Akimblog

St. John's

posted by Craig Francis Power - October 12th, 2006.

I’ve always thought that Newfoundlanders feel about Canada the way Canadians feel about the United States: anxious, resentful, intimidated, and yet always eager to please. Is it this neurotic relationship with the rest of the country that leads to all the drinking on the Rock? Who knows, but alcohol (the lubricant that keeps the art-world machine running so smoothly) was certainly a significant ingredient in a couple of fall openings in old St. John’s.

The most recent was Thaddeus Holownia’s Terra Nova Suite at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery; a vast collection of black and white photographs culled from his visits to the island over the last twenty-five or so years. A master technical photographer, Holownia also has that rare gift for capturing in a single frame the seemingly eons worth of human toil, tragedy, and suffering written in the ramshackle poverty and squalor of urban Newfoundland. It’s not everyday that one is reminded of the inevitability of the death of one’s own culture and Holownia, the intrepid mainlander, has captured in these photos what has remained for Newfoundlanders since the 1970s an over-riding, collective obsession: the notion that we have begun to witness our own alienation from the land and the erosion of a traditional way of life connected with the natural environment.

Holownia’s landscape photos address this seemingly timeless theme: the intersection between civilization and wilderness. A set of telephone poles runs through an uninhabited, rugged range of rocky hills. A wooden dory literally rots into the ground at the side of the ocean. Footprints (either man or animal made) are gradually washed away by the tide. These last, unfortunately, have the unmistakable air of what one of my old teachers from NSCAD referred to as “Old People Art,” that is (and nothing against geriatrics), the kind of work that has been well traveled and documented, takes little risk, and comforts and reassures the assumptions of the gallery visitor instead of challenges them.

Thaddeus Holownia, Anatomy Lesson – Moose, installation view

On one wall is a huge grid comprised of one hundred photos of found bones from Holownia’s numerous excursions into the rural landscape. Anatomy Lesson – Moose is a collection of stark white images on a black field that came about when the artist discovered an entire moose skeleton while hiking. It’s easily the most impressive piece in the show - almost overpowering the smaller scaled works in the gallery space - and while there were many compelling photographs, this piece kept drawing me back again and again.

So what does this have to do with drinking? Not much, I guess, except that the exhibition marks the first time The Rooms started charging five bucks a pop for beer instead of just giving it away.

Welcome to Gayside party at Eastern Edge Gallery

Only two weeks previous, however, something all together more fun and less stuffy went on down at Eastern Edge Gallery, one of two artist run centres in St. John’s committed to contemporary visual art from across Canada and internationally. Welcome to Gayside, the project of collaborative queer trio The Third Leg, was inspired by an incident in 1985 when the Newfoundland community of Gayside voted to rename their town “Baytona” after residents experienced increasing ridicule. More outreach than research project, the group held a dance party for their opening with a DJ, pink and white streamers, balloons, an endless supply of condoms and numerous sex-friendly banners (Homo Sweet Homo being my favourite). After the party ended, the leftover mess served as the installation itself.

The project also included various collaborative drawings by the group featuring everything from bestiality to plain old, meat and potatoes, hetero-missionary position intercourse. In addition, the group presented a redrawn map of Newfoundland wherein the town names and the very shape of the land itself came to suggest sexual acts, slang, and genitalia. Wheee! But what could you expect from a province with towns called Dildo and Spread Eagle?

As a precursor to the actual party, a collection of well known queer activist videos from the 1980s was shown. The work felt a little dated considering that much of it addressed the original outbreak of the AIDS crisis, but in spite of this small complaint, the art and the party, as my hangover the next day proved beyond doubt, were both top notch.

Coral Short, Stationary, 2005, video

Not to be overshadowed, the video work of Vancouver artist Coral Short is also on view at Eastern Edge and is worth a look. Her suite of nineteen videos, entitled Stationary, cover everything from the quirky inner workings of secretarial life to a lesbian tennis match across the Thames in London.

Craig Francis Power (http://craigfrancispower.com/) is an artist and writer living in St. John’s.

The Rooms: http://www.therooms.ca/artgallery/
Thaddeus Holownia: Tera Nova Suite continues until January 7.

Eastern Edge Gallery: http://easternedge.ca/
The Third Leg: Welcome to Gayside continues until October 28.
Coral Short: Stationary continues until October 28.