Akimblog
Ottawa
Pop Life at the National Gallery | Bodies in Trouble at SAW Gallery | Kichen Anatomy at Karsh-Masson Gallery | SWARM at Project Window
posted by Deborah Margo - July 26th, 2010.
A well-rehearsed sparring session between Robert Enright and Blake Gopnik was held shortly after Pop Life: Art in a Material World opened at the National Gallery. The room was packed, the debate entertaining, despite host Carol Off acting the self-congratulatory fool while Enright and Gopnik displayed varying levels of cleverness combined with intellectual-lite jabs. Several weeks later when I reluctantly made my way to the big show, my contrarian tendencies were on high alert.
Damien Hirst, Daniel Oliver and Christopher Oliver (detail), 2009, household gloss paint on wall, chairs and twins, dimensions variable (courtesy Science Ltd.)
If Andy Warhol were alive, he would be turning eighty-two in August, and a selection of his progeny from all over the world honour his extensive legacy in Ottawa. He is everywhere, his ghost flitting from room to room, haunting documentation from the archives about his dynasty, ever present amidst videos, paintings, sculptures, grand installations, impressive photographs, a store presided over by Keith Haring, wallpaper, and a pair of twins happy to have a conversation with you about Damien Hirst. Pop’s story is impressively told, particularly by the grandchildren.
In the late 1980s, I lived close to New York City, often attending exhibitions of Meyer Vaisman, Ashley Bickerton, Jeff Koons, et al, as they showcased their newest works and antics. Vaisman and Bickerton’s auras have not fared well; today they are formulaic and tired. As for Warhol’s other spawn, Tracey Emin’s more recent contributions are, in this context, cute and, oh so condescendingly juvenile. But Koons, who caused endless debate more than twenty years ago, still packs it in today. His ability to make one struggle with one’s hypocrisies was not something I wanted to recognize in my twenties; today I am less resilient.
Takashi Murakami, Akihabara Majokko Princess (production still), 2009 (courtesy Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.; photo: Bruce Yamakawa)
Towards the end of the exhibition, I merrily sing along with Kirsten Dunst, starring in Takashi Murakami’s video Akihabara Majokko Princess, only slightly disturbed by his infantile over-sized and diminutive figurines. The Pop bombardment has successfully led me to a self-induced anaesthetized state: I care about nothing and no one.
Jackson Couse, Mère courage (from the Playing House series), 2009 (performance by Hélène Lefebvre)
At SAW Gallery, Bodies in Trouble, curated by Stefan St-Laurent, is an antidote to states of numbness. Two rooms have been painted a mute black with a low floor barrier situated where wall meets the floor, making me conscious of my looking at the images from a designated distance. This group exhibition of photojournalistic works and documentation of performance art spans over fifty years, and Cristina Garcia Rodero’s black and white photo essay, Between Heaven and Earth, begins this prescient meditation on our fragility and propensity for survival. Though the images capture intense, troubled moments, they are not shrill in tone nor overwhelming in scale. Exemplary of this nuanced exhibition are Jackson Couse’s four images from Playing House, taken during Hélène Lefebvre’s performances, which are situated next to Lana Slezic’s portraits of an Afghan girl and police-woman, leading one to form distressed, layered narratives.
Anna Frian, Cold Storage, 2009, steel
Anna Frlan has pulled out the stops at Karsh-Masson Gallery with her exhibition Kitchen Anatomy. Frlan’s elaborate sculptures include imagery ranging from invented natural forms, the history of anatomy drawing, links to her Croatian upbringing, steel’s role as a key material in Minimalist and post-Minimalist practices, and its ubiquity in modern kitchen design. All of this abundance is compressed within the recognizable containers of stove, fridge, kitchen cabinets, and, finally, the table, the locus for fables of family dysfunction and/or triumphs. On the surface Frlan’s work resembles Cal Lane’s sculptures as they share an awareness of materiality and the tenacity to transform a resistant material into metal fabric, nevertheless there are also marked differences. With Lane’s work her sources are borrowed from an unquestioned tradition of lace-making, whereas Frlan has begun to explore a more subversive domestic agenda. The accompanying video of a woman preparing an impossible meal in the artist’s steel kitchen highlights this potent shift.
Peter Trepanier, SWARM
If you are on Elgin Street, south of downtown and Melvin Charney’s fascistic Canadian Tribute to Human Rights, venture to Somerset and walk a few paces east. At 185 Somerset Street West you will find Ambassador Realty Inc.’s window, which has been used as an exhibition space for the past year, ably curated by Georgia Mathewson. Currently on view and installed to coincide with the Queen’s visit, SWARM consists of selections from Peter Trepanier’s extensive and (ir)reverent archive on Elizabeth. Having missed his exhibition at Artexte in Montreal in 2008, I was thrilled to find his work in Ottawa celebrating the Queen’s return to her “second home”. Taped to the inside and outside surfaces of the glass window, small pieces of paper ephemera examine the role of figure heads, our need to believe in their power, and how they act as the ultimate performance artists. The connections between the paper cut-out pieces have no ultimate beginning or ending, but are scattered into an intentional visual and textual throng.
Deborah Margo is an artist who combines different disciplines including sculpture, drawing, and ephemeral installations to question the contextual identities of public and private spaces. Since 1984, her work has been exhibited in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. She is represented by Patrick Mikhail Gallery. Margo is also a faculty member at the Department of Visual Arts, University of Ottawa, where she teaches drawing, painting, and sculpture. During the summer she works as a gardener. She is Akimblog’s Ottawa correspondent.
National Gallery of Canada: http://www.gallery.ca/english/index.html
Pop Life continues until September 19.
SAW Gallery: http://www.galeriesawgallery.com/
Bodies in Trouble continues until October 3.
Karsh-Masson Gallery: http://www.ottawa.ca/arts/
Kitchen Anatomy continues until August 29.
Project Window: http://www.projectwindow.webs.com/
SWARM continues until July 31.