Yuanmingyuan Lu (2005) captures the difficult
lives of migrant workers – the so-called “phantom population” of Shanghai.17
In this photograph, seven male migrant workers are asleep on straw mats,
sheets of cardboard, and other flimsy materials. They occupy the entrance of
an alley and a grimy sidewalk. All but one are shirtless, presumably because
of the oppressive heat, although the blurred appearance of the shirt hanging
from a metal bar implies the presence of a slight breeze. The men have few
belongings, which may or may not include the aforementioned garment, a
wooden box located in the lower centre of the image, a few bags and other
items resting in front of the garage door, and dirty rags hanging on a makeshift
clothesline. The red Western-style building with an engaged column on the
left references Shanghai’s old modernity,18 while the gleaming high rise in the
background symbolizes the city’s new modernity. Although migrant workers
have physically built this new Shanghai, they are excluded from the benefits
of the city’s economic growth. Their work is physically strenuous, their living
conditions are wretched, and opportunities to secure a better life are low. A
survey by the Renmin University of China revealed that over fifty percent of
migrant workers living in cities in China experience helplessness, loneliness
and depression. In addition, they are subject to daily discrimination and have a
low sense of belonging.19 However, there is a feeling of camaraderie in Girard’s
photograph, a sense of shared experience which may make life as a migrant
worker a little less difficult to bear.
. 437 .
Economy | économie
Benoit Aquin, Wuwei Oasis, Hexi Corridor, Gansu, 2006–2007. Ink jet print.
http://www.benoitaquin.com/en/files/gimgs/28_thechinesedustbowlbenoitaquin015.jpg
China’s insatiable drive for economic growth has perpetuated unsustainable
agricultural practices which have led to “one of the greatest environmental
disasters of our time.”20 Twenty percent of China’s land is desert; of that,
twenty-two percent is the result of human activity. Desertification is defined
as “land degradation, in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from
mainly climatic variations and human activities and is an example of a slowonset disaster.”21 Aquin traveled to Inner Mongolia and northwestern China in
2006, 2007, and 2009 to document the dramatic effects of desertification.22
According to the artist, The Chinese “Dust Bowl” series “shows just what happens
when we mismanage the environment. These issues should not be in the
. 438 .
Economy | économie
context of only one country; they are global issues. They affect us all. And as a
global population, we must solve them.”23
In Wuwei Oasis, Hexi Corridor, Gansu (2006–2007), a farmer on a motorcycle
makes his way through a dried-up reservoir in the countryside of Wuwei,
Gansu province in northwestern China.24 Recalling the nineteenth-century
calotype, the hazy ochre tones of the photograph imbue the scene with
a poetic beauty. Nevertheless, the fact that the photograph depicts a
sandstorm – a sign of environmental degradation – complicates the beauty
of the scene. The striking absence of colours traditionally associated with the
lush countryside signals the serious human exploitation of the agricultural
landscape. In the middle ground of the photograph, rows of melon seedlings
are covered with plastic film. Barely visible through the haze, the trees in the
background act as a shelterbelt, blocking high winds and preventing further
erosion.25 Farmers struggle to continue their agricultural livelihood in the face
of serious environmental degradation, but Aquin’s photograph captures their
remarkable resilience.
. 439 .
Economy | économie
Benoit Aquin, Storm in Hongsibao, China, 2007
Ink jet print, 102.2 x 145 cm; image: 81.4 x 122.1 cm, National Gallery of Canada.
http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=206444
In spite of the Chinese government’s efforts at reforestation, hundreds of
thousands of rural farmers have been forced to relocate due to the effects
of desertification.26 While some view relocation as a chance to improve their
economic opportunities, one study found that in fact “many suffer economic
losses and social disintegration after the move.”27
Benoit Aquin’s Storm in Hongsibao, China (2007) depicts a sandstorm blowing
through the new town of Hongsibao, Ningxia, home to 200,000 environmental
refugees – formerly peasants and herders – from the poor mountainous regions
of the province.28 Sandstorms are common in Hongsibao as it is surrounded by
. 440 .
Economy | économie
arid and unproductive land.29 The utility pole in the centre of the photograph
lends stability to a scene which ultimately evokes disarray. Plastic bags and
other detritus have blown onto the sidewalk and accumulated at the base
of a frail, leafless tree. Whereas the presence of nature in the city is usually
intended to beautify the urban space, in Hongsibao it serves as a reminder of
environmental degradation. The glistening sidewalk suggests that it is raining;
at times, sandstorms combine with rain to produce mud rain. Yet, the figures
in the photograph are seemingly undisturbed by the weather. A side table is
sitting on the edge of the sidewalk next to a cargo bike, waiting to be moved.
It appears that the residents of Hongsibao have adapted to the sandstorms
and have become relatively immune to them. The colourful storefronts in the
background reflect the residents’ adjustments to life in the new town. Aquin’s
photograph illustrates the resilience of the people of Hongsibao, but the
copious amount of detritus in the image also reveals a disturbing mentality –
that is, a fundamental lack of concern for the environment.
The photographs of Greg Girard and Benoit Aquin document both the
dramatic physical transformations of the landscape and the accompanying
social changes that are taking place in China as it continues on its path to
modernization. While rapid economic growth has improved the lives of many
and spawned a growing middle class, the works of Girard and Aquin reveal
the ongoing struggles of the rural population. As it moves forward with a
population of 1.35 billion people,30 China’s great challenge will be to ensure
the welfare of both urban and rural populations and balance urbanization and
environmental preservation.
. 441 .
Economy | économie
Notes
1 Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, 3rd edition (New
York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 2013), 560.
2 Joel Jay Kassiola and Sujian Guo, “Introduction: China’s Environmental
Crisis—A Global Crisis with Chinese Characteristics: From Confucius
to Cell Phones,” in China’s Environmental Crisis: Domestic and Global
Political Impacts and Responses, ed. Joel Jay Kassiola and Sujian Guo
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 3.
3 Ibid., 670.
4 Xiangming Chen, “A Globalizing City on the Rise: Shanghai’s
Transformation in Comparative Perspective,” in Shanghai Rising: State
Power and Local Transformations in a Global Megacity (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2009), xv.
5 Linger Liu, “Shanghai population now overshadows Taiwan,” The
China Post, February 20, 2013, http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/
national-news/2013/02/20/370722/Shanghai-population.htm.
6 Greg Girard, Phantom Shanghai (Toronto: Magenta Foundation,
2007), 136.
7 In Shanghai, 302,000 households were evicted between 1991-95;
672,893 households were evicted between 1996-2005. See Si-ming
Li and Yu-ling Song, “Redevelopment, displacement, housing
conditions, and residential satisfaction: a study of Shanghai,”
Environment and Planning A 41, no. 5 (2009): 1092.
. 442 .
Economy | économie
8 David Barboza, “China’s building boom becomes a frenzy,” New York
Times, October 18, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/
world/asia/18iht-boom.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
9 Patrick Alleyn, “The Chinese Dust Bowl,” The Walrus, October 2007,
http://thewalrus.ca/the-chinese-dust-bowl/.
10Ibid.
11 Alleyn, “The Chinese Dust Bowl,” in Benoit Aquin: Far East, Far West
(Montreal: Éditions du Passage, 2009), 109.
12Girard, Phantom Shanghai, 152.
13 Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese experimental art at the end of the
twentieth century (Chicago: David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
University of Chicago, 1999), 152.
15 Juan Du, “Min Gong: City Builders,” DOMUS 873 (2004): 63.
16Ibid.
18 This building appears to be an example of the colonial-era architecture of Shanghai. The Treaty of Nanking (1842), which concluded the
First Opium War (1839–1842) between Britain and China, forcibly established Shanghai as a treaty port and permitted the British, French,
and American governments to designate concessions in Shanghai.
Many foreigners settled in these areas and were sources of Western
influence on the city. See Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown,
“Physical Transformation: Shanghai,” in Shanghai Transforming, ed.
Iker Gil (Barcelona; New York: Actar, 2008), 68.
. 443 .
Economy | économie
19 “Migrant workers and their children,” China Labour Bulletin,
accessed December 9, 2013, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/
migrant-workers-and-their-children.
20 Alleyn, “The Chinese Dust Bowl.”
21 Chris McDowell and Gareth Morrell, Displacement Beyond Conflict:
Challenges for the 21st Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 120.
22 Gary Michael Dault, “A fair examination of China’s vast dustbowl,” The
Globe and Mail, March 19, 2010, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
arts/a-fair-examination-of-chinas-vast-dustbowl/article4310450/.
23 “Benoit Aquin,” National Gallery of Canada, accessed December
9, 2013, http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.
php?iartistid=24505.
24 Alleyn, “The Chinese Dust Bowl.”
25 “Rural China struggles with effects of desertification,” Polaris
Images, accessed December 9, 2013, http://web.archive.org/
web/20100126091336/http://www.polarisimages.com/Portfolios/
Photographers/Benoit_Aquin/index.html.
26 The government began implementing relocation programs in 1998,
and by 2005, 700,000 environmental refugees in northwestern China
had been relocated. Plans were made to relocate 670,000 people
in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous northern region of the People’s
Republic of China, by 2006. See Hong Jiang, “Desertification in China:
Problems with Policies and Perceptions,” in China’s Environmental
Crisis: Domestic and Global Political Impacts and Responses, ed. Joel Jay
Kassiola and Sujian Guo (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 17.
. 444 .
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27Ibid.
28 Alleyn, “The Chinese Dust Bowl,” 109.
29 “Environmental Refugees,” Pulitzer Center, accessed December 9, 2013,
http://pulitzercenter.org/slideshows/environmental-refugees.
30 “Population (Total),” World Bank, accessed December 9, 2013,
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.
Bibliography
Aquin, Benoit and Patrick Alleyn. Benoit Aquin: Far East, Far West.
Montreal: Éditions du Passage, 2009.
Chen, Xiangming. “A Globalizing City on the Rise: Shanghai’s
Transformation in Comparative Perspective.” In Shanghai Rising: State
Power and Local Transformations in a Global Megacity, ed. Xiangming
Chen, xv-xxxv. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Du, Juan. “Min Gong: City Builders.” DOMUS 873 (2004): 60-69.
Girard, Greg. Phantom Shanghai. Toronto: Magenta Foundation, 2007.
Jiang, Hong. “Desertification in China: Problems with Policies and
Perceptions.” In China’s Environmental Crisis: Domestic and Global
Political Impacts and Responses, ed. Joel Jay Kassiola and Sujian Guo,
13-40. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Kassiola, Joel Jay and Sujian Guo. “Introduction: China’s
Environmental Crisis—A Global Crisis with Chinese Characteristics:
From Confucius to Cell Phones.” In China’s Environmental Crisis:
. 445 .
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Domestic and Global Political Impacts and Responses, ed. Joel Jay
Kassiola and Sujian Guo, 1-10. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Li, Si-ming and Yu-ling Song. “Redevelopment, displacement,
housing conditions, and residential satisfaction: a study of Shanghai.”
Environment and Planning A 41, no. 5 (2009): 1090-108.
McDowell, Chris and Gareth Morrell. Displacement Beyond Conflict:
Challenges for the 21st Century. New York: Berghahn Books, 2010.
Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. 3rd edition. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 2013.
Venturi, Robert and Denise Scott Brown. “Physical Transformation:
Shanghai.” In Shanghai Transforming, ed. Iker Gil, 68-75. Barcelona;
New York: Actar, 2008.
Wu, Hung. Transience: Chinese experimental art at the end of the
twentieth century. Chicago: David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
University of Chicago, 1999.
. 446 .
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New Age Spirituality
in the Art of
Tim Whiten, Lauren Hall
and SCULTURE CLUB
Eleanor Dumouchel
***
In an essay entitled “Religion as Medium,” art critic, media theorist, and
philosopher Boris Groys writes, “the modern age was not the age in which
the sacred was abolished but the age of its dissemination in profane space,
its democratization, its globalization.”1 Groys proposes that spiritual practice
persists in the mechanisms of ritual and repetition that characterize our
consumption of media, in addition to what he calls spiritual tourism. In “The
City in the Age of Touristic Reproduction,” Groys defines spiritual tourism as
“the gaze of the consummate urban dweller who, constantly in motion in the
. 447 .
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out-topos of black cosmic space, peers down at the topography of our world
from a touristic, aesthetic distance.”2 This vantage point enables the artists
Tim Whiten (b. 1942) and Lauren Hall (b. 1983) to make work that juxtaposes
the sacral with the everyday. Self-aware of their role as spiritual tourists, these
artists invent markers that designate this condition, interrupting the mindless
repetition in which the sacral and dogmatic persist unnoticed.
The works in this virtual exhibition are of diverse media, re-tooled and
recast from pre-existing methods and instruments for spiritual practice.
Two of Whiten’s pieces illustrate this tendency: a painting on a carpet, and
two sculptures, one of which relies on the hypothetical participation of the
viewer, and which could be classified as both a performance record and
interactive installation. Hall’s work in this exhibition includes an installation
– a collaboration with Susy Oliveira (b. 1977) under the name SCULTURE
CLUB – and an understated shrine-like piece made from drugstore-bought
objects. Each of the works in the exhibition serves to limit or problematize
the audience’s participation with the work, thereby calling into question art’s
historical intersection with communal spiritual practice.
. 448 .
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Tim Whiten, Snare, 1996. Wood, mirrors, internally lit, 49 x 31.75 x 61.75 in.
Whiten’s Snare (1996) is a hypothetically interactive work since the artist
activated the work in the past by enclosing himself within the small rectangular
space.3 Even in its inactive state, its potential use is signaled by a visible pulley
mechanism installed on the other side of the screen. To enter, one opens the
screen, installs oneself in the box, pulls the door closed, and in doing so, raises
the mirrored surface of the inside of the door. One sees one’s reflection for
a moment before the door is closed. The screen is a potent reference to the
partition in Catholic confessionals. But instead of a priest invested with the
. 449 .
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authority to absolve sins, one is faced, albeit momentarily, with one’s own
image, and with nowhere to escape. Faced with the expanse of our spiritual
sovereignty within the confined physical space, we are invited to re-examine
our beliefs, without recourse to symbols and physical tokens. We are faced with
ourselves, but not held to any imposed standard of good or evil; judgment
must come from within. This self-reflection is not a foregone conclusion,
however, since gallery-goers cannot actually enter Snare. Furthermore, the
value of entering the wooden box is put into question by the title, Snare,
which suggests the piece is a trap for the audience.
Tim Whiten, Mary’s Permeating Sign, 2006. Cast glass, pillow, 24 x 4.5 x 4.5 in.
Tim Whiten’s use of the consecrated aesthetics of traditional religions is present
in Mary’s Permeating Sign (2006). The work consists of cast glass molded in a
. 450 .
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shape similar to a rolling pin, resting heavily on a pillow covered by a white
pillowcase with a delicate lace-work border. The glass element of the work,
the form of which recalls a torah scroll, is also adorned with an etching of a
slightly askew magic square. The magic square’s most common incarnation
today is known as the Sudoku puzzle, but it is found also in European Medieval
texts such as De Occulta Philosophia and the texts of Muslim mathematicians
from the first millennium CE. According to the European mystic model, it had
the power to attract the presence of angels or demons. These nuances are
tempered with a biographical detail from the artist’s life: Whiten’s father gave
a carved rolling pin to Whiten’s mother, Mary, as a symbol of the home they
would create together.4 Here religious and personal meaning coalesce in a
single work, connecting the ritualistic associations of labour to the private
sphere of love.
. 451 .
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Tim Whiten, After Magic Gestures, 2009-2010.
Wool, silk, hand knotted carpet, 66 x 90 in.
. 452 .
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After Magic Gestures (2009-2010) is a rare two-dimensional work by Whiten.
In this work, the multi-layered abstraction achieved through the application
of coffee and ink on the ground of a hand-knotted carpet suggests text or
calligraphy.5 Whiten’s language in this work is visual in nature, and does not
adhere to any formal written language system, although art historian Ganis
William understands the “‘elemental’ pigments - powdered graphite, coffee,
gold and ink to express cosmological forms…”6 The viewer’s interaction
with this work is further complicated by Whiten’s choice of support: a handknotted rug recalling an Islamic prayer rug hung on the wall like an oil painting
of a saint. This perplexingly multi-valent work could be probed with Groys’s
query: “Why are these cultural phenomena present in the social space at a
certain point in time?” Might it be that Whiten is employing the interference of
disparate binaries (writing and abstraction, horizontal and vertical placement)
to create a tabula rasa on which to build a new model for spiritual art?
Lauren Hall, Joyous, and clear, and fresh, 2013.
Body poufs, Hawaiian Breeze™ air freshener, 3 minute hour glass.
http://lauren-hall.com/artwork/3149991_Joyous_and_clear_and_fresh.html.
. 453 .
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Lauren Hall’s Joyous, and clear, and fresh (2013) consists of objects readily
available in the bath products aisle of any drugstore chain. Arranged
symmetrically, the items – a turquoise air freshener balanced on a pink
hourglass timer and flanked by two body poufs – are compellingly arranged
as a free-standing, shrine-like sculpture. Joyous, and clear, and fresh represents
commercially accessible utopianism as well as Hall’s interest in “how methods
of […] product display affect our experience with objects.”7 By staging a
pseudo-spiritual performance of aspiration with regards to these objects’
alleged utopic potential, Hall problematizes “the rituals of domestic and
social life.”8 However, Hall’s display should not be read as one-dimensionally
ironic. Her work makes the most of the slippages between poles of irony
and earnestness, artist-creation and everyday home aesthetics (as prescribed
by the mainstream media like Martha Stewart or Dwell Magazine). It is by
engaging earnestly in the pursuit of home beautification that Hall hopes to
uncover the persistent dogmatic beliefs of the wellness industry. As she has
said, “I’m interested in people building utopias in suburbia.”9
. 454 .
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Lauren Hall and Susy Oliviera, Tropical Contact High, 2012. Installation view
http://lauren-hall.com/artwork/2759914_Tropical_Contact_High.html.
Tropical Contact High (2012) is an installation work by the collaborative duo
known as SCULTURE CLUB. The title of the work is taken from a verse of the
Beach Boys’ mid-eighties chart topper “Kokomo.”
Afternoon delight cocktails and moonlit nights That dreamy look in your eye Give me a tropical contact high10 Way down in Kokomo
. 455 .
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The overriding theme of “Kokomo” is a concept of pure leisure that is
dependent on frothy pink cocktails and bikini-clad women, a notion which,
like the 1970s aesthetic present in the painted stripes of graduated blues
on the walls of the installation, appear today as outdated and glib. These
fragments are difficult to relate in any meaningful way to the present, and
as a result the installation amounts to what Robert Horning in his essay on
Groys’s spiritual tourism calls “incomprehensible monuments of otherness.”11
The arrangement of plinth-shaped, paper sculptures, created by Oliveira, and
altar-like focal points resembles a spiritual ruin awaiting activation through
unknown ritual. This installation suggests that some ceremony might be
performed under each macramé basket or at the feet of the plinths, which are
surrounded by low mounds of red-colored sand. However, as in the case of
Joyous, and clear, and fresh (2013), our participation with these objects has less
to do with some spiritual program. “Of course we’re not offering a utopia,”12
Hall has said. “Tropical Contact High is objects in a gallery taking the form
of an exhibition.”13 As such, the strangeness and inaccessibility of the objects
are part of the artists’ critique. Hall has said that she sees Group of Seven
member Lawren Harris’s allegedly spiritually-charged landscape paintings as
representing “a sort of national ideal […] because they can’t be accessed.”14
Might we, by substituting “everyday utopianist” for “nationalist,” say that
Tropical Contact High shares a similar end?
. 456 .
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Virtual Exhibition Design
In terms of the virtual exhibition design, it is paramount that the works in the
exhibition maintain their integrity as physical objects. Therefore the works’
materiality will be emphasized as much as possible. Whiten’s work and Hall’s
sculpture will be located in a three dimensional virtual space that viewers view
in full-screen mode. All works will be visible in the round using composite
digital image captures of the object. In terms of emphasizing specifics of scale,
the silhouette of a person standing near Snare will be featured, as well as a
short video of Whiten entering and closing himself inside the piece. Similarly,
for Hall and Oliviera’s installation piece, there could be a panoramic view of the
installation that the viewer navigates using keystrokes on a browser window.
Notes
1. Boris Groys, “Religion as Medium,” in Re-Enchantment, ed. James
Elkins (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 80.
2 Boris Groys, “The City in the Age of Touristic Reproduction,” Art-eFact 2 (March 2004), accessed December 29, 2013,
http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a02/lang_en/write_groys_en.htm.
3 Claire Christie, “The Gleam of Shadows,” in Tim Whiten: Messages from
the Light (North York: Koffler Gallery, 1997), 20.
4 Eva Gurevich, “Art Review: Tim Whiten – A Spirit,” San Francisco Art
Institute Examiner (October 19, 2010), accessed December 29, 2013,
http://www.examiner.com/article/art-review-tim-whiten-a-spirit.
5 Ganis William, “Tim Whiten,” Border Crossings 30, no. 2 (June 2011): 97.
. 457 .
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6Ibid.
7 Lauren Hall, artist’s statement, sent to author via e-mail, January, 29,
2014.
8Ibid.
9 Adam Lauder, “The New Old Abstraction: Contemporary Canadian
painters look back to earlier examples,” Canadian Art (August 23,
2013), accessed December 23, 2013,
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2013/08/23/the-new-oldabstraction/.
10 Contact highs are alleged narcotic highs experienced by someone
who has not taken a drug, but who becomes high from their close
proximity to someone who has.
11 Rob Horning, “The Tourist Sublime,” The New Inquiry (January 18,
2011), accessed December 23, 2013, http://thenewinquiry.com/
essays/1831/.
12 Lauren Hall, interview with the author via e-mail, February 13, 2014.
13Ibid.
14 Lauder, “The New Old Abstraction.”
. 458 .
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Bibliography
Christie, Claire. “The Gleam of Shadows.” In Tim Whiten: Messages
from the Light. North York: Koffler Gallery, 1997.
Groys, Boris. “Religion as Medium.” In Re-Enchantment, ed. James
Elkins, 79-86. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
Groys, Boris. “The City in the Age of Touristic Reproduction.” Art-eFact 2 (March 2004). Accessed December 29, 2013. http://artefact.
mi2.hr/_a02/la_en/write_groys_en.htm.
Gurevich, Eva. “Art Review: Tim Whiten – A Spirit.” San Francisco Art
Institute Examiner (October 19, 2010). Accessed December 29, 2013.
http://www.examiner.com/article/art-review-tim-whiten-a-spirit.
Horning, Rob. “The Tourist Sublime.” The New Inquiry (January 18,
2011). Accessed December 23, 2013. http://thenewinquiry.com/
essays/1831/.
Lauder, Adam. “The New Old Abstraction: Contemporary Canadian
painters look back to earlier examples.” Canadian Art (August 23,
2013). Accessed December 23, 2013.
http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2013/08/23/the-new-oldabstraction/.
William, Gannis. “Tim Whiten.” Border Crossings 30, no. 2 (June 2011):
96-97.
. 459 .
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Finding Beauty
in the Everyday:
The Works of BGL
and Zeke Moores
***
At one time considered by many to be vulgar and trivial, the use of category
of the everyday as a subject in artwork fascinates and today appears to be
the logical conclusion of a long history of attempts to unite art and life.
Indeed, it is more and more noticeable that contemporary artists are working
from or with everyday life. It is not exceptional to see artists reusing or even
recycling common objects in their works as détournement to highlight and
question homogenized and standardized views of our contemporary world.1
A détournement is a technique first introduced by the Letterist International
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and then used by the Situationist International; this subversive tactic turns
expressions of the capitalist system upon themselves.2 The international
collective, active from 1957 to 1972, was composed of theorists such as Guy
Debord, and artists such as Constant Nieuwenhuys. In this exhibition, the
artist takes the role of the prankster to use objects of everyday life, in the
tradition of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, to focus our attention on their
ubiquitous presence. Indeed, the elements present in this exhibition could
be encountered almost anywhere: Montreal, Whitehorse, Bogota, and
beyond. The process of globalization has resulted in an increased movement
of goods and information across borders, through which there has been a
reterritorialized culture, and a heightened global consciousness.3 Everyday life
is more and more similar across the globe. Moreover, the works present in
the exhibition demonstrate the importance that these objects have in the
construction of our personal spaces. According to French philosopher and
historian Michel de Certeau, a geographical reality can only become space
once one has engaged with it and has physically narrated it.4 These objects
are crucial in the production of certain spaces, and can even be considered
as spaces in and of themselves. The artists in this exhibition, Quebec-based
artist’s collective BGL and Windsor-based artist Zeke Moores, both seek to
complicate their viewers’ relationship to objects by creating ambiguous – yet
humorous – mimetic works of art. Highlighting both global and local relations
to urban space, BGL and Zeke Moores’ works are inspired by the urban public
and collective space. They both use very close and familiar realities as starting
points to find beauty in the everyday.
. 461 .
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BGL, Chicha Muffler, 2009. Mixed media installation.
Dimensions variable. Montreal, Fonderie Darling.
http://fonderiedarling.org/chicha-muffler.html.
. 462 .
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BGL’s Chicha Muffler is a participatory installation that first took place in 2009,
in front of the Fonderie Darling. To create the structure for this installation,
the artists Jasmin Bilodeau (b. 1973), Sébastien Giguère (b. 1972), and Nicolas
Laverdière (b. 1972) tipped over a car, emptied it of its entrails, and refashioned
the muffler as a hookah. While festive and convivial in appearance, this
gesture is not entirely innocent – in keeping with the spirit of BGL’s work in
general. Here, the trio dismantles and criticizes one of the most common
objects of the Global Village, the car. BGL circumvents the traditional use of
the vehicle in favour of inciting a collective experience that brings people
together and elicits conversations around the tradition of hookah smoking.
This intervention allows us to revisit our relationship with the other, and with
urban space, but also our relationship with this all-too familiar object, which
here has been redesigned toward a new use.
. 463 .
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BGL, Perdu dans la Nature, 1999. Found wood, 400 square feet.
Installation. http://www.bravobgl.ca/bgl_art_quebec.html.
. 464 .
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Perdu dans la Nature (1999) presents objects familiar to anyone who has
engaged with suburban spaces – an above ground pool and a convertible
Mercedes-Benz – which are entirely made of recycled barn wood. This pair of
objects juxtaposes the industrial product with craftwork. This installation takes
a scathing look at suburbia. One of BGL’s strategies for criticizing commodity
culture and conspicuous consumption is to present a dichotomy inherent in
the materiality of the work. Moreover, as the space created by the installation
includes objects similar to those found in so many identical suburban
spaces around the world, this work brings many viewers back to their own
experiences, and their own narration of these spaces. The latter reveals the
paradoxes of gentrification, such as the voyeurism and exhibitionist behaviour
of city dwellers who display their property as a symbol of material and financial
success, and of a comfortable and controlled life. Bilodeau explains: “Pense
juste au fait d’avoir un faux lac dans ta cours, entouré d’une pelouse régulière.
C’est un univers bizarre, à bien y penser, qui fait partie de nos préoccupations
depuis longtemps.”5
. 465 .
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Zeke Moores, Port-O-Potty, 2011.
Nickel-plated steel and cast aluminum, 7 x 46 x 46 in.
http://zekemoores.typepad.com/photos/work/moores_port-o-potty.html.
. 466 .
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At the very boundary between junk and sculpture, Moores’s Port-O-Potty (2011)
is an ambiguous object. Interested in found objects and the viewers’ reaction
to them, Moores creates sculptures that resemble everyday items, diverting
them from their original function. Overlooked in the urban industrial landscape,
here the ubiquitous Port-O-Potty is given status as an artwork, hijacking our
perception and interpretation of the object. Walking in Duchamp’s footsteps,
Moores celebrates objects that are commonly ignored and considered to be
ugly. Port-O-Potty is a perfect reproduction of a plastic piece of architecture,
and is therefore mimetic in its form, but not its materiality. Indeed, the vulgar
sanitary toilet is elevated and beautified thanks to its shiny new exterior made
of nickel-plated steel and cast aluminum. With this simple strategy, the artist
reveals the subtle hierarchical system of everyday objects.
Zeke Moores, Dumpster, 2010.
Fabricated & cast bronze, 84 x 54 x 38 in.
http://zekemoores.typepad.com/photos/work/dumpster_1.html.
. 467 .
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Dumpster (2010) interprets the vulgar form of a waste receptacle using the
shiny golden material of bronze, one of the noblest of materials. By making
this mundane object opulent, Moores gives it importance, relevance, and aura.
His strategy, perhaps modernist, relies on highly glamorous formalism; this is
precisely how he succeeds at offering a new reading of the object for the tired
and literate eyes of his viewers. The artist makes us see the unseen – or rather,
the overlooked – and reveals the treasures our industrial, contemporary world
has to offer. Blurring the line between beautiful and ugly, noble and lowly,
ordinary and extraordinary, Dumpster suggests the existence of an art of the
commonplace.
Zeke Moores, Barriers, 2009.
Cast aluminum, dimensions variable.
http://zekemoores.typepad.com/photos/work/barrier.html.
. 468 .
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With Barriers (2009), Moores transforms the materiality, weight, and perception
of a wooden barrier - an object often seen in urban and rural spaces. Studying
the migration of objects in our globalized world, this piece brings into
question the aesthetics of mass-produced industrial objects and commodities.
Furthermore, Barriers brings to light overconsumption and its consequences.
Once objects such as these barriers have served their purpose, they are often
discarded, and they then join an accumulating mass of waste - one of the
results of globalization and unsustainable design. Moores reappropriates these
objects, diverts them from their initial function to emphasize their inherent,
subtle beauty, and to heighten our awareness of them and their importance
in the construction of spaces.
The works of BGL and Zeke Moores play – not without humour – with the limits
of art by using everyday objects to spark détournement. Their works highlight
our relation with urban, industrial spaces, and makes us more conscious of the
objects that construct them.
Notes
1
Détournement has no real English translation, but the closest similar
term would perhaps be rerouting or hijacking.
2 The Letterist International was a Paris-based collective of radical
artists, created and lead by Guy Debord, while the Situationist
International was an international organization of Marxist social
revolutionaries composed of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and
political theorists.
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3 John Rennie Short and Yeong-Hyun Kim, “Going Global,” in
Globalization and the City (New York: Addison Wesley Longman,
1999), 3.
4 Michel de Certeau, “Chapter IX: Spatial Stories,” in The Practice of
Everyday Life, trans. Steven F. Rendall (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988), 117.
5 Translation: “Just think about having a fake lake in you backyard,
surrounded by a well-mowed lawn. This is a bizarre universe, come
to think of it, and this has been one of our preoccupations for a
while.”
Bibliography
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven
F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Frieden, Jeffry A. Global Capitalism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007.
Rennie Short, John and Yeong-Hyun Kim. Globalization and the City.
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.
. 470 .
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Green! Green! Green!
How Banal!
Pamel a Mackenzie
***
The contemporary environmental movement has become symbolically
linked with the adjective “green.” This word is used in many domains to refer
to environmentally conscientious activities. Sustainable practices, recycled
materials, locally grown and produced goods, preservation and conservation
of all kinds: these are “green” things. In general, when we think of nature, we
think “green.” This exhibition will explore the use, prevalence, and associations
of this term, and furthermore this colour, and ultimately speculate that we
have been “green-washed.” The vague application and over-use of “green” in
marketing and production makes it a nearly meaningless statement, politically
speaking, and a potentially insidious tool to lure consumers.
How could the increasing presence of green be harmful? Most conspicuously,
it may have the negative outcome of placating concerned individuals through
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green purchasing. Liberal consumers who are increasingly aware of their
environmental impact may be susceptible to supporting green marketing
strategies.1 Given the unregulated nature of many buzzwords associated with
seemingly eco-friendly products, the effects that buying green actually have
are uncertain, and the proliferation of green marketing makes it difficult to be
a discerning shopper.2 Aside from basic quandaries about buying either local
or organic tomatoes, for instance, it encourages the idea that a simple shift
in purchasing choices is a sufficient way to cope with serious environmental
issues. And worse, it encourages people to buy more stuff.3 I would argue,
that “greening” is an ambiguous activity and process which does not account
for the complex nature of the global ecosystem or economy.
The concept of “greening” as a reference to a cultural activity rather than just
a colour, entered common parlance with the “green revolution” of the late
1960s.4 However, this green movement was distinct from the current popular
use of the expression “going green.” It focused on agricultural development,
inspired by new scientific developments, which lead to high-yielding crops
and innovative pesticides. This large-scale farming industry claims to have
saved significant portions of the global population from starvation, though
this point has been debated.5 Of course, from today’s dominant point of view,
the use of pesticides is not in accord with being “green!” Here we are presented
with a serious ethical dilemma: if we consider that the use of pesticides has
been at least partially responsible for feeding many starving mouths, can
we damn their use, or call for a return to pesticide-free farming methods?
There is no easy answer to this question. Similarly, buying green should not
be taken as an easy solution to undesirable changes occurring in the global
environment, as many basic tenets of the green movement, and further how
. 472 .
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it has been co-opted by corporate entities, are potentially problematic. This
exhibition, featuring the work of Warren Quigley (Truro, 1954), Millie Chen,
and Mark Lewis (Hamilton, 1958) deliberates on the symbolic use of green in
relation to the environmental movement, and turns a critical eye towards our
own attitudes about nature and the impact we have on the global landscape.
Warren Quigley and Millie Chen, Greenroom, 2012.
Cast gel coated fibreglass, steel, light fixtures, 400 sq. ft. Kingston, Art in Public Places.
http://www.kingstonist.com/2012/05/15/art-in-public-places-greenroom/.
. 473 .
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This installation Greenroom (2012) by Warren Quigley in collaboration with
Millie Chen was originally designed for the Toronto Sculpture Garden – a small
park in the downtown area of an urban centre – in 1988.6 In the documentation
shown above, it has been reinstalled in Kingston on a vacant construction
lot. It features a living room set-up whose tones have been chosen from
the “Field Guide to Naturalizing Greens,” which is a satirical colour system
designed by the artists. The penetrating greens used to decorate this living
space, placed in a public location, seem strange and unnatural. The artists’ use
of green is itself a deliberate commentary on the process of “greening,” which
Quigley describes as “pseudo-ecological.”7 Here, artificial shades of green are
used in an attempt to make objects seem more lifelike or naturalized, but
this ultimately results in something of a farce. These domestic objects make
only distorted reference to anything natural. Green serves another function
in this work: psychologically, green has a calming effect. This color and the
comfortable arrangement of the furniture encourage visitors to settle into
this artificial environment and not worry too much about the implications.
However, when the work was installed in Kingston, the furniture was beyond
reach, forever removed from the possibility of taking real solace in its calming
embrace.
. 474 .
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Warren Quigley, Changing the Landscape, 1991.
Mid-sized automobile, hemlock spruce, blue Colorado spruce, little champion globe cedar,
little giant globe cedar, ostrich fern, silver lace vine, English ivy, Boston ivy, goutweed,
cutleaf stephanandra, purpleleaf sand cherry, meadow-in-a-can, 1100 sq. ft.
Toronto, Harbourfront Artists’ Gardens.
http://warrenquigley.com/projects.html.
. 475 .
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Quigley’s earlier piece Changing the Landscape (1991) – which shows nature’s
effect on an old, discarded car – gives us a glimpse into the dreams of
many deep-ecologists. Deep-ecology, a movement begun in the 1970s, has
contributed a great deal to the contemporary discourse on ecology and
environmentalism. The main philosophical position of this movement is that
the natural world and natural diversity are things that should be treated as
good in themselves.8 It treats humanity as something of a cancerous growth
that has infected the planet, and advocates for a severe reduction in the human
population - down to as low as 100 million. With this ideal of the reduction of
human presence and technology in mind, Quigley’s work seems to be a smallscale embodiment of the intended outcome of a successful green campaign
from the perspective of the deep-ecologist.
The title Changing the Landscape is a reference to an old car commercial that
ominously depicted a landscape of rolling hills increasingly taken over by cars.
It is not clear if the inversion Quigley depicts here, from the domination of the
man made to the domination of the natural, should be interpreted as utopian
or dystopian, but surely is meant to envision the potential for the assimilation
of the natural and the man-made and the triumph of greenery.
. 476 .
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Mark Lewis, Roger Larry, Mad Man and the Tree, 2012. 1:58 min., video.
http://www.marklewisstudio.com/films2/mad_man_and_the_tree.htm.
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In his serene video installations, Lewis also brings nature into the gallery with a
degree of artificiality that is easily overlooked. Lewis’s videos often focus on the
natural landscape, and several works specifically revisit the type of picturesque
Canadian landscape that inspired the likes of the Group of Seven. The video
Mad Man and the Tree (2012) by Lewis and Roger Larry shows short and idyllic
representations of a pristine natural environment. The images above are three
stills from this work, which is a slow moving and contemplative video showing
a sublimely lit wooded space navigated by an old man in modern clothes. The
presence of this figure contrasts with the otherwise seemingly untouched
forested area. This work presents the natural environment as quiet, beautiful,
and green, but then leaves the viewer ill at ease when at the end of the video
all that remains is a dissolving puff of smoke in the place where the man once
stood.
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Mark Lewis, Roger Larry, Volcano Tree, 2012. 1:46 min., video.
http://www.marklewisstudio.com/films2/volcano_tree_3.htm.
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Lewis and Larry’s Volcano Tree (2012), from the same series as Mad Man and
the Tree, suggests a similarly uneasy relationship between the human and
the natural landscape. In this work an old tree stump emits large quantities
of smoke, which disrupts the otherwise sublime vision of the unspoilt land.
Erupting from beneath the ochre-coloured forest floor, an unknown source
of haze unsettles any expectations for harmonious natural order, leaving the
viewer to question their preconceptions of balance that governs the world
“out there.” The volcano may call to mind the earth’s prehistoric condition,
when the cracking of the planet’s crust triggered massive geological shifts,
and molten rock formed the land on which our forested areas are now rooted.
Although Northern Canada’s quiet forests appear to be a calm, green façade
today, this is just a brief moment which will eventually succumb once more to
the tumultuous churning of geological time.
Our association of green with nature means that objects that are meant to
deal with or signify nature are themselves often coloured green, making
them easier to connect with our preconceptions of the natural. These green
objects are purchased in an attempt to bring us closer to nature - regardless
of their methods of production or future impact on the chlorophyll-coloured
plant life that inspire their symbolic presence. The green movement further
motivates this consumerism, and this movement’s aims are distorted by clever
marketing campaigns that encourage buyers to replace all their inefficient
appliances with greener ones.
Ironically, through the now-common obsession with green products and their
suggestion of closeness to nature, we may succeed in the greening of the
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Economy | économie
planet in an unintended way, through the massive production of disposable
green products that go on to fill our landscapes as garbage.
Notes
1 Joseph B. White, “Do Green Products Turn Off Conservative
Customers?” The Wall Street Journal (April 2013).
2 Michael Jay Polonsky, “An Introduction to Green Marketing,”
Electronic Green Journal 1, no. 2 (1994): 4.
3 Alex Williams, “Buying into the Green Movement,” The New York
Times (July 1, 2007).
4 For a critical historical overview of this movement, see Nick
Cullather’s The Hungry World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2010).
5 Keith Griffin, The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on the
Green Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).
6 Millie Chen and Warren Quigley, “Artists’ Statement,” Toronto
Sculpture Garden, 1988. Accessed December 21, 2013, http://www.
torontosculpturegarden.com/MillieChen.htm
7 Warren Quigley, “Projects,” accessed December 21, 2013 http://
warrenquigley.com/projects.html.
8 For more information of the Deep Ecology movement, see
http://www.deepecology.org/.
. 481 .
Economy | économie
Bibliography
Cullather, Nick. The Hungry World. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2010.
Chen, Mille. and Warren Quigley. “Artists’ Statement,” Toronto
Sculpture Garden, 1988. Accessed December 21, 2013,
http://www.torontosculpturegarden.com/MillieChen.htm
Griffin, Keith. The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on
the Green Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Polonsky, Michael Jay. “An Introduction to Green Marketing.”
Electronic Green Journal 1, no. 2, (1994). Accessed December 21, 2013.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/49n325b7#page-4.
Quigley, Warren. “Projects.” Accessed December 21, 2013.
http://warrenquigley.com/projects.html.
White, Joseph B. “Do Green Products Turn Off Conservative
Customers?” The Wall Street Journal, April 2013.
Accessed December 21, 2013.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/04/30/do-greenproducts-turn-off-conservative-customers/.
Williams, Alex. “Buying into the Green Movement.” The New York
Times. July 1, 2007. Accessed December 21, 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.
html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.
Wilson, Stephen. Art + Science Now. New York: Thames and Hudson,
2010.
. 482 .
Economy | économie
Infinite Pleasure and
Its Discontents:
The Visceral Pattern
Installations of Jennifer
Angus and Penelope Stewart
Barbar a Wisnoski
***
Visual pleasure is a universally pursued element of human life. It is difficult to
imagine a culture whose material production does not demonstrate a desire
to create and enjoy beauty. Attention to colour, form, and decorative pattern
in objects of daily use is found across cultures1 in spite of a proclivity toward
an ‘anti-decorative’ rhetoric in certain Euro-American art historical periods and
theological traditions.2
In the visual sense of the term, pattern refers to an all-over repetitive design.
Often showing geometrical or stylized depictions of flora and fauna, pattern
is commonly seen on flat surfaces – for example, in textiles and wallpaper or,
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in its most exalted form, in the intricately complex stone mosaics of Islamic
architectural interiors. Repeat patterns in the surface designs of Islamic
mosques suggest the infinite,3 an abstract space conducive to transcendent
spiritual contemplation where individual worshippers are freed from the
messy concerns of real life and the material world. More broadly, pattern refers
to a sense of regularity – both in nature and in the social structures that shape
our everyday behaviour. It is the homogenizing power of pattern to organize
natural and cultural phenomena that cognitively underlies our understanding
of ourselves in the world.
This exhibition focuses on complex encounters with pattern in the sensuously
charged wall installations of Jennifer Angus (b. 1961, Edmonton, Alberta) and
Penelope Stewart (born Montreal, Quebec). Angus’s large-scale repeat designs
made with insects and Stewart’s beeswax-tiled spaces link the individual to the
group by leading our thoughts to the delicate relationship between human
behaviour and the global environment. Natural abundance – the condition
where nature gives more than we can take – implies superfluity, excess, and
the beauty of exuberance that the plant and animal world bestows on us.
Biodiversity, or ecological abundance, is a source of health and pleasure. By
adopting a maximalist aesthetic strategy, Angus and Stewart reveal how
pattern – and its deviations and excesses – acts as a metaphor for the tension
between a human desire for abundance, and a global need for balance.
. 484 .
Economy | économie
Jennifer Angus, A Terrible Beauty: To Have and to Hold, 2007.
Approximately 14,000 insects, hand-printed wallpaper, four calling card trays, three two-drawer curio
boxes, one glass case, three bell jars, one Victorian-style dollhouse, three antique tables, one antique
pedestal, four antique columns, eighty-six framed digital prints.
http://www.jenniferangus.com/Exhibitions/2007_exhibits/2007.htm.
In the immersive installation A Terrible Beauty: To Have and to Hold (2007) the
visitor experiences a domestic space saturated with colour, pattern, and
detail. Mimicking the décor of an excessively cluttered Victorian-era salon,
the densely patterned walls offer a visual manifestation of a beautiful world
of order and balance. The wallpaper appears perfectly decorous at a distance
but, once viewed more closely, reveals its surprising contents: thousands of
desiccated insects pinned to the walls in repeat pattern. An encounter with
this feat of unfettered accumulation and obsessive organization may induce
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Economy | économie
a sense of fascination mixed with repugnance. Insects don’t belong in the
living room. This juxtaposition of human and insect worlds creates a feeling
of unease or disgust, which Martha Nussbaum describes as a “shrinking from
contamination associated with a deep human desire to be non-animal.5 An
enthralling dissonance of bewildered pleasure and instinctive fear is invoked at
the sheer quantity of motionless dead insects, however beautifully contained,
classified, and controlled they may be.
Jennifer Angus, Diary of a Mad Scientist and Obsessive Insect Collector, 2010.
Installation detail.
http://www.jenniferangus.com/Exhibitions/2010_exhibits/2010.htm#Diary.
. 486 .
Economy | économie
In this installation view of Diary of a Mad Scientist and Obsessive Insect Collector
(2010) we see the natural phenomenon of variation within pattern. Subtly
coloured, gossamer insect wings form circles, while large, opaque insect
bodies dot their circumference at regular intervals. This homogeneous
background is punctuated by a precisely formed circular grouping of single
species, placed randomly throughout the wall pattern, which in turn act as
borders for circular wooden frames containing insect specimens under glass.
Tones of green and brown lend an earthy look to this highly contrived natural/
artificial environment. A meandering line of insects creates a pleasing border
that resembles wainscoting and divides the upper section of the wall from the
lower third of the wall, which is painted green.
Jennifer Angus, Diary of a Mad Scientist and Obsessive Insect Collector, 2010. Detail.
http://www.jenniferangus.com/Exhibitions/2010_exhibits/2010.htm#Diary.
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In the above image of Diary of a Mad Scientist and Obsessive Insect Collector,
insects are presented in a swarm, suggesting the collective biological
intelligence that causes creatures to gravitate to a target - as, for example, a
cloud of flies moving in en masse to rotting flesh or other food source. On
the lower half of the wall, the same brown insects break the genteel pattern
of circles created by fellow members of their species. Does this indicate
the beginnings of an uncontrollable and pervasive bug infestation – an
apocalyptic scenario feared by some humans as the ultimate consequence
of global ecological irresponsibility – or do we gaze at this scene and imagine
that the insects are filing into order?
Jennifer Angus, Arranging Nature, 2013.
Insects, antique tables, bell jars.
http://www.jenniferangus.com/Exhibitions/2013_exhibits/2013.html.
. 488 .
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The language of pattern in Angus’s Arranging Nature (2013) similarly attempts
to tame natural phenomena, but here we see the artist choosing to present
a more friendly and frivolous motif reminiscent of lollipops or juvenile
depictions of flowers. Through this pattern, perhaps Angus is attempting
to portray insects in the most non-threatening and appealing light possible,
as if to underline just how harmless and beautiful they are. Her objective
is, as she calls it, a “rehabilitation of the image of insects”6 that will bring to
light their role in human culture. With this work, Angus encourages us to
think about our own behaviour and its effect on the natural environment.
As she explains: “exhibiting the creatures is the first step towards garnering
knowledge and respect for their species.”7 Because of its brightly coloured
patterns, some viewers may experience a happy, optimistic feeling when
viewing this installation. Such a response would counteract any aversion to
insects, and encourage a sympathetic response to their plight.
Like Angus’s exotic insects, the habitats of bees, which provide the raw
material for Stewart’s installations, are fragile and increasingly endangered.
Insects play many crucial roles in the ecosystem, including wildlife nutrition,
recycling of biological material, topsoil aeration, and pollination. The lifecycle
of flowering plant species, without which humans would perish, depends on
insects - particularly bees.
Stewart makes a case for ecological consciousness through her architectural
installations by inviting us into a sensual world where we indulge our bodily
senses of smell and touch as much as sight. When visitors approach her
installations, their bodies come into contact with a subtle and distinctly sweet
scent as their field of vision is filled by thousands of bas-relief tiles made of
beeswax, which line the walls from floor to ceiling.
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Economy | économie
Penelope Stewart, Apian Screen, 2010.
Approximately 15,000 beeswax tiles. Installation view.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/apian-screen/.
Moulded beeswax tiles line the walls of Stewart’s Apian Screen (2010), offering
a glowing counterpoint to the cool, smooth white marble of the gallery floor
and columns. The rational formality of these architectural details contrasts
with the undulating rhythm of Stewart’s beeswax squares, which is created
by their naturally varying colour - a phenomenon connected to the nectar
of the particular flower that nourished the bees. These surfaces suggest an
intense closeness; their dense, enveloping quality is highlighted by the light
streaming in from outside through the space’s expansive windows. The grand,
airy ambience evoked by this architecture could not be further from the busy,
claustrophobic interior of a beehive.
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Economy | économie
Penelope Stewart, Apian Screen, 2010. Approximately 15,000 beeswax tiles. Detail.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/apian-screen/.
In this detail of the tiles in Apian Screen, we see a bas-relief design that recalls
the aesthetic of maps and urban plans developed by Le Corbusier and other
Modernist architects – and these images were in turn inspired by the beehive
as a metaphor for an ideal society. Bees are organized, efficient and work
together diligently for a common goal – all desirable qualities for a utopian
social structure. Stewart’s tidy wall patterns speak of human organization and
purpose, while the honey-like scent inherent in the piece evokes the pure
pleasure and sustenance that the labour of bees has provided humans for
thousands of years. The combination of geometric and naturalistic shapes
and curves found in both the architectural details and the beeswax designs
suggests a symbiotic harmony of human and creaturely intentions.
. 491 .
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Penelope Stewart, Parois, 2007. Approximately 4,000 beeswax tiles.
http://penelopestewart.ca/category/parois/.
. 492 .
Economy | économie
Stewart’s Parois (2007) also adorns walls with beeswax panels, but in this case
the artist has left the walls surrounding the alcove window bare, rendering it a
conspicuous and contrasting architectural element. The artist’s intervention in
this small room, which she has entirely covered with beeswax tiles, recalls the
interior of a beehive. The visitor may feel an overwhelming sense of uneasiness
or claustrophobia in this unusual space since the only apparent escape routes
are the window and the gallery entrance.
Both Angus and Stewart use abundance as a rhetorical device. In Angus’s
accumulations we are confronted by a pictorial swarm of insects, which
invites us to better appreciate their significance beyond our usual aversion to
their presence in domestic space. In Stewart’s work we confront a sensorially
rich installation, which raises awareness of the environmental plight of bees.
The emotional element in these artworks is a direct and persuasive appeal
to our senses and our common sense. Through their aesthetic engagement
with insects, Angus and Stewart situate humans in relationship with the
patterns of the global ecosystem. Through our bodily experience of these
fabricated natural environments we are reminded of our common, interrelated
trajectories.
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Notes
1 The English word “ornament” derives from the Latin ornere,
meaning “to fit out,” or “to complete,” suggesting that ornament
satisfies a lack. The etymology of “decoration” refers to “proper” or
“appropriate,” and similarly suggests that decorative practices fulfill a
fundamental need.
2 David Brett, Rethinking Decoration: Pleasure & Ideology in the Visual Arts
(New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 184.
3 Ibid., 138.
4 Pattern has the virtue of being a neat, closed system: for example,
mathematical theory inherent in the structure of surface pattern
states that, although there are an infinite number of possible motifs
to use in a two-dimensional repeat pattern, there are only seventeen
ways in which the motif can be repeated to build up different
pattern types, or lattices (and only 230 possible ways in three
dimensions). This system of repeat pattern is also found in nature, for
example in the structure of crystals.
5 Martha Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame and the Law
(Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 74.
6 Jennifer Angus, “Artist’s Statement,” North Dakota Museum of Art,
accessed November 11, 2013, http://www.ndmoa.com/images/
user/698/docs/Angus%20extended%20statement.pdf.
7 Betty Ann Jordan, “Jennifer Angus: Eupholus Bennetti,” Surface
Design Journal (Fall 2002): 51.
. 494 .
Economy | économie
Bibliography
Angus, Jennifer. “Artist’s Statement.” North Dakota Museum of Art.
Accessed November 11, 2013. http://www.ndmoa.com/images/
user/698/docs/Angus%20extended%20statement.pdf.
Brett, David. Rethinking Decoration: Pleasure & Ideology in the Visual
Arts. New York, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Jordan, Betty Ann. “Jennifer Angus: Eupholus Bennetti.” Surface
Design Journal 27, no. 1 (2002): 50-51.
Nussbaum, Martha. Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the
Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
. 495 .
Materialit y | Matérialité
Materialities
Matérialité
Globalization, Fear and Insecurity:
Adrienne Johnson
À l’origine, la matérialité: la mondialisation
culturelle à travers les projets de Philippe
Malouin et Jerszy Seymour
Marie-Eve Sévigny
Savoir (-) tout petit : Les miniatures de
Karine Giboulo et Shary Boyle
Lucile Pages
Relic Creation:The Spiritual Art
of Tim Whitenand Sylvia Safdie
Eleanor Dumouchel
Shary Boyle and Daniel Barrow:
Fantasies Projected
Mojeanne Behzadi
Material Hybridity, Global Fantasy:
Envisioning New Art Forms by Dipna
Horra and Jinny Yu
Victoria Nolte
Death, Rebirth, and New Life:
The Ascension of the Plastisphere
Pamela Mackenzie
. 496 .
À l’origine, la matérialité:
La mondialisation culturelle
à travers les projets de
Philippe Malouin
et Jerszy Seymour
Marie- Eve Sévigny
***
Comme démontré à maintes reprises, avec la mondialisation,1 les limites, en
générale, sont toujours plus poreuses et indéfinies entre les choses et les
identités. À ce sujet, l’impact de la dimension culturelle de la mondialisation
sur les disciplines créatives est évidemment indéniable. Les concepts de
frontière, de limite et de seuil sont au centre de la problématique créative
dans la mesure où la différenciation disciplinaire s’exprime à travers des limites
. 497 .
et des frontières plus ou moins claires, visibles, matérielles, étanches. Quelles
sont les limites d’une discipline créative tel que le design et qui en décide?
Au niveau du design, la mondialisation culturelle influence la façon dont les
objets et les produits sont compris et perçus par le consommateur, mais aussi
la façon dont ils seront conçus. Conséquemment, il est devenu essentiel pour
les designers de prendre en compte ce changement de paradigme culturel.
Aussi, un des aspects potentiellement intéressant de l’étude du design
sous l’influence de la mondialisation est l’élément déclencheur d’un projet.
L’inspiration en design comme en art peut provenir de multiples sources et
l’accès à l’information amené par la mondialisation augmente indéniablement
le bassin de sources d’inspiration. La qualité d’un projet est le fruit de
beaucoup de choses, en particulier lorsque des aspects tels que le réseautage
et l’intégration de la culture dans un système global d’échange sont utilisés
comme outils, ce qui ouvre un large champ à de nouveaux concepts et
stratégies de conception.
En ce sens, il devient intéressant d’étudier la matérialité en design comme
approche créative dans le cadre de la mondialisation culturelle. Amorcer le
travail de création sous le thème de la matérialité ou matériau permet une
approche ouverte, flexible et sensible: ouverte sur les autres, flexible dans son
approche et sensible à de nouvelles problématiques. Celle-ci, en permettant
notamment de ne pas se limiter au contexte disciplinaire ou au contexte
identitaire, aide à transcender les limites et invite à un travail interdisciplinaire
et transculturel. C’est, en quelque sorte, un dépistage d’éléments de preuve
. 498 .
sur le thème de la matérialité avec le point de vue analytique et créatif d’un
designer pour découvrir de nouveaux potentiels de développement et des
nouvelles narrations d’idées.
Aussi, l’analyse de la mondialisation culturelle à travers une étude de la
matérialité comme approche créative, peut être observée dans le travail de
deux designer/artistes: Philippe Malouin et Jerszy Seymour. Ces créateurs, que
l’on pourrait décrire comme un quart designers, un quart artistes, un quart
artisans et un quart chercheurs, en mettant la recherche matérielle au premier
plan, dépassent les frontières des disciplines et des identités et font donc un
travail qui semble découler directement de la mondialisation.
. 499 .
Philippe Malouin, Extrusion, 2012.
Bols, tabouret, plateau élevé et table de la série (5 objects en éd. limitée de 12),
érable et chêne, grand bol, 45cm d x 10cm h; petit bol, 30cm d x 8cm h; tabouret,
30cm d x 44cm h; table, 40cm d x 30cm h; haut plateau, 25 cm d x 90 cm h,
commission Carwan, produit au Liban.
http://www.carwangallery.com/details.php?id=9.
. 500 .
La série d’objets Extrusion (2012), par Philippe Malouin, se décline en cinq
pièces toutes conçues selon les mêmes techniques artisanales. On y retrouve
deux types de bols, un tabouret, une table d’appoint et un plateau élevé. Ce
qui semble à première vue une seule pièce, un bloc massif sans nuance, révèle
rapidement des détails tout en contraste avec la première impression. Des
motifs complexes s’offrent au regard et leur répétition se transforme pour créer
une illusion de profondeur. Ces motifs tridimensionnels prennent vie grâce à
l’utilisation de différents types de bois. Aussi, ces blocs aux détails élaborés
laissent deviner un travail expert de précision et un savoir-faire maitrisé.
Perspective contemporaine sur l’artisanat du Moyen-Orient,2 l’inspiration de
ce projet est née durant une visite à Beirut au Liban en 2011 où Malouin a eu
la chance de découvrir différents jalons de la culture libanaise. Parmi ceuxci, ce sont les ateliers locaux d’artisans et manufacturiers de Beirut qui ont
retenu l’attention du créateur. Aussi, un type de métier qui l’a particulièrement
intéressé, est une technique d’incrustation de bois appelée la marquèterie
qui permet aux artisans de fabriquer des boîtes en bois incrusté aux motifs
étonnants. Le designer remarqua que ces incrustations sont utilisées à des
fins spécifiquement décoratives et ne recouvrent toujours que l’extérieur des
boîtes.
. 501 .
MATERIALIT Y | MATÉRIALITÉ
Brièvement, la technique consiste à découper en très fines baguettes de
différentes essences et couleurs de bois que l’on associe par collage pour
former un motif (voir image 1). Tous les éléments sont collés ensemble pour
être ensuite découpés en plaques très fines (voir images 2 et 3). Ces plaques
sont aplanies pour obtenir de minces feuilles de bois qui sont ensuite
appliquées sur les surfaces à décorer.
Les motifs géométriques qui en ressortent sont absolument hypnotisants et
magnifiques dans leur complexité, mais ce qui a réellement inspiré Malouin
sont les énormes ‘wood-sushi’ blocs avant qu’ils soient découpés. À cet
. 502 .
intérêt pour une étape précise de la production s’est ajouté son souhait de
travailler avec différents artisans pour combiner les techniques qui allaient
mener au produit final. Il ajouta donc à sa recherche l’apprentissage du travail
du tourneur et l’idée finale prit forme. L’artisan de marquèterie devait créer
un rondin de bois aux motifs élaborés qu’il allait ensuite donner au tourneur,
qui lui, à l’aide de son tour, allait le transformer en objet à la forme précise et
unique (voir image 4).3 Les deux techniques explorées par Malouin avec les
artisans sont des techniques ancestrales du Moyen-Orient datant d’environ
1200 av. J.-C.4
Pour pouvoir produire une variation d’un archétype ou d’une ancienne
technique, Malouin a du sortir d’un terrain connu, et reconnaitre le savoirfaire et les connaissances d’un autre. Il a pu ensuite décortiquer ces nouvelles
données et construire à partir de celles-ci avec l’aide de l’artisan. Le design
de Malouin apporte avec ce projet une simplification innovante et une
expérimentation dans le processus moyen-oriental de travail du bois, tout en
exposant cet ancien savoir-faire au public. 5
. 503 .
Philippe Malouin, Yachiyo, 2011.
Tapis (édition limitée de un exemplaire), acier galvanisé, 180 cm x 135 cm x 1cm, produit à Londres.
. 504 .
À la forme d’un prisme isométrique rectangulaire, Yachiyo (2011) est un tapis
ou une tapisserie à l’allure plutôt singulière. Cette membrane à l’apparence
stable, structurelle, mais flexible est assez semblable à un tapis touffeté à la
main. Cependant, sa principale qualité, celle qui la différencie de d’autres tapis,
est qu’elle est faite de métal. En 2011, Malouin et son équipe ont réalisé de
nombreuses recherches formelles sur ce matériau et ce tapis métallique en
est le résultat.6 Yachiyo a été construit en utilisant une forme très complexe de
cottes de mailles.
. 505 .
Après avoir étudié différents types de cottes de mailles, allant des techniques
traditionnelles de fabrication médiévales à des modèles plus contemporains
faits à la machine, il a choisi la très ancienne cotte de maille japonaise. Fidèle
à la technique traditionnelle, le produit final est entièrement fait à la main à
partir de fil d’acier galvanisé, c’est-à-dire le même type de fil qui est utilisé
pour faire des clôtures d’enclos pour animaux dans les élevages. Pour ce faire,
le fil est relié à l’aide d’une tige métallique à une perceuse électrique dans un
gabarit en ossature de bois et est enroulé en une bobine serrée. Cette bobine
est ensuite retirée de la tige en métal et coupée à la main en petits anneaux
(voir image 1). Ceux-ci sont rivetés ensemble un par un pour former le motif
de cotte de mailles japonaise (voir image 2), qui se compose de deux anneaux
centraux avec douze anneaux perpendiculaires reliés autour. Ce processus est
minutieusement répété pour créer le tapis7 (voir image 3). Chacune des trois
couleurs visibles sur le tapis est un revêtement métallique qui a été installé sur
les trois parties distinctes par galvanoplastie8 avant qu’elles soient assemblées
entre elles par des anneaux de liaison.
Selon Malouin, plusieurs types d’objets ou de meubles auraient pu être
fabriqués en utilisant cette technique. Cependant, il a choisi de créer
un tapis afin que l’attention se concentre uniquement sur l’objet 2D luimême et que la technique japonaise d’artisanat puisse être mieux admirée.
Pratiquement indestructible, c’est un objet qui a été pensé pour durer sur
plusieurs générations et être transmis, tout comme la technique de cotte de
maille japonaise. Impossible à produire à la machine, le produit final implique
3000 heures de travail manuel et plus de 3000 mètres d’acier galvanisé.9
. 506 .
Yachiyo, le nom de l’objet, a été choisi en reconnaissance du travail d’une
stagiaire nommée Yachiyo Kawana qui a participé au projet dès le début. Le
nom est également très approprié, car, comme la méthode d’assemblage de
la cotte de maille, Yachiyo est japonaise.
Jerszy Seymour, New Order, 2007.
Polypropylène, acier, bois, élastique, mousse de polyuréthane,
dimensions inconnues, commission Vitra Design Museum, produit à Berlin.
http://www.vitra.com/en-us/magazine/details/new-order-jerszy-seymour.
. 507 .
Le projet New Order (2007) de Jerszy Seymour est un projet expérimental sur
la thématique de la chaise, objet de design par excellence. Le New Order est
une notion clef dans la philosophie de Seymour qui réfère au retour au degré
zéro du design; le début de tout. C’est une approche à partir de laquelle un
nouveau langage peut être créé. Grâce à celui-ci, le créateur peut réexaminer
matériaux et formes, ainsi que la façon dont l’industrie affecte la valeur des
choses.10
Le noyau du projet est la chaise de jardin dont la structure est défaite puis
reconfigurée pour en repenser la dynamique. Coupée aux accoudoirs,
raccordée avec un élastique à vélo, rembourrée sur les bras, à l’appui-tête et au
siège avec de la mousse de polyuréthane et renforcée avec des barres d’acier,
la chaise semble changer de nature. Elle peut maintenant bouger d’avant à
arrière et offre apparemment un confort qui se rapproche de la chaise de
bureau.
Les mécaniques physiques de tension et d’équilibre qui sont souvent invisibles
dans la production actuelle de mobilier sont rendues visibles à nouveau par le
traitement de Seymour. Avec cette mise à nu exagérée, on peut voir comment
la chaise fonctionne et elle devient en quelque sorte une pièce de mobilier
constructiviste.
Contrastant en texture et en couleur avec le reste de la chaise, la mousse de
polyuréthane bleue est aussi utilisée pour exposer ce qui est normalement
caché. Ce matériau, malgré qu’il soit le plus utilisé de l’industrie du mobilier, demeure souvent le moins visible.11 Il est particulièrement utilisé pour
les assises des sièges, pour l’isolation des bâtiments ou dans le secteur de
. 508 .
l’électroménager. Matériau de prédilection de Seymour,12 la mousse de polyuréthane reprend une place de centrale dans le design de la chaise.
Dans ce projet, le choix des matériaux simples et pauvres apposés à la
célèbrement ordinaire chaise de jardin en plastique, est une façon visible et
presque volontairement amateur de revitaliser le design en éliminant son
apparence bourgeoisement commerciale, tout en permettant à la beauté de
matières brutes de refaire surface. Elle représente une critique matérielle sur
les effets immatériels de la mondialisation.
Jerszy Seymour, Scum Light, 2003.
Mousse de polyuréthane, dimensions inconnues, produit à Berlin.
http://www.designkritik.dk/item-kw3309/.
. 509 .
Scum Light (2003), par Jerszy Seymour, est une lampe qui se veut détachée
de toute connotation commerciale et qui a été créée dans le but d’utiliser
un matériau spécifique dans un contexte de design ouvert et flexible, afin
de réinterpréter son utilisation. Ce matériau est la mousse de polyuréthane
auquel on réfère par le mot scum qu’on trouve dans le titre. Utilisé à maintes
reprises dans les projets de Seymour, le scum est devenu en quelque sorte sa
marque de commerce. En l’employant, il fait non seulement fait référence au
matériau lui-même, mais aussi à sa stratégie globale de design,13 le degré zéro
de design dont il a été question précédemment.
Le mot scum provident du latin scumma, qui veut dire, bulle, bouillonnement,
mousse. De nos jours et en anglais, le terme réfère à une couche de mousse
ou d’écume sale qui se forme sur le dessus d’un liquide. En langage courant,
cela réfère aussi à la version la plus minable ou inférieure de quelque chose.
La lampe aux couleurs vives presque criantes est recouverte de scum et
pensée pour être accrochée en hauteur. Comme une petite planète dans
un grand mobile du système solaire, la lampe semble disposée pour qu’on
prenne conscience de sa présence et qu’on la contourne pour l’observer. À
l’apparence brute comme de la lave en fusion, la pièce de mobilier donne
l’impression d’être toujours mouvante. Cette impression, certainement due
à la technique de fabrication très inégale de l’objet, permet à Seymour de
créer un nouveau langage visuel basé sur l’utilisation détournée d’un matériau
usuel.14 Utilisant le volcan comme une métaphore de la psyché humaine, avec
l’idée de libération des forces pulsionnelles inconscientes de l’identifiant sur
les forces de contrôle du moi et du surmoi, Jerszy Seymour considère notre
relation au monde construit, au monde naturel, à d’autres personnes et à nous. 510 .
mêmes, à travers la création de situations de la vie. Seymour crée des objets
qui questionnent et informent la substance même de l’existence humaine.
Concrètement, la conception d’une lampe est réalisée en pulvérisant, à
l’aide d’une machine spéciale, la mousse de polyuréthane sur un moule
hémisphérique. Ce processus implique une grande habileté, car la mousse
durcit rapidement et prend du volume durant le séchage.15
Avec ce projet, Seymour invite à la réflexion sur un matériau industriel courant
et souvent camouflé, le plastique, en l’utilisant comme un élément artisanal
exposé. 16 Welcome to Scum City nous rappelle de façon étonnante que les
matières plastiques possèdent d’étonnantes propriétés formelles. Il nous force
aussi à réfléchir sur les effets néfastes de la sur-utilisation du matériau le plus
populaire de l’industrie du design.
Notes
1 «L’intégration (au niveau national et régional) de l’économie, des
industries, des marchés, de la politique et des cultures dans un
système global d’échange, d’immigration et de communication
à travers le monde.» Martin Wolf, “Globalisation,” Financial
Times, accédé le 30 octobre, 2013, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/
s/0/12c74980-d1bf-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html#axzz2jF9nmnQN.
2 Ray Hu, “Salone Milan 2012: ‘Contemporary Perspectives in Middle
Eastern Crafts’ at Carwan Gallery,” Core77, accédé le 30 octobre 2013,
http://www.core77.com/blog/salone_milan/salone_milan_2012_
. 511 .
contemporary_perspectives_in_middle_eastern_crafts_at_
carwan_gallery_22282.asp.
3 “Philippe Malouin,” Philippe Malouin Design, accédé le 1 novembre
2013, http://www.philippemalouin.com.
4 “Extrusion Series,” Carwan Gallery, accédé le 29 octobre 2013,
5Ibid.
6 “Yachiyo Rug/Tapestry,” Philippe Malouin Design, accédé le 2
novembre 2013, http://www.philippemalouin.com/yachiyo.html.
7Ibid.
8 «Ensemble des procédés permettant de déposer, par électrolyse,
une couche d’un métal sur un support, métallique ou non. La
galvanoplastie est utilisée pour reproduire un objet (médaille,
statuette, matrice de disque phonographique, planche
typographique, etc.) par voie électrolytique. Elle est réalisée
dans un bain dont l’électrolyte est une solution du sel du métal
qui doit se déposer, l’anode étant soluble (de même nature
que le métal) ou insoluble.» Encyclopédie Larousse en ligne, s.v.
“Galvanoplastie,” accédé le 2 novembre 2013,
http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/galvanoplastie/54390.
9 “Philippe Malouin,” Philippe Malouin Design, accédé le 2 novembre
2013, http://www.philippemalouin.com.
10 “New Order: Design: Jerszy Seymour,” Vitra Design Museum,
. 512 .
accédé le 4 novembre 2013, http://www.vitra.com/en-us/magazine/
details/new-order-jerszy-seymour.
11Ibid.
12Ibid.
13Ibid.
14 Scum Light by Jerszy Seymour,” Dezeen Magazine,
accédé le 6 novembre 2013,
http://www.dezeen.com/2007/03/24/scum-light-by-jerszy-seymour/.
15Ibid.
16Ibid.
Bibliographie
Encyclopédie Larousse en ligne. s.v. “Galvanoplastie.” Accédé le 2
novembre 2013.
http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/galvanoplastie/54390.
Featherstone, Mike, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, eds. Global
Modernities. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 1995.
Hu, Ray. “Salone Milan 2012: ‘Contemporary Perspectives in Middle
Eastern Crafts’ at Carwan Gallery.” Core77. Accédé le 30 octobre 2013.
http://www.core77.com/blog/salone_milan/salone_milan_2012_
contemporary_perspectives_in_middle_eastern_crafts_at_carwan_
gallery_22282.asp.
“Jerszy Seymour: New Order Chair, 2007.” Kunstbetrieb Basel. Accédé le
. 513 .
5 novembre 2013.
http://www.kunstbetrieb.ch/?nav=2&lang=e&dirid=8.
Krzykowski, Matylda. “ITEM KW33|09,” Design Kritik. Accédé le 1
décembre 2013.
http://www.designkritik.dk/item-kw3309/.
“New Order: Design: Jerszy Seymour.” Vitra Design Museum. Accédé
le 4 novembre 2013. http://www.vitra.com/en-us/magazine/details/
new-order-jerszy-seymour.
“Philippe Malouin.” Philippe Malouin Design. Accédé le 1 novembre
2013. http://www.philippemalouin.com.
“Projects.” Jerszy Seymour Design Workshop. Accédé le 30 octobre
2013. http://www.jerszyseymour.com.
“Scum Light by Jerszy Seymour.” Dezeen Magazine. Accédé le 6
novembre 2013. http://www.dezeen.com/2007/03/24/scum-light-byjerszy-seymour/.
Wolf, Martin. “Globalisation.” Financial Times.
Accédé le 30 octobre 2013. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/
s/0/12c74980-d1bf-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html#axzz2jF9nmnQN.
. 514 .
Savoir (-) tout petit :
Les miniatures de Karine
Giboulo et Shary Boyle
Lucile Pages
***
Le petit est beau.1 Voilà pourquoi, à travers l’histoire de l’art de tout temps
et toute culture, le petit a fait sa place. Des petits médaillons peints en
Europe aux porcelaines chinoise en passant par les miniatures néerlandaises
en bois sculpté, l’histoire regorge d’exemples d’œuvres d’art miniature. Que
ce soit par la reproduction du monde en tout petit, ou par la manipulation
d’un petit monde,2 les Hommes ont toujours été, et continu d’être, fasciné
par la miniature. Au-delà de son pouvoir d’introspection, je crois que notre
fascination pour la miniature vient également de notre fascination pour le
savoir-faire des artistes miniaturistes. La miniature est souvent définie comme
pouvant tenir dans le creux de la main.3 Comment alors réaliser un objet aussi
petit avec une infinité de détails telle que l’œil ne peut le voir dans sa totalité?
. 515 .
Ce savoir-faire technique est précisément l’objet de cette exposition, qui
réunit deux artistes canadiennes, Karine Giboulo (née en 1980) et Shary Boyle
(née en 1972). Le savoir-faire technique, délaissé par les modernes au profit
d’un art en rupture avec la tradition, semble refaire surface depuis quelques
décennies. Un renouveau pour le “faire” manuel, les techniques artisanales
et traditionnelles, le décoratif et la matière se retrouve désormais dans la
pratique de nombre d’artistes, nationaux et internationaux.4 La matérialité
de l’œuvre redevient un élément majeur dans la signification de l’œuvre et
se dote souvent d’une réflexion critique en soit. C’est le cas des œuvres de
Karine Giboulo et Shary Boyle, deux artistes qui, sans avoir réellement d’affinité
thématique, se retrouvent dans leur approche technique du médium et
leur savoir-faire extraordinaire. La miniature est également centrale dans les
œuvres des deux artistes, dont l’attention portée aux détails est quasiment
obsessionnelle.
Le travail de Karine Giboulo est principalement orienté vers une critique
de la société de consommation et son impacte économique et social sur
les sociétés dites du Tiers Monde. Objets et personnages sont entièrement
fabriqués par l’artiste et huit heures sont nécessaires pour réaliser une figure.
L’ensemble des œuvres nous laisse donc blême face à tant d’heures de travail.
Shary Boyle est une artiste canadienne qui vit et travaille à Toronto. Sa
virtuosité technique, dans des médiums aussi variés que le dessin, la peinture,
la porcelaine et la mosaïque, et son langage symbolique original et personnel,
l’ont placé aux devants de la scène contemporaine nationale, une position
réaffirmée cette année (2013) par sa présence à la biennale de Venise sous le
drapeau canadien.
. 516 .
Karine Giboulo, Les mangeurs de Hamburgers, 2006.
Argile polymère, acrylique, plexiglas et matériaux divers, diamètre : 60cm.
www.karinegiboulo.com.
. 517 .
Bulles de Vie est le premier projet en trois dimensions de Karine Giboulo. Il
est composé de seize sphères de plexiglas suspendues à travers la salle
d’exposition contenant chacune une scène figurative et narrative. Leur aspect
fragile et précieux conditionne les spectateurs à une allure lente, comme si
le moindre mouvement brusque pouvait déranger cet univers silencieux et
paisible. Mais alors qu’on s’approche, la vérité éclate. Elle n’a rien de fragile ni
de beau, mais est plutôt cruelle et sans pitié.
Prenons Les mangeurs de hamburgers (2006). Au milieu d’un désert sableux est
dressé le panneau présentoir d’un restaurent McDonald. Alors qu’à l’arrière
du logo une tente en tissu précaire et une corde à linge tendu à un tronc
d’arbre sec sont les seuls éléments présents, une scène attire notre attention
sous le sable, à l’abri du soleil et de la sècheresse. Trois marmottes sont
assises autour d’une jolie table bleue, et mangent avidement leurs frites/
hamburgers directement sortis de leur célèbres boites rouges. La marmotte
est un personnage récurant dans le travail de Giboulo, et lui sert de modèle
pour représenter l’Homme occidental, insouciant et consommateur. Cette
illustration critique de la société se retrouve dans l’un des tableaux accrochés
aux jolis murs tapissés du petit intérieur, le célèbre Mangeurs de pommes de
terre (1885) de Vincent Van Gogh. Rappelant le temps où seul le travail de la
terre nourrissait une famille, l’œuvre est également un élément reliant les deux
espaces de la scène. En effet, de l’autre côté de la sphère, derrière la tente, une
femme noire agenouillée coupe du bois, son enfant sur le dos, totalement
isolée et oubliée par les personnages sous terre.
. 518 .
Un dessin préparatoire de l’artiste atteste des modifications apportées à la
composition. L’acronyme UNHCR sur la tente (référant au programme pour les
réfugiés développé par l’ONU, le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour
les Réfugiés) et une fenêtre avec vue (dans le petit intérieur) ont été retirés de
l’œuvre finale. Leur absence décontextualise la scène, la rendant plus étrange
et dérangeante.
Karine Giboulo, Vivre comme une marmotte, 2006.
Argile polymère, acrylique, plexiglas et matériaux divers, diamètre : 60cm.
. 519 .
Un effet semblable est à l’œuvre dans Vivre comme une marmotte (2006) de
la même série Bulles de Vie. Alors qu’un soldat fait face seul à un char d’assaut
dans un désert rocheux, des marmottes vivent sous terre, dans un espace
domestique chaleureux composé de deux pièces, une chambre à coucher
et un salon, complètement isolées de la réalité extérieure. Dans le salon, une
télévision diffuse les images de la scène qui se déroule dehors, rendant plus
évident encore le décalage entre les marmottes et les soldats. Il semblerait
que l’œuvre commente plus largement le décalage présent entre les multiples
réalités composant la scène internationale contemporaine.
. 520 .
Karine Giboulo, Les Ouvriers, 2007.
Argile polymère, acrylique, plexiglas et matériaux divers, 158 x 51 x 51 cm.
. 521 .
Karine Giboulo, Les Ouvriers, 2007.
Argile polymère, acrylique, plexiglas et matériaux divers. Détail.
. 522 .
Les Ouvriers (2007) est une des trois structures de la série Les Intérieurs, réalisée
par l’artiste en 2007. Elle est composée de trois structures verticales, semblable
à des immeubles d’une hauteur dépassant légèrement la taille humaine
moyenne, qui accueillent chacune un thème : Incident parlementaire, les
ouvriers et le Caucus. Notre œuvre est une usine sur trois étages. Au premier
étage se trouve un dortoir, une grande pièce dans laquelle quelques ouvriers
jouent aux cartes tandis que d’autres dorment déjà, alignés sur deux rangées
de lit menant jusqu’à une grande fenêtre dont l’épaisseur de la vitre ne
laisse filtré qu’une lumière artificielle. La présence d’un lavabo et de denrées
alimentaires présuppose qu’il s’agit ici de leur seul espace de vie personnelle.
Une échelle au centre guide directement vers le deuxième étage, accueillant
la salle de fabrication. Des dizaines d’ouvriers d’une uniformité désarmante
travaillent autour de machines à coudre et planches à découper pour préparer
des tissus rouges et des chapeaux. Trônant sur l’usine, un large terrain de
golf fait office de dernier étage. Un homme joue au golf tandis qu’un des
ouvriers lui amène ses clubs. Contrairement aux travailleurs, il porte une tenue
décontractée et porte le même chapeau que ceux fabriqués un étage plus
bas, nous laissant présumé qu’il s’agit ici du directeur. Une dernière scène,
cachée cette fois, montre un ouvrier abandonné, depuis longtemps si l’on en
juge par la longueur de sa barbe et de ses cheveux. À demi allongé sur des
tissus provenant de l’usine et posés à même le sol, il est entouré de livres
et de nourriture. Il s’agit peut-être ici d’un homme jugé inapte au travail, et
relégué au rang de sans-abri, exclu de ses collègues. Ou peut-être était-ce là
la conséquence d’une quelconque rébellion face au système? L’interprétation
et laissée libre aux spectateurs. Située au sous-sol, la scène n’est visible qu’aux
yeux avertis qui prennent le temps de contourner l’œuvre et d’en étudier ses
moindres détails.
. 523 .
Shary Boyle, Sans Titre, 2004.
Porcelaine, peinture à porcelaine et fil, 27 x 24 x 18 cm.
http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2008/06/02/shary-boyle/.
. 524 .
Tout comme les œuvres de Giboulo, les petites porcelaines de Shary Boyle
requièrent toute notre attention. Leur apparence fragile et presque anodine,
rappelant certainement aux spectateurs les armoires vitrées de leur grandmère où trônait fièrement une collection de porcelaine, n’est pas sans surprise. Ces petits objets miniatures, ne dépassant que rarement quelques
dizaines de centimètres, cachent bien leur jeu. Il suffit de s’approcher plus
près pour s’en rendre compte. Rapidement la délicatesse et la beauté de la
porcelaine laisse place à une iconographie pour le moins décalée de son
médium; un monde féerique où se côtoient beauté et horreur, mythologie et
contes, passé et présent.
L’œuvre sans titre de 2004 représente une jeune femme assise sur un
tronc d’arbre mort, de toute évidence, très à l’aise dans sa position, les
jambes légèrement écartées reposant sur des branches. Ce n’est qu’en
s’approchant que l’on découvre alors l’identité hybride de cette inconnue.
Son front recouvert d’yeux, huit en total, et ses multiples bras tissant ce qu’il
ressemblerait à une toile la métamorphosent en femme/araignée. De son
pied le plus élevé il manque une chaussure. Ce rappel au conte de Cendrillon
complexifie encore son identité, et réaffirme sa féminité. Le raffinement et la
délicatesse de sa robe en dentelle, magnifiquement rendue par l’artiste grâce
à la technique traditionnelle de la dentelle sur porcelaine, renvoie directement
à la toile d’araignée, et renforce l’iconographie de l’œuvre. L’araignée tisseuse
et la Cendrillon ménagère reflètent elles le travail, et qui plus est le travail des
femmes; un thème pouvant être interprété dans une perspective historique
et mondiale, l’évolution du travail des femmes dans la société, son impact et
sa discrimination, mais également d’un point de vue féministe, le travail des
. 525 .
femmes réduit au domestique et à l’artisanal. Pour l’artiste, il s’agit également
d’accumulation, des contraintes du corps et de ce qu’il peut supporter.
Shary Boyle, Venusblumen, 2009.
Porcelaine, peinture à porcelaine et lustre, 15 x 15 x 15 cm.
http://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/more-real-than-reality-an-interview-with-shary-boyle.
Venusblumen (2009), littéralement la fleur de Vénus, est une œuvre tout
aussi étonnante. Ce qui semblait être au préalable la représentation d’une
fleure ouverte posée à terre devient, grâce à une observation attentive, la
représentation de l’organe sexuel féminin. Délibérément représenté par
l’intermédiaire d’une fleur ouverte, il fait ici référence à l’orgasme féminin,5
. 526 .
un sujet délicat que l’artiste traite sans complexe.6 Une œuvre qui parle de la
prétendue libération sexuelle fièrement affirmée par nos sociétés occidentales,
mais qui reste somme toute majoritairement tabou. Il ne s’agit pas d’une
représentation fidèle du sujet, mais celle d’un ressentiment. Elle en devient
alors plus réaliste encore. Les objets en porcelaine sont souvent relégués
au rang de pure décoration, sans véritable intérêt artistique, et deviennent
invisibles aux yeux habitués; ces objets qu’on voit mais dont on ne parle pas.
La fleur décorative prend donc une autre dimension. Ici encore Boyle fusionne
forme et contenu pour que chacun des éléments soit alimenté par un autre.
Plusieurs lectures sont nécessaires pour les appréhender, et se rendre compte
de leur complexité.
Shary Boyle, Little Green Bat, 2010.
Porcelaine et peinture à porcelaine.
http://www.canadianart.ca/see-it/2010/10/14/breaking-boundaries/.
. 527 .
C’est également le cas dans Little Green Bat (2010), l’œuvre la plus récente des
trois. Tronc d’arbre, robe en dentelle, rose et chauve-souris se rencontrent dans
une composition narrative à l’allure d’un conte gothique. D’un tronc d’arbre
mort jaillit le bas d’une robe en dentelle, de laquelle sortent cinq jambes
de femme, dont deux portent des chaussures argentées. De chaque côté, à
demi enfouies sous la robe, émerge une rose, démesurée par rapport aux
proportions de la scène, et une chauve-souris,7 qui s’est manifestement faite
surprendre par le demi corps. “Les chauves-souris ont toujours été réellement
fascinantes et belles pour moi, mais tellement mal comprises et repoussantes
pour la plupart des gens” avait déclaré l’artiste en 2009.8 Elle s’intéressait
depuis plusieurs années à ces chiroptères, et en particulier à celle d’Amérique
du nord, disséminées par une infection appelée syndrome du museau blanc,
causée par un champignon. 9 En 2013, la maladie avait causé la mort de 5,7 à 6,7
millions de chauves-souris dans vingt-deux états américains et cinq provinces
canadiennes, une réelle catastrophe écologique. Au conte étrange de Boyle
s’ajoute donc une dimension écologiste à l’œuvre, à la portée internationale.
Le choix de la porcelaine dans l’œuvre de Shary Boyle a en lui-même une
dimension internationale. La porcelaine était au centre d’un commerce
prolifique entre la Chine et l’Europe entre le 16ème et le 18ème siècle, alors
que le secret de sa fabrication n’avait pas encore été découvert par les
occidentaux; une période d’exploration commerciale qui a façonné notre
monde contemporain et amorcé le phénomène de la mondialisation.10
Karine Giboulo et Shary Boyle partagent donc une passion commune pour
leur médiums respectifs. Si elle se manifeste par la fabrication “à la main”
de chaque élément de l’œuvre chez la première, elle transparaît dans la
. 528 .
virtuosité technique de la deuxième. La petite échelle de leurs œuvres est
également commune à leur démarche. Mais elle n’est pas seulement un saut
du grand vers le petit. Elle est aussi un saut dans le temps, nous renvoyant à
notre enfance;11 un lien avec le passé qui ajoute une dimension poétique à
leurs œuvres. Les sphères de Giboulo nous rappellent les jouets et la pâte à
modeler; Boyle en revanche évoque les vieux contes avec ses figurines aux
allures de personnages féeriques et monstrueux.
Notes
1 John Mack, The Art of Small Things, 5.
2 Ibid., 78.
3 Ibid., 5.
4 Pensons par exemple à l’oeuvre F-size d’Ai Weiwei (2010) faite
en bois de cerisier selon une technique traditionnelle chinoise
d’assemblage de bois (à l’origine utilisée pour la fabrication de
meubles), ou encore à l’exposition “De la porcelaine à l’œuvre”
présentée à la galerie Artmûr (Montréal) rassemblant une quinzaine
d’artistes contemporains travaillant la porcelaine, ou encore à la
réappropriation de techniques artisanales par des artistes féministes
comme Ghada Amer par exemple.
5 Il représente “ce qu’on ressent lorsqu’une femme a un orgasme lors
d’un rapport sexuel oral” pour reprendre les mots de Robert Enright
et Meeka Walsh “More Real than Reality,” BorderCrossings 126 (2013).
. 529 .
6
Robert Enright et Meeka Walsh. “More Real than Reality,”
BorderCrossings 126 (2013).
7 Le thème de la chauve-souris faisait déjà l’objet d’une exposition
de Shary Boyle à la galerie Jessica Bradley Art and Projects de
Toronto en 2009.
8 Leah Sandals. “Monkeys Seen, Monkeys Done,” National Post, 29
février 2009.
9 Ministère du développement durable, environnement, faune
et parcs. “Syndrome du museau blanc chez les chauves-souris”.
Accédé le 10 novembre 2013.
10 Dominique Allard. “Savoir-faire: interventions actuelles sur un
objet de porcelaine traditionnel. Shary Boyle, Laurent Craste,
Brendan Lee Satish Tang.” 27.
11 Ginette Bergeron, “Le ôle de l’échelle dans la réception de l’oeuvre
d’art contemporain,” (mémoire de maitrise, Université du Québec
à Montréal, 1997), 42.
Bibliographie
Allard, Dominique. “Savoir-faire: Interventions actuelles sur un
objet de porcelaine traditionnel. Shary Boyle, Laurent Craste,
Brendan Lee Satish Tang.” Esse arts + opinions 74 (2012): 26-33.
Arpin, Marjolaine. “Miniaturized Excess.” Esse art + opinions 70
(2010): 20-25.
____. “The Miniature and the Boundless.” Espace sculpture 101
(2012): 16-19.
. 530 .
Bergeron, Ginette. “Le rôle de l’échelle dans la réception de
l’oeuvre d’art contemporain.” Mémoire de maitrise, Université
du Québec à Montréal, 1997.
Déry, Louise. Shary Boyle: La chair et le sang. Montréal: Galerie
de l’UQAM, 2010. Publié conjointement avec l’exposition du
même nom, Galerie de l’UQAM, Montréal.
Enright, Robert et Meeka Walsh. “More Real than Reality.”
BorderCrossings 126 (2013). Accédé le 2 novembre 2013.
http://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/more-real-than-realityan-interview-with-shary-boyle.
Giboulo, Karine. “Karine Giboulo/Artiste.” Accédé le 21 octobre
2013. http://www.karinegiboulo.com.
Lepage, Jocelyne. “Karine Giboulo: Bricoleuse extreme.”
La presse, 3 mars 2012. Accédé le 21 octobre 2013.
http://www.lapresse.ca/arts/arts-visuels/201203/03/01-4502178karine-giboulo-bricoleuse-extreme.php.
Mack, John. The Art of Small Things. Cambridge: Harvard
Sandals, Leah. “Monkeys Seen, Monkeys Done.” National Post,
29 février 2009. Accédé le 10 novembre 2013. http://0search.
proquest.com.mercury.concordia.ca/docview/330797915/141CD
1D5FDD70F678F8/6?accountid=10246.
“Syndrome du museau blanc chez les chauves-souris.” Ministère
du développement durable, environnement, faune et parcs.
. 531 .
Accédé le 10 novembre 2013. http://www.mddefp.gouv.qc.ca/faune/
sante-maladies/syndrome-chauve-souris.htm.
Valli, Marc and Margherita Dessanay. Mircroworlds. London: Laurence
King Publishing, 2011.
. 532 .
Relic Creation:
The Spiritual Art
of Tim Whiten
and Sylvia Safdie
Eleanor Dumouchel
***
In contemporary art there is a resurgence of interest in art’s relationship with
religion - not just major religions like Christianity or Islam, but also occult
religions, mysticism, and philosophy-based belief systems such as NeoPlatonism and Theosophy.1 Cultural sociologists Dick Houtman and Stef
Aupers’s analysis of the spread of “post-Christian spirituality” in fourteen
Western countries since 1981 points to the prevalence and viability of new
religious spiritualties that reject both secular rationalism and religious faith.2
The art practices of Tim Whiten (b. 1941) and Sylvia Safdie (b. 1942) give further
evidence of this phenomenon; both place such religious spirituality at the
. 533 .
forefront of their practice in ways that simultaneously reference and eschew
traditional faith systems within a global framework. The multiple, overlapping
references to recognizable religious doctrines within their practices are meant
to turn our awareness to that which cannot be perceived by the physical
senses. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of anthroposophy – a philosophy
which attempts to synthesize science and mysticism – called this stratum
of perception the “supersensible.”3 Whiten and Safdie, hoping to test the
possibilities for a new spiritual art, have chosen installation, sculpture, video,
and sound as means for exploring the relationship between the visible and
that which is supersensible.
By engaging with the remnants of both personal (Safdie) and generalized
(Whiten) histories of religions, these artists present multiple legacies of
spirituality that date back through the centuries. The works of Safdie and
Whiten serve as individual responses to the mass-secularization that has
overtaken the West in the last century, each recasting well-worn modes of
spiritual engagement within a post-secular framework afforded by the artists’
urban locales. Indeed, their art solicits the viewer’s spiritual participation
within the secular setting of a real or virtual gallery rather than a religious
setting. It is these components of Safdie’s and Whiten’s works which coalesce
with art historian James Elkins’s “strategy” for contemporary religious art. By
Elkins, this art should
burn away as much of the emblems of religion as necessary
to get at something that is not immediately recognizable
as religions, but is – for the same reason – more genuinely
religious than an overt religion ever could be.4
. 534 .
Tim Whiten, Descendant of Parsifal, 1988-1989.
Leather covered human skull, 5 x 5 x 7 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=74353&title=Descendant+of
+Parsifal++&artist=Tim+Whiten&link_id=550.
A human skull enveloped in black leather, stitched shut at the crown and
pulled tightly to reveal the bumpy topography of the jaw and nose bones is
one work in Tim Whiten’s series Descendants of Parsifal (1988-1989). What are
we to make of this skull? The skull is such a prevalent image and one frequently
used to suggest the most immediate, physical confrontation with the abstract
. 535 .
notion of death and mortality. According to Steiner, whose amalgamation of
Western occultism-derived teachings shares the same gamut as Whiten’s
religious references, the skull signifies the before- or afterlife of a person.
Steiner believed that the shape of one’s skull was determined by one’s ego
from a preceding incarnation. Based on the residual connection between the
physically present and the unknown (the former ego) found in the skull, Steiner
deduced that “the structure of our skull we must look upon as a work of art.”5
In a 2011 interview, Whiten picked up the leather-bound skull from his coffee
table saying, “I conceal to reveal.”6 The “concealed” in question perhaps refers
to black hide covering up the skull, the skull being the container for invisible
secret knowledge of a previous life. Is the skull used in Descendant of Parsifal
meant as a stand-in for the Holy Grail, which Parsifal, one of King Arthur’s
knights, allegedly found? Or does the term “descendant,” along with Steiner’s
notion of inherited, physically manifested egos, constitute an argument for
the continuity of knowledge? Whiten’s work suggests that this skull is the
continuous keeper of spiritual knowledge rather than a finite remnant of a
dead person.
. 536 .
Tim Whiten, Clycieun, 1991. Wood, bicycle wheel, seat, 99 x 9 x 1 in.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=74359&title=Clycieun&artist
=Tim+Whiten&link_id=550.
. 537 .
Whiten’s Clycieun (1991), constructed from the salvaged parts of a bicycle and
a rough, slightly curving tree limb, is a perplexing sculpture whose religious
references are perhaps less evident than those of Descendant of Parsifal.
Unlike Whiten’s usual practice of making oblique references to religion in
the titles of his works, here the title, an anagram of the word “unicycle,” is an
ambiguously mystical enigma. Towering over the viewer at over eight feet,
Clycieun is one of several sculptures by Whiten that is distinctly vehicular,
evoking a transfer of energies from the physical to the spiritual world, or “soul
world,” to borrow Steiner’s tripartite division of the cosmos.7 Clycieun can also
be seen as a device for understanding the orchestration of lower (constant
back-and-forth pedaling) and upper regions (balance) of the body. Whiten
has said that “horizontal and vertical is key to the way we function as human
beings,” insofar as humans are vertical in relation to the horizontal ground.8
Moreover, Whiten has described the repetitive, circular movement required
of pedaling as an aid to understanding a cosmic structure.9 To this effect,
Clycieun can be viewed as a form of religious art, albeit one that has jettisoned
any recognizable sacral symbols. Furthermore, the work’s construction from
found materials are analogous to the self-fashioning of belief. As such, Whiten
reinvigorates the presence of the spiritual and religious in art in a manner that
is inconclusive and therefore analogous to the search for a contemporary
spiritual belief system.
. 538 .
Sylvia Safdie, The Guardian, 2009.
3:26, video installation.
http://www.sylviasafdie.com/video/2009/theguardian/index.htm.
Safdie is a self-described “non-practicing Jew” whose video works offer a
personal exploration of her Syrian-Jewish family’s past.10 Safdie was born in
Aley, Lebanon, lived her first years in Haifa as a result of the Arab-Israeli war,
and moved to Montreal in 1953. The Guardian (2009) is a diptych featuring
two synchronized screen projections in which Safdie meditates on the
phenomenon of simultaneous presence and absence of worshippers in the
space of an abandoned synagogue in Amzrou, Morocco.11 The eponymous
guardian of the work is Mbark, the caretaker of the synagogue hired by
Moroccan-Jewish families to preserve both the space and the memory of
their relatives who lived in the surrounding former mellah, or Jewish quarter.
In this video diptych, Mbark recites the names of the Jewish families who
. 539 .
lived in the area while close-by, the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, is being
sung. Also included on the audio track is the recitation of Jewish prayers from
a Hiloula, a commemorative religious event where Moroccan Jews visit a
sage’s grave to light candles and pay homage in hopes for prosperity. Safdie’s
project creates superimpositions of religions, times, and spaces through the
use of sound, while alluding to presence and absence through her pointed
use of light; in one half of the diptych Mbark is starkly lit by a dust-filled ray of
light, while in the other, he stands to the side of it. Through a formal device,
these lighting effects suggest the possibility of spirituality persisting after the
original religious practitioners have left.
Sylvia Safdie, Wall: A Triptych, 2009.
22:00, video installation.
http://www.sylviasafdie.com/video/2009/wallatriptych/index.htm.
. 540 .
In Safdie’s Wall: A Triptych from 2009, three projections of the similar views
of a patch of light inside the Amzrou synagogue play on a continuous loop.
The light gently glows and abates in intensity, and shifts its shape according
to the irregular surface of the rock wall, illuminating the ever-present dust
particles. Adding to the viewer’s heightened awareness of the gradual,
subtle, and elemental aspects of time and place is the musical improvisation
provided by jazz musician Arthur Bull on the audio track. The music alternates
freely between a medium-range drone and intermittently placed intervals of
chords played by what could be either an accordion or harmonium. There is
no melody, only changeable fluctuations of tone that sound like offerings cues thrown out for unknown or imagined players to improvise on and play
along. This dialogue between sound and image attests to Safdie’s active
engagement in a process of collaborative improvisation.12 Such an encounter
with one’s instrument (be it a camera, violin, or electronic devices) and fellow
improvisers can be likened to an altered or higher meditative state of spiritual
consciousness - a notion corroborated by fMRI scans of jazz musicians as they
improvised.13 The imagined non-physical space of improvisation where this
communal action takes place is perhaps the closest experience Safdie has
reached in her efforts to meditate on the bygone presence of the MoroccanJewish people of Amzrou, and, in turn, her own Syrian-Jewish forbearers. Through their deft use of the powers of presence and immersion, Whiten’s
and Safdie’s works make the case for the enduring link between spiritual belief
and artistic creation. The appeals to the body, its absence and presence, as
well as human potential for creativity and self-fashioning constitute a new
. 541 .
mode of spiritual art that uses post-secular frames of spiritual understanding.
Although neither Whiten nor Safdie subscribe to the tenets of one religion,
the works in this exhibition gracefully argue the viability of the spiritual model
in the allegedly secular world of contemporary art.
notes
1 James Elkins, On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art
(New York: Routledge, 2004), 77-84.
2 Dick Houtman and Stef Aupers, “The Spiritual Turn and the Decline
of Tradition: the Spread of Post-Christian Spirituality in 14 Western
Countries, 1981-2000,” The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
46, no. 3 (September 2007): 305-320. This article provides an analysis
of the World Values Survey, which asked 61,352 participants to
characterize their religious or spiritual beliefs.
3Rudolf Steiner and Michael Howard, Art as Spiritual Activity: Rudolf
Steiner’s Contribution to the Visual Arts, vol. 3 (Hudson: Anthroposophic
Press, 1998), 242.
4 Elkins, 83.
5 Rudolf Steiner, An Occult Physiology: Eight Lectures Given in Prague
Between 20 and 28 March, 1911 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983),
139-140.
6 Ann Ireland, “The Real Deal,” Canadian Art, 28, no. 4 (Winter
2011/2012), 114.
. 542 .
7 Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible
Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man (London:
Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), 80.
8 Lori Starr, “Interview: Tim Whiten,” ArtSync, 11:48 min, video,
posted February 4, 2010, accessed March 12, 2014.
9Ibid.
10 Loren Lerner, “Wassily Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art
and the Video Works of Sylvia Safdie, Marisa Portolese, Marielle
Nitoslowska, and Sarindar Dhaliwal,” Canadian Journal of Art History/
Annales d’histoire de l’art canadien 33, no. 2 (2012): 104.
11 Since Safdie as a Jew cannot visit Syria, she chose Morocco for its
Muslim similarity to Syria.
12 Eric Lewis, The Video Art of Sylvia Safdie (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 2013), 46. Lewis understands Safdie’s work as being
an example of her active participation in an improvisatory dialogue
as a videographer and not a musician in the strictest sense, as her
video inspired Bell’s improvisation.
13 Charles Limb and Allen Braun, “Neural Substrates of Spontaneous
Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation,”
PLoS ONE 3(2): e1679. http://www.plosone.org/article/
info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001679.
A recent study that involved fMRI scans of professional jazz
musicians indicated activation of the prefrontal cortex, producing
patterns similar to those associated with altered states of
consciousness, which include meditation.
. 543 .
Bibliography
Elkins, James. On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art.
New York: Routledge, 2004.
Houtman, Dick and Stef Aupers. “The Spiritual Turn and the Decline
of Tradition: the Spread of Post-Christian Spirituality in 14 Western
Countries, 1981-2000.” The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46,
no. 3 (September, 2007): 305-320.
Ireland, Ann. “The Real Deal.” Canadian Art 28, no. 4 (Winter
2011/2012): 112-115.
Lerner, Loren. “Wassily Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art
and the Video Works of Sylvia Safdie, Marisa Portolese, Marielle
Nitoslowska, and Sarindar Dhaliwal.” Journal of Canadian Art History/
Annales d’histoire de l’art canadien 33, no. 2 (2012), 101-128.
Lewis, Eric. The Video Art of Sylvia Safdie. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
Limb, Charles and Allen Braun. “Neural Substrates of Spontaneous
Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation.” PLoS
ONE 3 2. Accessed March 12, 2014. http://www.plosone.org/article/
info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001679.
Steiner, Rudolf and Michael Howard. Art as Spiritual Activity: Rudolf
Steiner’s Contribution to the Visual Arts, vol. 3. Hudson: Anthroposophic
Press, 1998.
Steiner, Rudolf. An Occult Physiology: Eight Lectures Given in Prague
Between 20 and 28 March, 1911. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1983.
. 544 .
____. Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the
World and the Destination of Man. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005.
Starr, Lori. “Interview: Tim Whiten.” ArtSync. 11:48 min.
Video. Posted February 4, 2010. Accessed March 12, 2014.
. 545 .
Shary Boyle and
Daniel Barrow:
Fantasies Projected
Mojeanne Behz adi
***
Several contemporary artists have embraced the visual language associated
with childhood, exemplified by fantastical landscapes, strange creatures,
and magical features. The imagery of this imaginary world is immediately
enthralling, evoking nostalgia for a romanticized past.1 Amid the saturation
of images coming from a host of sources in our everyday lives, the often
endearing aesthetic emblematic of childhood images offers a refreshing
and appealing way of representing the world. More significantly, artists who
employ key aesthetic details related to this visual language of childhood
address personal and social realities in ways both disarming and pleasurable.
One of the preferred mediums used by artists working in this vein is drawing.
Drawing conveys immediacy and fluidity, and when juxtaposed with crude,
. 546 .
childlike renditions of complex and surreal subject matter, these works can
communicate unsettling situations that reflect daily experiences in the real
world.
The art production of Shary Boyle (b. 1972) and Daniel Barrow (b. 1971)
represents the fantastical universe of childhood. There is a sense of immediacy
and playfulness to Boyle’s images, which captivate their viewer with fantasy,
and suspend disbelief. Her visual language is both alluring and frightening,
since it depicts lush imaginary landscapes with an array of curious makebelieve creatures. Boyle deforms their features, exaggerates their sexualities
and yet she imbues them mythical status. Barrow, on the other hand, creates
protagonists whose identities are layered and obscure. In his narratives, his
characters undergo identity transformation, and are often depicted struggling
with both literal and metaphorical masks.
Although their works are very different, Boyle and Barrow share a strong
affinity for particular methods of display connected to illustration: their drawn
images are brought to life in artist’s performances of slide shows and use of
transparencies, sometimes projected onto installation works. Boyle performs
her projection work to an accompanying live score, whereas Barrow creates
poetic and personally inspired narratives to accompany his illustrations. The
illusory worlds represented through their work are rich with visual narratives.
The artists, inspired by comics, fairytales, mythology, and storytelling, create
theatrical performances that revive and give new value to such traditional
fantastical formats.
. 547 .
Shary Boyle, Iceberg, 2007.
Ink and gouache on paper, 76 x 56 cm, collection of Belinda Stronach, Aurora.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2009/05/28/from_two_worlds_an_unlikely_artistic_synergy.html
Boyle’s Iceberg (2004), a drawing of a northern marine landscape, has a group
of nude figures as its central focus. These sexualized figures, sleeping unclad
and interlaced, have snow-white skin and black wavy hair. The scene, set in
. 548 .
the dead of night, is illuminated by the shimmering stars in the sky. A brightly
coloured zigzag pattern covering the surface of the mountainous iceberg
contrasts with its stark white form, the black sky, and the white bodies on
the ice. Although an explanation for this colourful, variegated surface of the
iceberg may be a simple reflection of the Northern Lights, in combination
with the strange presence of several unusually posed naked bodies these
patterns may suggest a supernatural narrative. The ice block on which the
naked characters are lying appears to have been detached from the iceberg
in the background. This is implied by the archway created by the void at the
centre of the iceberg, the shape of which echoes that of the ice floating in the
foreground. The ice block seems to be slowly drifting towards the forefront of
the picture plane and the viewer. The scene evokes myths of origin such as
the birth of Venus (Aphrodite) who was said to originate from sea foam and
float to the shore atop a shell.2
Landscape is a recurring element in Boyle’s work. She often distorts
landscape scenery to create outlandish compositions populated with strange,
otherworldly characters. In this case, the setting, although identifiable as a
northern landscape, also resembles outer space. These two possible settings
are conveyed by the jet-black starry sky to which Boyle allocates a significant
portion of the composition. The ink and gouache drawing, accentuated with
a graphic use of line, sharp colour tones, and a fantastical rendering of natural
forms and figures, is reminiscent of aesthetic sensibilities akin to childhood
imagery. Indeed, Iceberg suggests a world and narrative that can only be
completed in our imaginations.
. 549 .
Shary Boyle, The Clearances, 2007.
Acrylic and gouache on paper, gold foil on card, collage, acetate, thread, and three projectors,
installation dimensions variable, collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=203222.
Boyle’s installation The Clearances (2007) includes multi-layered overhead
projections that are intricately rendered, and brightly coloured. Her use of
overhead projections started when the artist was a young musician working
in Toronto’s independent music scene. She wanted to bring a visual dimension
to the music and enable collaborations with artists working in different media.
Over the years, though her projections have become elaborate and will often
include three-dimensional components, she still maintains a rudimentary,
do-it-yourself aesthetic, reflective of her allegiance to the local independent
music community. Boyle creates drawings on transparent sheets and projects
. 550 .
her work onto prepared surfaces on which she often incorporates drawings,
collages, and sculptural objects that further enliven her projections and give
them a theatrical dimension. During her live performances, Boyle often hand
paints on acetate sheets before the audience’s eyes, allowing them to see a
creative process that is often invisible to art viewers in museum settings.
Boyle created The Clearances following a residency in London, England.
Through this work the artist addresses her indignation provoked by visits
to British museums, sites that exhibit many sacred objects of world cultures
acquired through exploitative colonial interactions. In essence, this installation
is Boyle’s worldwide historic overview and critique of colonialism.4 The
installation displays 150 hand-painted characters on paper pinned onto the
walls as well as mobiles and other figures.3 Among the figures depicted are
folkloric characters, human figures representing colonized groups, and other
figures that represent the colonizers that are responsible for tyranny.5 All these
characters, who symbolize victims of colonial tyranny, create a line in front of a
cone shell that they will enter and from which they will never re-emerge. Two
projectors on an automated, timed sequence animate the work. The sequence
alternates from the flicking on and off of the overhead projection showing
the wall drawing with and without the special effects generated by the
projection. The surrounding lights dim and two overhead projectors switch
on to reveal the series of drawings and activate the full-blown narrative. This
visual story resembles a children’s animated movie with its playful characters
and vivid shapes, and yet a closer look reveals unpleasant historical instances
of oppression and attempts to erase indigenous cultures and peoples.
. 551 .
Shary Boyle, Everything Under the Moon, 2012.
Collaborative performance with musician Christine Fellows, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto.
http://www.thedrake.ca/blog/2012/02/take-sneak-peek-shary-boyles-shadow-pupet-play/.
. 552 .
Everything Under the Moon, presented at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre in
2012, was a live performance piece developed by Boyle and her long-time
collaborator, Christine Fellows, a Winnipeg folk-musician and storyteller. This
complex performance consists of a musical concert, and a shadow show
with elaborate sculptures and drawings activated on an overhead projector.
As is common with her performances, Boyle designs the costumes she
wears, moving seamlessly between the shadow screen and the projector
to participate in visualizing this narrative about two anthropomorphized
animals – a bee and a bat – on a quest to save their species in the aftermath
of fictionalized environmental disasters.5
Everything Under the Moon adopts the theatrical form of shadow puppetry,
folkloric music, and ballad songs to tell this story. The dark shapes of the
shadow puppets and sculptures are intertwined with the colourful renditions
of Boyle’s acetate drawings and paintings to create a magical universe of child
play and fantasy. At the same time, Boyle and Fellows raise important questions
concerning actual environmental disasters through a disarming visual and
sonic fable. For instance, the narrative demonstrates the consequences of
melting ice caps by taking the two protagonists on a journey to the Arctic.
. 553 .
Daniel Barrow, Little Miss No-Name Trading Card, 2004.
Multiple edition, 3 x 4 in., collection of the artist.
Barrow’s trading card series from 2004 is a nostalgic representation of vintage
toys familiar to his generation,6 as well as personalities from popular culture.
These subjects are rendered in a stylized manner reminiscent of images
presented in cartoons and colouring books. Each portrait is accompanied by
a text with a historical account of the depicted character. Little Miss No-Name
Doll (2004), one of the works from this series, is the rag doll marketed in the
1960s by the Hasbro toy company, an American multinational toy and board
. 554 .
game company. The doll is of an impoverished little girl dressed in rags with
a hand stretched out, begging for money, and with a tear coming down from
her eye.
Through this trading card and others in this series, such as Dismal Desmond
(2004) and Margaret Keane (2004), Barrow draws our attention to the passing
phases of various popular culture phenomena. His childlike imagery evokes a
nostalgic longing for and endorsement of media icons marketed to children.
With sentimentality he recalls the toys and stories that shaped his youth. In a
recent interview, Barrow remarked: “Most of the intensely charged experiences
I have had with images happened in infancy.”7 It is as if he wants to give
these stories and characters a second airing because they did not maintain
a popular momentum through subsequent generations. These cards and
their content provide a rich array of references that shape Barrow’s imaginary
world and infuse his work. Barrow gives viewers a background history on
these cultural figures and toys to set a nostalgic tone for his body of work, and
to familiarize viewers with his subjective mythology. These characters share
some important attributes that bind them together. They all originate from
the 1960s and 1970s and have a flamboyant and kitsch spirit that is further
accentuated by Barrow’s renderings. Barrow has an affinity for sad and tearful
faces, evident in his other drawings, and Little Miss No-Name seems part of this
unusual pantheon because of her pitiful features. Indeed, in an interview with
Canadian filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, he explains: “I’m interested in characters
or effigies suspended in tragedy. Little Miss No-Name will never be happy every time you play with her she’ll be disconsolate. There’s something at once
disturbing and attractive about that.”8
. 555 .
Daniel Barrow, The Thief of Mirrors, 2012.
Mixed media projection installation.
http://viewoncanadianart.com/2013/03/05/review-traces-at-the-art-gallery-of-greater-victoria/.
Barrow started his overhead projection drawings to mimic an art history
professor that he studied with during his BFA in the 1990s. At the time, this
professor still used this increasingly obsolete technology to teach her classes.
His parody of this teacher’s technique captivated the attention of his friends
and fellow students who encouraged him to continue using the format. The
Thief of Mirrors (2012) is an interactive “manual animation” installation that
invites viewers to play with the narrative elements of the work by placing
multiple acetate drawings on the three overhead projectors that are pointed
toward a single screen.
. 556 .
The narrative is about a jewel thief who wears a mask with a sad face
reminiscent of the Venetian characters of La Comedia dell Arte. Barrow drew
inspiration from French Rococo painter Antoine Watteau’s recurring Pierrot
figure. The thief’s mask in Barrow’s story is characterized by a sorrowful
expression. His gaze is so striking that when a mirror catches his reflection, it
forever stays imprinted on its glossy surface.9 The above still image illustrating
the work shows a large marble-floored room in a lavish palace decorated
in the Baroque style; a tall archway leads to the balcony where the view is
of a surreal nautical landscape with icebergs and a giant full moon. In the
foreground, a long-haired, naked, and masked androgynous figure holding a
hammer lies bleeding on the floor. We can deduce that the broken mirror in
front of which the figure lies was shattered with that same hammer, which
left the nude body covered in glass cuts.
The Thief of Mirrors is both erotically charged and surreal. As with many of his
works, Barrow uses ostentatious decorative features inspired by Victorian style
architecture and fashion. His whimsical colour palette further reflects this taste
for bright hues. Because the manual animation is multilayered, and composed
of multiple converging drawings, certain elements feel stable and others
translucent and shaky. The overall effect is psychedelic and dreamlike, at once
enigmatic, and terrifying. The images in The Thief of Mirrors are violent with
scenes where flesh and blood are prominent. Barrow’s egotistical protagonist
fantasizes about wealth. His character lacks empathy for his rich victims,
and projects a vain attitude – qualities that are complemented by Barrow’s
sensibilities for the world of childhood and echoed through his vernacular of
comics and cartoons.
. 557 .
Notes
1 Johanne Sloan, “Something Resembling Childhood: Artworks by
Jack Chambers, Daniel Barrow, and Rodney Graham,” in Depicting
Canada’s Children, ed. Loren Lerner (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier
2“Aphrodite,” Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology, accessed November 10,
2013, http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/aphrodite.html.
3 “Shary Boyle Lectures in Vancouver,” Canadian Art Foundation
International Lecture Series, video, 59:42, July 3, 2008, http://www.
canadianart.ca/talks/2008/07/03/shary-boyle-4/.
4Ibid.
5 “Shary Boyle and Christine Fellows: Everything Under the Moon,”
The Power Plant, accessed November 12, 2013,
http://www.thepowerplant.org/ProgramsEvents/Programs/Live/
Shary-Boyle-and-Christine-Fellows--Everything-Unde.aspx.
6 Sloan, 372.
7 Matt Strangel, “Mirror Mirror,” Portland Cityzine, accessed November
12, 2013, http://portland.cityzine.net/author/matt-stangel/.
8 Mike Hoolboom, “After Charlie Brown and Liberace,” in Practical
Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists (Toronto: Coach House
Books, 2007), 167.
9Ibid.
. 558 .
Bibliography
Boyle, Shary. “Shary Boyle Lectures in Vancouver.” Canadian Art
Foundation International Lecture Series video, 59:42. Posted July 3,
2008. http://www.canadianart.ca/talks/2008/07/03/shary-boyle-4/.
Hoolboom, Mike. “After Charlie Brown and Liberace.” In Practical
Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists, 163-172. Toronto: Coach
House Books, 2007.
Sloan, Johanne. “Something Resembling Childhood: Artworks by
Jack Chambers, Daniel Barrow, and Rodney Graham.” In Depicting
Canada’s Children, ed. Loren Lerner, 365-385. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier
. 559 .
Material Hybridity,
Global Fantasy:
Envisioning New Art Forms
by Dipna Horra
and Jinny Yu
Vic toria Nolte
***
Hybrid forms of art are reinventions that exist at the intersections of different
cultures, theories, ideas, and mediums. Working within the thresholds of a
hybrid body of work, artists turn their attention to materials and methods
that may straddle past and present moments of theory and practice. In
previous attempts to locate the origins of culture, it has been noted that
artistic production is in its most industrious state within the ambivalent cracks
between different cultures.1 Hybridity, seen as a concept that favours the
. 560 .
blending of cultural traditions and ideas is, at its utopic best, a concept that
allows cultural convergences to move forward to take on new shapes, forms,
and aesthetic masks.2
Through the pairing of recent art works by Dipna Horra and Jinny Yu, this
exhibition will examine the concept of hybridity through mediating terms
of aesthetics, materiality, and the construction and translation of space. Both
artists construct new art forms through a mixing of materials and mediums
and, in the process, reconfigure the concept of hybridity as not solely a state
of being, but also as an end goal in the reinvention of contemporary art
practices: a mode of being two seemingly different mediums at once.
Living on the “boundaries of culture,” artists in the postmodern era are
constructing increasingly international practices and careers, blending
sources from a variety of “foreign” encounters.3 As the ultimate nomadic
figure, the international artist is easily influenced by creative encounters with
new technologies, mediums, and styles that inform his or her varied practices.
The artist hybridizes forms of art through mediations of these methods
and mediums, exploiting the key feature of globalized art and culture: the
multiplicity of sources.4 Just as artists may produce hybrid works through a
consideration of cultural and referential sources, they may also experience
hybridity through this transmission and interchange of practice. The artworks’
layered transitions across various mediums echo the artist’s nomadic or hybrid
state between cultural identities and moments.5 Thus, in finding a means of
expression or invention in the blending of practices, an artist interested in
international opportunities may demonstrate how hybrid experiences in
global culture are shaped through material methodologies.
. 561 .
A link between the hybrid art forms produced by the artists in this exhibition
exists in their reconfiguring of theories of architecture, and subsequent
connections to phenomenological experiences through interjections of the
mediums of paint and sound. Architecture is an important element of the
practices of both artists in this exhibition and, in its relation to envisioned or
constructed space, it is explored as a medium easily configured through these
instances of reinvention.
Engagements between architecture and painting have a long history in
the Western art canon as relations between a space and the physical act of
painting have been realized through the production of frescos and intricate
ceiling paintings. Interested in how the practice of painting can take on
architectural and sculptural shapes, Ottawa-based artist Jinny Yu experiments
with the two mediums to create works that consider the experiential qualities
of painting, resisting its traditional roots as a two-dimensional medium.6
Yu’s paintings may either break away from the wall by bending or flaking, or
contort with the wall and take on new architectural properties in the process.
Similarly, Dipna Horra, who is also based in Ottawa, conceives of how the
medium of sound may take on material and sculptural elements. While sound
is a relatively new area of endeavor within the Western tradition of art, its
status as a more experimental and abstract channel allows the artist to realize
its shared characteristics with traditional media through the techniques of
collage, juxtaposition, reduction, addition, and contrast.7
. 562 .
Jinny Yu, Sequence, 2009. Oil on aluminum and latex paint, 204 x 448 in., installation view.
http://www.jinnyyu.com
Jinny Yu, Sequence, 2009.
Oil on aluminum and latex paint, 204 x 448 in., grid view of narrative panels.
A chaotic scene of wind-blown pieces of paper in a near-empty parking lot is
affixed, in the style of a classical Greek frieze, to the top of a large gallery wall.
This gestured, painterly, and grey-toned frieze is extended from its lofty height
by thinly painted vertical lines, which echo the gallery’s pillars in their descent
. 563 .
down the wall. The mathematically ordered succession of the lines, painted
in a lighter shade of grey compared to the overall tonal hue of the frieze,
juxtaposes the frenzied narrative displayed in the scene mounted above.
Jinny Yu’s Sequence (2009) considers the possible architectural properties to
be found in painting, expressing the artist’s desire to converse with space and
to remove the element of autonomy associated with the painted medium.8
Inspirational cues taken from the façade of windows of Le Corbusier’s SainteMarie de la Tourette (1956-60), a Dominican-order priory in Sainte-Marie, France,
are suggested by Yu’s painted lines that seemingly recreate the famous stilts
the architect is known for. With her latex paint lines, Yu seeks to mimic the
feeling of balance and simplicity produced by the windowed façade and
vertical stilts of the priory, an important example of late Modernist style
architecture.9 Meanwhile, the image painted in the frieze is reminiscent of the
wind-blown scene in Yejiri Station, Province of Suruga (1832) a woodblock print
by the Japanese printmaker, Katsushika Hokusai.
The combined elements of Sequence have a spatially material effect, making
it seem as though the painting is an integral part of the gallery’s architecture.
It is site-specific in the sense that the extended lines (or stilts) conform solely
to the space in which they have been painted. The sequential order of the
painted stilts corresponds with Yu’s interest in conveying the materiality
of the painted medium and the recognizable patterns found in situational
experiences.10 Existing between the painted lines are unpainted spaces on the
wall, which evoke the concept of voided space. In Eastern Asian traditions of
painting, unpainted spaces are attributed to the notion of the void, a concept
that is practically untranslatable in Western art practices, where unpainted
spaces are seen as unfinished or empty.11 The void is the space that mediates
. 564 .
between being and nothingness, accentuating being through absence. In
this sense, the void is not a denial of space, but rather an encouragement,
an absence-with-presence.12 In this vein, the spaces of the wall between Yu’s
painted sequence of lines not only form a set of stilts which seemingly prop
up the painted frieze, but serve as an architectural void space, allowing the
painted “canvas” of aluminum and the latex lines to further merge with the
gallery wall.
Yu’s ability to produce art works that claim two simultaneous purposes,
being both architectural and painterly, reveals the hybrid state of her practice.
When Yu’s paintings stop being solely two-dimensional canvases and take on
architectural and spatial elements, her work transforms into a new medium
built at the conjunctures of the traditionally and dimensionally opposite forms
the artist explores in her practice.
. 565 .
Jinny Yu, Tiepolo Project, 2012.
Oil on aluminum, 64.5 x 528 x 190 in., installation view.
Yu’s concern with the spatial and material qualities of paint stems from
a personal interest in the ceiling paintings and frescos found in Italian
Renaissance churches.13 Yu, who reports that the abstract elements of her work
reflect her position as a nomadic person, one who does not feel truly at home
in any single culture, states that in her extended time spent in Venice, she was
struck by how religion is culturally embedded in everyday life. Developing an
interest in how painted cathedrals and frescos depicting religious scenes were
regarded with a sense of awe, these in situ paintings greatly influence Yu’s
spatial constructions of the medium.14
. 566 .
In Tiepolo Project (2012), this interest in Italian painting is translated literally, as
Yu has based her painting’s narrative scene on that of Tiepolo’s The Scourge
of the Serpents (1732-1735), currently housed at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in
Venice. Yu’s rendering, which features dark tones of grey, black, and beige,
is an impressive 528-inch panel spanning the gallery walls and molding into
a column in the centre of the room. Yu has scratched loosely-rendered and
painterly figures into the surface of the oil on the aluminum canvas. These
scratches recall a notable feature on the surface of Tiepolo’s painting: the
cracked paint, which accidentally chipped off while it was rolled up and stored
until the end of the nineteenth century.15 Working in her preferred medium of
oil on aluminum,16 Yu is fascinated with the cracked paint in Tiepolo’s canvas,
witnessing a tension between the illusion of space created by the cracks on
the canvas surface, and the perceived physical closeness of the cracks to the
viewer. She associates the state of contemporary painting to these dialogic
thresholds.17
Through this intense focus on an artwork composed at, arguably, the height
of the Western canonical tradition of painting, Tiepolo Project engages the
viewer in a transhistorical painterly narrative, and a subsequent reinvention of
the painted medium. Faithfully contorting to the walls and the space of the
gallery, Tiepolo Project engages the architecture of the exhibition space in a
dramatic way, as it is often installed between two rooms of a gallery, making it
seem as though the painting is bursting through the walls.18 Through a careful
consideration of how the work is installed, architectural elements are again
a critically important element in Yu’s work. Tiepolo Project bridges the spaces
between traditional mediums of art and architectural constructions, finding
. 567 .
common traits between the physical act of painting and the structuring of a
space. A hybrid material form thus emerges from Yu’s fascination with in situ
works of art.
Dipna Horra, Dhunia (Septet), 2012.
Multimedia sound installation, dimensions variable, installation view.
http://www.limagier.qc.ca/
Upon entering a slightly darkened gallery, the viewer is met with an unusual
grouping of seven windows, suspended individually from the ceiling. A Punjabi
parable, spoken by the artist’s grandmother, emanates from the windows
amongst recorded sounds of birds, trains, and subway cars. Deriving her title
from the Punjabi word for “the present world,” Dipna Horra’s latest sound
installation, Dhunia (Septet) (2012) displaces the material setting of a home
and alternatively constructs a counter-arrangement of architectural and aural
elements that feel like a recognizable and real location.19 The story recounted by
the artist’s grandmother, about the Hindu goddess Parvati’s quest for material
. 568 .
wealth, evokes images of objects and materials carrying immense beauty, and
seems strangely out of place within Horra’s minimalist, aesthetic reconfiguring
of the worn windows. In the interest of creating “unhomely” settings, Horra’s
sound installations become spaces in which the artist mediates her own
identity through various layers of personal and transgenerational narrative.20
Like Yu, Horra’s nomadic sensibility allows her to take on an “outsider” status
as she moves between the migratory, cultural spaces of family stories and
personal associations. In this process of constructing interstitial spaces in which
to enact her experiences, Horra contorts notions of her chosen mediums and
produces hybrid art forms highly responsive to personal narrative and the
encounter of space.
The various elements of Dhunia (Septet), including the windows divorced from
their original location, the disembodied voices and sounds, and the muddling
of languages, time, and place, provoke an investigation into the material
aspects of sound and its phenomenological properties. While the hanging
windows appear almost decontextualized in their new position liberated
from the gallery walls, their presence is enhanced through this encounter with
recorded sound as they continue to engage with the gallery space.
Horra defines her unique practice through the concept of “aural architecture.”21
In each of her installations, Horra explores the human experiences that take
shape within “aural space,” or, the space shared equally by environmental
sounds and the architectural elements of a place.22 An example of an envisioned
soundscape, Dhunia mediates a relationship between recorded sound and
language to produce a spatial awareness of how aural space functions in the
everyday encounters between people and their surroundings.23 In focusing
. 569 .
on the intrinsic relationship between an aural environment and a constructed
space, Horra reinvents the practice of architecture through this intervention
of sound. The hanging windows function as an allusion to a structure and
demonstrate how spaces may be realized through the suggestion of an
architectural intervention, rather than the creation of a segregated space in
which to house the sounds of everyday life. This demonstrates how sound
plays an important role in how we perceive the entirety of a space.24
Due to the installation’s exhibition in a predominantly English-speaking
cultural milieu, the majority of viewers are not likely to understand the
recording of Horra’s grandmother’s story. This linguistic distance, therefore,
provides an added layer of hybridity to Dhunia, pointing to Horra’s desire
to transmit her hybrid personal and cultural identity through her art works.
Through her production of “aural architecture,” Horra mediates the material
qualities of sound and language and further investigates the potential for
cultural transmissions to cease following original aesthetic traditions and take
on new forms across varied mediums and cultures.25 Continuously interested
in appropriating, displacing, and transforming narrative, Horra investigates
new strategies for envisioning the aesthetics of hybridity and global art
through the properties of sound and the language of aural space.
Through mediations of space and structure, both artists in this exhibition
introduce a sense of physicality and a heightened awareness of materiality to
their works. They reconfigure the traditional notions of each of their selected
mediums through an engagement with architectural elements, producing
hybrid art forms that speak to a global desire to be simultaneously singular
and plural.
. 570 .
Inspiration for the layout design of my virtual exhibition,
“Renova” responsive layout for Wordpress by Designova
http://designova.net/themes/wordpress/renova/.
Virtual Exhibition
The design of my virtual exhibition has taken the experiential and spatial
nature of the works presented here into particular consideration in order to
appropriately simulate the experience of encountering these works in person.
The exhibition will ideally be staged in a website format with a one page,
responsive layout. The information about the works will be accessible through
various interactive links and web tools to enhance the visitor’s experience with
the work.
Upon loading the website, small thumbnails of the works will be arranged
in a horizontal line, similar to the example image I have provided. The title of
. 571 .
the exhibition, a link that will automatically scroll to the curatorial statement
posted further down the page, will be placed at the top of the page, while the
large background image will be a slow rotation of higher quality images of the
works in the exhibition. The small thumbnails will also be clickable, and will
link to additional high-resolution images of the works and corresponding text.
Jinny Yu’s works will be exhibited in this layout along with a zoom tool, which
will allow visitors to focus on specific parts of her oil on aluminum canvases,
such as the painted latex stilts in Sequence or the chipped and scratched
surface of Tiepolo Project. Moreover, since sound is a crucial element in Dipna
Horra’s work, the recorded sounds that accompany her installation in this
exhibition will play when the visitor clicks on the different windows in the
image. I would also be interested in including a link to a video walkthrough of
Dipna’s installation as exhibited in a real gallery space, in order for the visitor to
witness a proper spatial sense of the work.
The benefit of a responsive layout design is that it can be easily viewed on
more than one technological platform. Visitors will therefore not only be able
to access this virtual exhibition on their computers, but also with the use of a
tablet or a smartphone.
Notes
1 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge
Classics, 2004), 51.
2 Thomas McEvilley, “The Selfhood of the Other,” in Art and Otherness:
Crisis in Cultural Identity (New York: Documentext, 1992), 94.
. 572 .
3 Carol Becker, “The Romance of Nomadism: A Series of Reflections,”
Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 26.
4 Homi K. Bhabha, “Another Country,” Without Boundary: Seventeen
Ways of Looking, ed. Fereshteh Daftari (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2006), 32.
5Ibid.
6 Jakob Zdebik, “Dark Thoughts: Jinny Yu Starts Where Painting Ends,”
Esse 76 (Fall 2012): 31.
7 William Furlong, “Sound in Recent Art,” in Sound: Documents of
Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly (London and Cambridge,
MA: Whitechapel Art Gallery and MIT Press, 2011), 68.
8 Jinny Yu, interview by the author, November 26, 2013.
9 Petra Halkes, “Construction Work,” Construction Work (Ottawa:
Carleton University Art Gallery, 2009), 44.
10 Yu, interview.
11 Lee Joon, “Void: Mapping the Invisible in Korean Art,” Sublime:
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Simon Morley (London and
12 Ibid., 103.
13 Yu, interview.
14 Ibid.
15Ibid.
16 Jinny Yu, “Biography,” Jinny Yu, Artist Website, accessed November 2,
2013, http://www.jinnyyu.com/biography_and_cv.html.
. 573 .
17 Yu, interview.
18 Zdebik, “Dark Thoughts,” 34.
19 Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” in
Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 332.
20 Dipna Horra, “Sounds of (Dis)location: Practice-Based Studies in
the Art of Unhomely Spaces,” in Spaces of (Dis)location, ed. Rachael
Hamilton et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2013), 177.
21 James Fowler, “Sounding Off with Dipna Horra,” Akimbo: Art +
Tech Blog, accessed October 28, 2013, http://www.akimbo.ca/
atblog/?id=11.
22 Marcus Leadley, “Soundscape and Abstraction: Exploring the
Relationship between Environmental Sound and Language,”
Desearch: Postgraduate Journal of Art and Contemporary Culture,
accessed November 28, 2013, http://www.desearch.co.uk/news_
pages/soundscape-and-abstraction-exploring-the-relationshipbetween-environmental-sound-and-language-by-marcusleadley-717.html.
23Ibid.
24 Ralph T. Coe, “Breaking Through the Sound Barrier,” in Sound:
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly (London and
25 Bhabha, “Another Country,” 32.
. 574 .
Bibliography
Becker, Carol. “The Romance of Nomadism: A Series of Reflections.”
Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 22-29.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture [1994]. New York: Routledge
Classics, 2004.
Bhabha, Homi K. “Another Country.” In Without Boundary: Seventeen
Ways of Looking. ed. Fereshteh Daftari, 30-35. New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2006.
Coe, Ralph T. “Breaking Through the Sound Barrier [1971].” In Sound:
Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly, 54-60. London
and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Art Gallery and MIT Press, 2011.
Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias [1967].”
In Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach,
330-36. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Fowler, James. “Sounding Off with Dipna Horra,” Akimbo: Art +
Tech Blog. Accessed October 28, 2013. http://www.akimbo.ca/
atblog/?id=11.
Furlong, William. “Sound in Recent Art [1994].” In Sound: Documents
of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Caleb Kelly, 67-70. London and
Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Art Gallery and MIT Press, 2011.
Halkes, Petra. “Construction Work.” In Construction Work, 1-50.
Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2009.
Horra, Dipna. “Sounds of (Dis)location: Practice-Based Studies in
the Art of Unhomely Spaces.” Spaces of (Dis)location, ed. Rachael
. 575 .
Hamilton et al., 175-200. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2013.
Joon, Lee. “Void: Mapping the Invisible in Korean Art [2007].” In
Sublime: Documents of Contemporary Art Series, ed. Simon Morley,
102-05. London and Cambridge: Whitechapel Art Gallery
and MIT Press, 2010.
Leadley, Marcus. “Soundscape and Abstraction: Exploring the
Relationship between Environmental Sound and Language.”
Desearch: Postgraduate Journal of Art and Contemporary Culture.
Accessed November 28, 2013.
http://www.desearch.co.uk/news_pages/soundscape-andabstraction-exploring-the-relationship-between-environmentalsound-and-language-by-marcus-leadley-717.html.
McEvilley, Thomas. “The Selfhood of the Other.” In Art and Otherness:
Crisis in Cultural Identity, 90-106. New York: Documentext, 1992.
Zdebik, Jakob. “Dark Thoughts: Jinny Yu Starts Where Painting Ends.”
Esse 76 (Fall 2012): 30-35.
Yu, Jinny. “Biography,” Jinny Yu, Artist Website. Accessed November 2,
2013. http://www.jinnyyu.com/biography_and_cv.html.
. 576 .
Death, Rebirth, and
New Life:
The Ascension
of the Plastisphere
Pamel a Mackenzie
***
For years we have been wondering what effect we are having on the
environment when we dump plastic waste indiscriminately into oceans or
large holes in the ground. These inert materials are so slow to decompose, and
are seemingly unassimilable by the natural environment. How will plastic alter
the creatures that it comes into contact with throughout its long stay here
on earth? How will plastic change our natural landscape? Some of the most
dismal predictions indicate that with the increasing space that must be given
over to landfills that are filled with disposable plastic items, this inanimate
matter may eventually take over and destroy parts of the environment.
. 577 .
Consider, however, the many ways in which plastic improves daily life today.
Most commodities –including computers and cellphones – are packaged in
colourful plastic giftwrap. Plastic Tupperware is the only practical way to carry
food around. Water bottles, plastic bags, cars, intravenous bags, detachable
limbs, Halloween masks, and cat toys - all are made possible, or improved,
by the material of plastic. Plastic is cheap, durable, convenient, and resists
corrosion. This material is a key component in many of the creature comforts
people are so accustomed to in developed nations. But all of these benefits
come at what cost?
I fear that the outlook is grim. It seems that petrochemicals and organic
polymers of high molecular mass – major ingredients in plastics – signal the
death of the natural in a more disturbing way than we could have imagined. A
recent study of marine debris has revealed the unthinkable: plastic is beginning
to support life.1 This study, published in Environmental Science and Technology,
identified an entire ecosystem subsisting off of plastic consumption. One
researcher said the microbes living on the debris make up an “artificial microbal
reef,” of organisms that are very different from the surrounding driftwood and
other natural items.2 We have moved from a primordial soup to primordial
plastic, and this raises an uncomfortable question: what will happen if the
plastic takes over?
We already have some intimation of this when we consider the surprising
places that we find plastic. Documentary film maker Chris Jordan offers a
gruesome look at the realities facing sea birds whose bodies are colonized by
the plastic objects that have invaded their environment.3 Sea birds on Midway
Island are being overtaken by predatory plastic, which slowly kills these birds
. 578 .
from within. It might be concluded that plastic is already an invasive species
that endangers the lives of animals who share its environment. What next?
How long until this nefarious substance becomes self-propagating? This kind
of lethal invasion by spreading plastic clears a space in the larger ecosystem.
Where it cannot clear out a space in established systems it makes its own.
A huge, dense concentration of plastic particles larger than the continental
United States located in the North Pacific Gyre – commonly called The Great
Pacific Garbage Patch – is the perfect location for a plastic-based ecosystem
to take root.4
With these concerns in mind, I have curated an exhibit that foretells of a new
order, one that will gradually replace the one that we know today. Nature will
meet its match in the artificial. This conflict is brilliantly imagined in the works
of collaborative team Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins. Death, Rebirth, and
New Life: The Ascension of the Plastisphere takes the visitor on a journey to our
dystopian future, through the natural and into the perverse rebirth of life in a
reappropriated synthetic world.
. 579 .
Daniel Borins, Jennifer Marman, The Green Rocks, 1999.
Extruded Polystyrene, Astroturf, dimensions variable.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=66718&title=The+Green+R
ocks&artist=Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel+Borins&link_id=11020.
Marman and Borins’ The Green Rocks we are confronted with an object that
we typically associate with inert matter – the lifeless rocks remind viewers of
their geological past, and the eventual return of all creatures to the ossified
impotence of hard, dead stuff. The piece consists of a small collection of
polystyrene rocks covered in Astroturf that are arranged haphazardly. They
carry us through the full circle of death, from the not-yet-living to the alreadydeceased. The photographically-documented subject matter is shown in
an abstract space, casting downward shadows on to the indeterminate
ground. The pieces contain a material reference to our ancestral beginnings,
as synthetic processes have transformed crude oil – the condensed carbon
traces of early life – into bright celebratory nicknacks. The use of the colour
green in this work can be read as a symbolic reference to natural life, which we
so commonly associate with the chlorophyll-rich plants that are being choked
out by pollutants. The association between the colour green and these cheap
plastic imitations of spiritless things in the world condemns our beloved
. 580 .
preconceptions of nature to insentience and immobility, which closes for us
this chapter of geological history, as we move from the anthropocene to the
plasisphere.
Daniel Borins, Jennifer Marman, china art object 2, 2005.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=66700&title=Art+Santa+Fe
+Booth%2C+%3Ci%3Echina+art+object+2%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel+Borins
&link_id=11020.
Daniel Borins, Jennifer Marman, china art object 2, 2005.
&link_id=11020.
. 581 .
Although one chapter of life has closed, the space has thus been cleared
for a new order. In Marman and Borins’ china art object 2 we are faced with
a disturbing scenario: a tiny plastic body that is barely contained by a pink,
ovoid casing. Does this optimistic pink colour not somehow remind the
viewer of a newborn baby? On second look, might this not be a womb,
gestating tiny colourful replacements for the life that has been lost? A closer
look at this artwork’s interior reveals what appears to be a tiny foetal creature,
which has already developed toes. This small, unassuming, pink, decorative
wall attachment takes on a new meaning after the viewer has investigated
more closely, and it may leave them wondering about the inner workings of
other ornaments and playthings. This piece points to artificial reproduction
and the emergence of new meaning in unlikely places, as plastic objects
have appropriated our expectations and integrated themselves into novel
and unlikely spaces in cultural discourse, suggesting the newfound qualities
of self-propagation and sentimentality. Before these synthetic compounds
of organic polymers had a name, “plastic” was a word used to indicate
substances or materials that could be easily shaped or moulded.5 Considering
this etymology, we can now say that plastic is no longer that which can be
moulded, but it is now that which moulds. The plastic is now not just created
but creative - the source of a process which thereby becomes unsettling for
us.
. 582 .
Daniel Borins, Jennifer Marman, Impressionist Expressionist Foam Masterpieces, 2001.
Carpet underpadding, frames, dimensions variable.
&link_id=11020.
In Marman and Borins’ Impressionist Expressionist Foam Masterpieces, the artists
paint a picture of the sublime possibilities of creative plastic, presenting us
with a colourful tableau of synthetic materials. To create this work, Marman
and Borins have cleverly framed swatches of carpet foam in order to draw
attention to this material’s close formal similarity to the paintings of the French
Impressionists. As declared by the artists, the “Expressionist Foam Masterpieces
capture the gesture of action paintings.”6 These artworks suggest that
industrial manufacturing does not only produce functional materials, but also
. 583 .
brilliant works of art! Beyond the artistic potential of manufacturing, this work
also reveals the beauty of tiny compressed flecks of multi-coloured plastic,
a process undoubtedly occurring presently, out at the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch. These works offers a glimpse into the possible worlds – and works of
art – that can be created from our throwaway plastic objects, and helps us to
imagine the potential for the colourful new life that will emerge when plastic
finally takes over.
Once plastic was just a tool or an instrument, a material used to carry groceries
home and to make cheaper electronics. However, now that plastic has created
an ecosystem of its own, we must prepare ourselves for new realities. Plastic has
surpassed all of our expectations by entering the biosphere and integrating
itself within the great chain of being. Plastic has gone from manmade to
autonomous, from domestic to alien. The planet now faces a new invasive
species: plastic that has a life we cannot predict - and whose future is now
determining ours. Plastic’s current ubiquity in the environment proves not
only that are we are in interaction with objects, but that objects themselves
are agents - agents that are as indifferent to us as we are to them.7
Virtual Exhibition
Due to the tone and thematic of this exhibition, I would like to have its
layout closely approximate popular conspiracy websites. The site will
include confused formatting, dead-end links, an assortment of fonts, and a
host of alarmist headlines surrounding the exhibit text. The colour scheme
would involve a heavy use of black and grays for backgrounds, and a mix
of uncoordinated colours for text and hyperlinks. The website would be
. 584 .
intentionally disorganized and have several small videos spread throughout
that will play automatically when you visit each page, simulating the familiar
experience of having ads that frustratingly auto-play while trying to read the
news or watch a program. There would also be many options of “sharing”
with Facebook, Twitter, and so on, resulting in the message “BEWARE THE
PLASTISPHERE” being posted on the viewer’s selected social media.
I would divide the website into the following sections: an introduction; a page
each on death, rebirth, and new life; and concluding remarks, which could be
clicked through from the bottom of the text. Each page would have images
of the artists’ works featured prominently, possibly repeated several times
throughout the page in smaller formats. Clicking the images would lead to
the respective artists’ websites. The text itself would contain considerable
hyper-linking, which would take the visitor to loosely related news articles,
videos, and online journal articles. A selection of the links I would include is
listed below.
News Articles
“Do Green Products Turn Off Conservative Customers?”
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/04/30/do-greenproducts-turn-off-conservative-customers/
“Buying into the Green Movement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.
html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
. 585 .
“New Life Found on Plastic Waste.”
http://io9.com/new-life-found-on-plastic-waste-gives-rise-to-theplas-1463926939
“The “Plastisphere”: A New Marine Ecosystem.”
http://ocean.si.edu/blog/plastisphere-new-marine-ecosystem
“Lies You’ve been Told About the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
http://io9.com/5911969/lies-youve-been-told-about-the-pacific-garbagepatch
Videos
Richard Lewinton, Biology as Ideology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni8kL5TTRtA
Werner Herzog, On the Jungle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQyQnXrLb0
Slavoj Zizek, Excerpt from Examined Life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv1xtoU
Chris Jordan, Midway trailer.
http://www.midwayfilm.com/index.html
Journal Articles and Other Material
“Definition/Synonyms of Artificial.”
http://thesaurus.com/browse/artificial
“The Environmental Toll of Plastics.” http://www.
environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/dangers-of-plastic
. 586 .
“An Introduction to Green Marketing.”
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/49n325b7#page-4
“Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/
great-pacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1
“Stop Plastic from Taking Over!”
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/file/plasticpledge- cb1272899064.pdf
Notes
1 Erik R. Zettler, Tracy J. Mincer, and Linda A. Amaral-Zettler, “Life in
the “Plastisphere”: Microbial Communities on Plastic Marine Debris,”
Environmental Science & Technology 47 (2013): 7137-7146.
2 “Plastic Debris in Ocean has Spawned a “Plastisphere” of Organisms,”
Yale Environment 360, posted November 13, 2013, accessed
December 4, 2013, http://e360.yale.edu/digest/plastic_debris_in_
ocean_has_spawned_plastisphere_of_organisms/4001/.
3 Midway Film Website, accessed December 5, 2013, http://www.
midwayfilm.com/.
4 “Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex,” National
Geographic Encyclopedia, accessed December 4, 2013, http://
education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/greatpacific-garbage-patch/?ar_a=1.
5 “Plastic,” Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed December 4, 2013.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=plastic.
. 587 .
6 Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, “Impressionist Expressionist Foam
Masterpieces,” CCCA Website, accessed December 21, 2013,
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&
mkey=66700&title=Art+Santa+Fe+Booth%2C+%3Ci%3Echina+art+o
bject+2%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel+Borins&li
nk_id=11020.
7. Special thanks to friend Joseph Carew for poetic inspiration
throughout this essay.
Bibliography
Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette and William R. Newman, eds. The
Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving Polarity. London: The MIT Press,
2007.
Borins, Daniel and Jennifer Marman. “Impressionist Expressionist Foam
Masterpieces.” CCCA Website. Accessed December 5, 2013. http://ccca.
concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&mkey=66700
&title=Art+Santa+Fe+Booth%2C+%3Ci%3Echina+art+object+2%3C%
2Fi%3E&artist=Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel+Borins&link_id=11020.
“Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex.” National Geographic
Encyclopedia. Accessed December 4, 2013. http://education.
nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/great-pacificgarbage-patch/?ar_a=1
Hirsch, Faye. “Portia Munson.” Art Forum. Review. (Summer 1996).
Accessed December 11, 2013. http://www.portiamunson.com/
references/Artforum.pdf.
. 588 .
Marman, Jennifer and Daniel Borins. “Impressionist Expressionist
Foam Masterpieces.” CCCA Website. Accessed December 4, 2013.
http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/work_detail.html?languagePref=en&
mkey=66700&title=Art+Santa+Fe+Booth%2C+%3Ci%3Echina+art+o
bject+2%3C%2Fi%3E&artist=Jennifer+Marman+and+Daniel+Borins&
link_id=11020.
Midway Film Website. Accessed December 5, 2013.
http://www.midwayfilm.com/.
Newitz, Annalee. “Lies You’ve Been Told About the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch.” i09 (2012). Accessed December 5, 2013.
http://io9.com/5911969/lies-youve-been-told-about-the-pacificgarbage-patch.
“Plastic.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed December 4, 2013.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=plastic.
“Plastic Debris in Ocean has Spawned a “Plastisphere” of Organisms.”
Yale Environment 360. Accessed December 4, 2013. http://e360.yale.
edu/digest/plastic_debris_in_ocean_has_spawned_plastisphere_
of_organisms/4001/
Wilson, Stephen. Art + Science Now. New York: Thames and Hudson,
2010.
Zettler, Erik R., Tracy J. Mincer, and Linda A. Amaral-Zettler. “Life in
the “Plastisphere”: Microbial Communities on Plastic Marine Debris.”
Environmental Science & Technology 47 (2013): 7137-7146.
. 589 .

Global Engagements in Contemporary Canadian Art

Transcription

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