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Vie des Arts

English reports

Volume 45, Number 184, Fall 2001

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/52969ac

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Publisher(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

ISSN 0042-5435 (print) 1923-3183 (digital)

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Cite this review (2001). Review of [English reports]. Vie des Arts, 45(184), 70–76.

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ un gallery space. One is covered with a 1960s survive only in the form of camouflaged coloured cloth with documents, photographs, books, films \- artificial greenery on it and the other and videos due to their ephemeral O has a blue willow patterned cloth conception, he has also created topped with fragments of willow installations over the decades on the QJ ware pottery. Again there is an inter­ landscapes of world's five conti­ i_ play between two realities that sym­ nents. Early in his career, Bill Vazan bolizes the ongoing struggle between commented on his early use of grids, man and nature. Nature is represent­ scanning and framing techniques in un ed by the artificial greenery and man photography stating: "They are two- by the pottery shards. Edson neatly dimensional mental maps indicating juxtaposes two competing visions of the mind at work and akin to think­ nature: one where nature is seen in ing about thinking-reductions of the c its supposedly pure state where all is images all about our multi-dimen­ bountiful and the other where nature sional space and selves." The series is a force to be conquered and over­ of new works that form the main come. body of Cosmological Shadows at E. Edson the Musée du Québec, grew out of dwelling, 2000 as we speed down the road, and for The idea of landscape is a man- made construct. Nature existed these early photo essais and later the majority, what we see on televi­ evolved into photomosaics, globes, sion. As our attention spans shrink, without man before he made an appearance on earth. Yet the idea of visual spheres, hovers, and pho- SACKVILLE, it is difficult to get people to notice towrites. N.B. anything as subtle as traditional landscape cannot exist without landscape painting. human thought. Simon Schama's The works on view at the Musée book Landscape and Memory, du Québec date from the past two Edson's dwelling installation which describes how nature was, years, and are, for the most part, DWELLING: provides another way of looking a AN INSTALLATION and is, used as a tool for nationalism photoworks. These include what nature by giving us, of all things, a by various countries, has influenced Vazan calls membranes-photo series ERIK EDSON peep show. Peep shows in general Edson's own thoughts on nature arranged as horizontal scans of a have a rather unsavory reputation 14 September-28 October 2001 representation. Though Schama landscape. Oval (Siting Osiris)/ and involve looking at something does not write about Canada, his membrane (2000) has at its top and Owens Art Gallery that we shouldn't be looking at. We Mount Allison University ideas on landscape can be seen in a bottom a series of consecutive scan look at them anyways. The peep Canadian context. We are, after all, shots taken on a ridge in the Theban 61 York St, Sackville holes in Edson's work are set into N.B., E4L1E1. still a country with more trees than Hills in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. an artificial wall set up in the gallery people and an urge to picture our­ Inserted between these two 18 photo Tel.: 506 364-2574 in a way that effectively cuts the selves as lumberjacks. Edson's sections (which create the form of I have always found installation exhibition space in two. The viewing dwelling installation pokes holes a globe with skyline using consecu­ art to be an elusive art form. It exists holes are all over the place. Some in our stereotypical view of the tive scanning), a horizontal fine of only at a particular place and time, are just inches from the floor,other s Canadian landscape and he does so 22 photos records a bas relief m unlike paintings or sculpture in a too high to reach, while others are with such a sense of humour and the interior of the Temple of Abou gallery collection, which can be visit­ at eye level. All the holes are fitted irony. We are able to laugh at our­ Simbel that visually narrates ed over and over again. Photographs with tiny lenses like the ones on selves and still get the picture Ramses Its exploits and battles. It of an installation do not do justice to hotel room doors that allow you to that nature is in trouble and that was intended to aid the pharaoh on the artist's intent. You have to see the see who is there without opening this might be part of the problem. his voyage to the afterlife. Other installation in order for it to make the door-and that distort the view. inno-vations in the show include any sense at all. In point of fact, I What you see in some of the holes Virgil Hammock Vazan's ovals. Oval: The Temple of generally do not like installation art is rather surprising: strange animals Kom Ombo (2000) and Oval:Jacque s at all, as installation artists tend to and birds which are really small Cartier Bridge, Montreal (2000) take themselves far too seriously. plastic toys. They appear life size resemble Vazan's earlier globes, but Much of it can be, at best, bad inte­ because of the distorting effect of the QUEBEC CITY the shaping of these 360 degree rior decoration, but Erik Edson's lens. Somehow, the use of plastic scans is oval rather than circular. work is an exception. Erik Edson animals seems right in this panora­ ma. The walls in the enclosed gallery One of the most visually surpris­ teaches printmaking and sculpture BILL VAZAN: ing works in the show is Smaller at Mount Allison University in space are hung with 19th century landscape paintings from the Owens COSMOLOGICAL SHADOWS World (2000) which juxtaposes an Sackville, New Brunswick and this is uppermost landscape view of Cap Art Gallery's permanent collection Musée du Québec the third Edson installation that I Trinité on the Côte Nord with images which provide a counter-reference th have seen. I have liked all three of 27 Sept. 2001-January 6 , 2002 of the root structure of a birch tree, for this plastic menagerie. The them. Perhaps this is because Tel.: 418-644-6460 all this arranged in a grid-like format though there is serious intent behind results are funny and when people Synthesizing idea and image, of multiple photos. Another is Edson's work, he uses humour to look through the holes they laugh. using the land art projects he has Vazan's interior photo reconstruc­ underscore his concern for nature The animals may be artificial, but so become known for, or alternatively tion of the interior of the Abou and the environment. are Edson's landscapes which are selected natural, architectural and Simbel temple in Egypt. Multiple stat­ romanticized visions of a nature that ues of Ramses II, and the ceiling In the past, artists made their archaeological sites around the never existed. What the viewers find vaults built a sort of compartmental­ point about nature by painting land­ world, or both, Bill Vazan has, over funny is the replacement of a disap­ ized geometrical structure using this scapes. The Group of Seven jumps 35 years, built a significant body of pearing nature with something quite interesting imagery. very much to our collective minds artificial which, in reality, is not that photoworks. These have developed when we think about nature and art funny. into an art production that parallels The term singularities, used in in Canada, but different times call for Vazan's large scale land art instal­ science to refer to what existed in the a different approach to nature by There is more to this installation lations and sculptures seen at the universe prior to the big bang, is today's artists. We have become an than a wall with holes. Erik painted McMichael Collection in Weinberg, adapted by Vazan to describe the thin urban society whose dips into nature the gallery walls a stark white and the Art Gallery of Peterborough, the lines of extending horizon views he are a trip to the cottage for those outlined images of clouds with a thin National Gallery of Canada and else­ now presents for the first time. For lucky enough to own one, the stuff blue line on the false wall. He added where. While many of the land art Vazan, a singularity that juxtaposes a we see on either side of the highway two other constructions in the open projects Bill Vazan created in the view of the south-east coast of

70 VIE DES ARTS N°184 *ŒÏWBÊŒ& 1 this exciting art. It was Art Price, too, For the record, the 60s pro­ who found and transported the long- duced some brilliant works. In 1964 house and totems that make the he won the Grand Prize in Montreal's m*:: v * nucleus of the beloved Indian Village National Fountain and Monument \i>^m^ *- * at the University of British Columbia. Competition with the sculpture Not He returned to Ottawa to design even a Sparrow Falleth, an ether­ free lance for the National Film eal bronze piece with delicate float­ Board. He illustrated some twenty ing angels. He did Labyrinth for books on French Canadian and Expo '67. Another big commission T ' Indian legends by Marius Barbeau, in bronze was Family Group, for and produced a film-strip Masks the Prudential Assurance Company |/i!f #• of tbe North American Indians of Montreal, an intimate view of fam­ and Eskimos. He studied painters ily members. such as Bee, Chagall, Magritte, Harold In Toronto Price created Man Town. He was carving in wood and above Matter for the Canadian had begun working in metal, iron National Exhibition, as well as a Bill Vazan and copper, when the Film Board 30-foot exterior abstract for the Smaller World (2000) nestled in the trees that have escaped moved to Montreal. He stayed in Shell Company building. Sails the suburb clear-cut all around him. Ottawa and in 1951 went to the Arctic Aflame is cast in bronze at the He has retained the quick laugh I Grande-Ile in the Mingan archipel­ for the Hudson's Bay Company, mak­ entrance to Harbour Castle Hotel. He remember from years ago and in fact ago with the pyramids of Geza, ing drawings and paintings along the did a set of richly coloured totems thinks the only thing to do about builds a visual constructions that is Mackenzie River. By this time he was modern life, with its hin-less pletho­ for the B.C. Room of the Royal York "like a mirage, a warp or a twist". a member of the Royal Canadian ra of computers and technological hotel. In Ottawa, The Universe is These visually stunning works are Academy, and the CBC had televised inventions, is to laugh. We walked You is a silver-coloured, stainless mindscapes that hinge upon the his work. He received commissions along the roadside and picked fresh steel ball outside the National recording of actual topographies for larger works, and did five carv­ camomille plants to replenish the tea Research Council. Abstract designs and provide a hint of the actual cur­ ings for Jasper Park Lodge, two of he drinks constantly. He is 82, fit and of nickel stainless steel, Unity in vature of the earth. Also on view are them totems. wiry and only agreed to the Toronto Diversity decorate the fountains on single shot photo documents of move because he admits he can no Art Price admires the simple and Sparks Street mall. His most recent recent large scale land art projects longer climb the 32 ft. ladders that direct and believes that "art is the work here is Communigraph, a undertaken in the Mingan archipel­ were his métier. byproduct of activity." Don't be fussy, 24-foot free-standing abstract for ago on the lower Saint Lawrence the new Post Office terminal. It's The move will bring Price full adapt, carve what comes to hand. (2000) and in Egypt (2001). strong sets of vibrations form icy- circle to the city he moved to when He likes to follow the design from Cosmological Shadows, Vazan's cles in winter and shine in the sun. he was three years old. Born in beginning to final product, enjoys latest show is a visually astonishing, The past joins the present in simple up dale on one of Quebec's most Edmonton, 1918, to Welsh and Dutch the gamble and luck of pleasing lines. These were the years when consistent and intriguing artist/ parents, he moved to Brantford an audience, like a performer, and the Department of Public Works sculptors. outside the Indian reserve, south says, "You can never predict the final assigned a certain percentage of its of Toronto, and later went to art affect." John K. Grande budget to new art for new buildings. school at Western Technical School, He talked of his fortune in locat­ When that ran out, Art Price turned winning a bursary to the Ontario ing the Bond Brass Limited foundry to other things. He carved, for exam­ College of Art. From the beginning near his home. It meant he could ple, a Pan Pipe flute from grey slate he supported himself with a wide beat the cost of art castings by doing after an Indian model. He made a variety of activities: as a night-club his own. He is a rare combination: 10-note music machine in cast OTTAWA cartoonist, set designer for a ballet an artist-foundry man. To quote a bronze, 12 feet tall. It plays hke a company, and eventually journeyed technical journal: "He has learned carillon when the pedals and levers to Vancouver where he joined the about gating, risering of difficult ART PRICE: are pressed. He rehirbished heraldic Merchant Navy, witnessing the art of castings and can mould in green, A SCULPTOR figures for the foyer to the National the Northwest Coast Indians for the C0 and oil sands, lost wax and FOR ALL SEASONS 2 Arts Centre. Libraries and schools first time. When war broke out, Price polystryene, and cast metal objects Art Price is a Canadian artist with joined the army and designed sets of all weights in both aluminum and an international reputation whose for the Canadian Army shows going copper base alloys." work crosses seamlessly the borders overseas to entertain the forces. In Art Price Birds of welcome: Gander airport of English, Quebec, and native Indian 1943 he went to the National Film cultures. For the past 64 years he Board as part-time animator, work­ has made his home in Ottawa. As ing with Norman MacLaren. He met well as monumental sculptures, cast his wife Dalila there, and they would in bronze or aluminum and commis­ have five children, all of them artists. sioned by cities from Victoria, B.C. to Gander, Newfoundland he has Price tried Hollywood in 1946 produced a cascade of paintings, but a strike in the industry changed drawings, small sculptures in wood, his plans. He moved his family musical instruments, film and the­ north, under contract to the National atre design. This September he leaves Museum, and travelled the whole the Ottawa house he built himself to of Vancouver Island and the Queen join a daughter in Toronto, grand- Charlottes. His notes and drawings daugher of the great anthropologist were the foundation of much of his Marius Barbeau. later work. The paintings were made Talking to Art Price, I found him into a Native Arts of Canada series, totally down-to-earth and, as you used first by the Pulp and Paper would expect, practical. He was sell­ Association and later reproduced ing his own, and other artists' works by silk screens hung in schools and and there were still treasures to be offices all across Canada. For many found. His house is immaculate. people it was their first exposure to

VIE DES ARTS N"184 71 benefited from crystal ceiling series is How to wear a tinted rain­ BECKY SINGLETON decoration (the Ottawa Public coat (1981/1998). In this work Library) and standing abstract The Art Gallery Kluka is properly dressed in panties, walls of amusing design. of York University heels and a transparent raincoat. Yes Ih st Price travelled to Italy, Spain Sept. 4 -Oct. 21 ,2001. it is zipped up and yes she's water­ and Scandinavia to look into art Gallery Hours: Tues., Thurs., proof, but her ample bosom is pack­ exchanges. He made a number of and Fri., 10:00 am to 4:00 pm aged hke a cut of meat in a grocery trips to China, once under the aus­ Weds.: 10:00 am to 8:00 pm store! pices of the Federation of China and Sun. : noon to 5 pm Becky Singleton's show is a must the China Friendship Association. He N145 Ross Building see for anyone interested in chal­ showed Chinese work naive paper 4700 Keele St., Toronto lenging contemporary art! The staff cut-outs back in Ottawa. He spent Tel.: (416) 736 5169 at AGYU will gladly direct you to three months in Mangshi. now Lusi www.yorku.ca/admin/agyu other publications that discuss City, far west of Yunan province, with Singleton's work in theoretical depth the interpreter, He Qui, giving lec­ Its freshman week on campus and context. Or you may simply want tures in English on Canadian art at and pimply first years are wander­ to visit York Lanes, the campus mall, the Teachers College. ing the mall-like halls of York and buy a neat clear raincoat for University trying to find the class­ back to school. He is a totally inventive man, rooms and food courts. I would not and human stories abound. There have imagined this setting to be Elizabeth Fearon was the man in Toronto, Max conducive for this ambitious twenty Florence, who sent his life's savings, year sampling of Becky Singelton's $1,224.67 as a gift to the National work. But like so many shows STANLEY SPENCER: Capital Commission to brighten mounted at the AGYU, the curatori­ Stanley Spencer ANGELS AND DIRT Self-portrait 1914, 2001 Ottawa. Art Price was commissioned al staff aims at the highest common Oil of canevas, 62,9 x 508 cm to design a red granite sundial near denominator. Perhaps they are out Sept. i4,h-Dec. 30th, 2001 Art Gallery of Ontario Pierre Trudeau's official residence. to prove that inside the mall a uni­ Art Gallery of Ontario in Washing, Elsie, ( 1943-44) look The children in Winnipeg chipped versity does exist. I say this not to be 317 Dundas St. W. in so their museum couid keep a elitist but to set you up for the fact less laboured than his religious Tel.: 416-977-0414 sculpture they loved, Girl with a Singleton's work is a hard read. The paintings. The dramatic sketches Cat. In Ottawa, he put together the viewer is challenged by each and In this, the first show of Stanley and paintings of Burners (1940) pieces of a beloved old building to every work in the show and has to Spencer's art ever held in Canada, or Welders (1941) done in the save The Tin House in the market. think to get it. The hand out brochure the Art Gallery of Ontario presents wartime shipyards at Port Glasgow, He will doubtless surprise Toronto, printed and distributed by the AGYU 65 paintings and drawings by this Scotland have thai same energy and especially if he takes the stunning simply states: "...The resulting work quirky, yet fascinating artist. For a documentary veracity as Louis 20 feet by 10 feet Rain Wall, now is obhque, and raises more ques­ long time considered a regionalist Muhlstock's realist treatments of hanging in his garage with him. tions than it answers." painter in his native England where similar war industry themes in Ottawa will miss him. he lived in Cookham, a small English Montreal: man and machine inter­ Singleton's conceptual explo­ village in the Thames Valley some face. But Spencer loads his paint­ Anne McDougall rations are, we are told, united 30 miles west of London, Stanley ings, crowds them, as if there were by "...her interest in the structure Spencer developed a unique narra­ always more to capture. Scrapheap of language, representation, and tive style. For the way he referenced (1944) is one of the most poetic thought." One of the most amazing the Bible, he has been compared and beautiful. The waste and dirt TORONTO elements in the show is Six with William Blake. But Spencer Spencer so loved is evidenced in Projections (1981). This work has developed his narratives differently, piles of rusted sheet metal, the pat­ its own exhibition room and activates in a highly personal, and often terns of empty rivet holes, all set an entire wall. As the title suggests, obscure way. against a brick background. Other it comprises six projections. The paintings like Carrying Mattresses subject matter is simply Margareth What a complex inner life (ca. 1920-21 ) are amusing, and bor­ Kluka, (Singelton's model) in each Spencer expressed through his art! der on pantomime. projection for the duration of the Sometimes the convolutions and 16mm film stock, dancing topless symbolic meanings are exhausting. The religious themes Spencer alone in a room. This work is owned His earliest works such as The Apple addressed in a narrative style fuse by The Art Gallery of Ontario, so we Gatherers (1912-13), for their the everyday banality of English must assume it is more than a pseu- residue of natural style, an echo village life with dramatic Biblical do-Muybridge movement study and of Gauguin's work, are more intrin­ themes. They delight in the mun­ certainly more than jiggling objecti­ sically joyful than what followed. dane, as if Spencer were bringing fied tits. Is it personal expression The landscapes are often straight God back home for tea. A simpler by way of self-directed movement, realistic portrayals, witness to what delight can be found in the paint­ heightened by the consistent' of the the eye beholds. We see this straight ings less laden with overt symbol­ projection length and static camera? approach in Cookham (1914) and ism, for Spencer loved being literal, I'm not sure, but it certainly does Cookham from Cookham Dene bringing Gethsemane back to the leave a poetic imprint. (1938). A poignant critique of village square. The swirl of details- modern morality, Love Among Other works in the show include a couch, clothes, couple and wall­ the Nations (1935) is jam packed the Talking Ball Series (1999-2000), paper-in Love Letters (1950), is a with peoples of different races in Becky Singleton Dial Photographs (1984-1994), sincere evocation of Spencer's love Talking Ball Series, 2000 (detail) their respective costumes, embrac­ Beaut}' and the Beast (2001), and for a woman, and delights in a deco 2 sets of 6 C Prints, 16 x 20" each ing, enjoying each others bodies. Photo Courtesy Art Gallery of York University the How to photographs (1981- style. His mission, to communicate Its ultimate message may be 1998). The How to photographs, a religious message through art, lit­ that conventions of race and age hke Six Projections also showcase eral and laden with the English do not matter when it comes to Margareth Kluka as the model. In village life vernacular, can be seen sex. The sketches Patricia with these photos, Singleton plays with in Christ Carrying the Cross ( 1920). Gramophone (1943-44) Patricia the conventions of advertising and We see workmen (or is it disciples?), Shopping, (1943-44), and Taking representation. My favourite of this a cottage crammed with "angels" n VIE DES ARTS N184 centre is to function in a manner Suites. Ward prefers to paint micro leaning out of its windows. It all DON BONHAM seems too naive, even as Spencer similar to the Banff Centre for the worlds, elaborating on their pat­ sincerely believed in this message. Arts in Alberta, as a place for artist & JOHN WARD terns, details, decomposition and Ditto for The Crucifixion (1921). residencies, conferences, and retreats. Sovran Jensen Fine Art birth. They liberate his art from the The landscape and Christ on the The exhibition this year sought October I5,h heavily trodden fields of narrative. Cross, seen from a bird's eye view, The leaf patterns and minutiae of to present the work of 30 artists in 18 Hook Avenue though modernist, even art deco, details enable Ward to experiment outdoor settings around the island. Toronto, Ontario with abstract variables-colour, light, looks incongruous, as if God and Indeed the setting and the request M6P 1T4. real life met awkwardly at some that artists use "environmentally form, texture and composition. The Tel.: 416-766-5832 crossroad in Stanley Spencer's and people friendly" materials may paintings reify the cyclical process of Fax: 416-766-9467 mind. well be the only formal link of any life and death, embodying all its transitory stages. Ward's approach to Spencer's paintings from the kind between the works. While in a This show is a rare event for the painting nature is ultimately a phe- 1930s are haunting and obsessive gallery setting this approach could Canadian arts scene that juxtaposes nomenological one, for he does not depictions of his sexual awakening. lead to a very poor show, the sheer Don Bonham's finely crafted and impose his subject, but instead dis­ As evocations of an inner life, they amount of space and "real world" fantastic, neo-mythological sculp­ covers it in nature's designs. Each reflect a bizarre obsession and guilt environment between the works on tures with John Ward's colour satu­ element he paints has its own that turns inwards. Toasting (or the Toronto islands certainly adds rated invasions of the leaf world. unperceived history. In Red Leaf Sociableness) (1937-38) shows a to the various artists' presentations. Ward's cause us to investigate the rift with Holes, (1999) for instance, the nude couple cooking a slab of meat Basically, the viewer sets out to between human culture and nature, details resemble a map of nature's in front of a fireplace, while Con­ explore the Island and has the while Don Bonham's neo-mytholo­ processes in microcosm, which are sciousness (1938) casts its shadow added bonus of finding art along gical machines and anthropomor­ synonyms for universal transforma­ on a gossipy dressed-up couple. As the way. phized techno-hybrids are finely tion. The leaf is at the point of turn­ expressions of convoluted relation­ engineered fusions of technology One of the better works they ing from summer green to autumn ships with both of his wives, these and humanity. will find will be Water Colour red. As in Yellow Light. Light and paintings share something of the John Ward, who began as a ( 2(H) 1 ) a collaboration between artists Dark or Yellow Leaf, John Ward macabre with Bosch and the painter scenery painter for theatre at the age Delwyn Higgens and Michael Davey. details the immediate as if there Edward Burra. Spencer's penetrating of 17, and had rapid success as an This work is located at the Toronto were no filter between himself and portraits of himself and his wives are illustrator, before turning his brush Island Water Filtration Plant. Very the abstract world he uncovers. The painful, poignant, and with a feeling to the canvas full-time in 1974, has simply, this duo has activated 650 expanded scale which transforms for the spirit within. They conclude exhibited his works in Brazil, manhole covers located in a fifty the realism into an altogether differ­ with a Self Portrait from 1959, when Monaco, France, Korea, Viet Nam by one hundred metre field with­ ent artform is analogous to the way he was dying from cancer. Amid the in the plant's boundaries by paint­ and across Canada and the United angels and the dirt, Stanley Spencer ing the manholes. Each cover is undoubtedly had a vision, however painted one of a range of twenty perturbed and at times confused. It shiny colours. When Water Colour was entirely his own and he never is seen as a whole from the air or wavered from that vision. from the vantage point of a cat walk John K. Grande fifty metres above the ground, it certainly does read as a large-scale site specific painting on the ground... the artists' intention. The ROGUE WAVE 2001: most astounding aspect of this work ANNUAL OUTDOOR is the fact it has been designed to EXHIBITION OF SCULPTURE endure. It will remain long after 8. INSTALLATION Rogue Wave has swept the Island Art on the Toronto Islands and will intrigue strangers who hap­ Sept. 22"ci-Nov. li,h pen upon it while strolhng the area, it will weather many more beautiful A few minutes and a short ferry hot July days and bitter February ride away from downtown Toronto, nights. The strangeness of this the Toronto Islands are a magical inherent longevity is saddening in place. When you get off the ferry some ways, because it illuminates Don Bonham at the Wards Island dock you enter ,h the short hfe span of most site 20 century technology utilized a small, close knit, car free, com­ by 3rd world mentality specific independently produced munity. The dominant mode of 150 x 84 x 80" work. Other artists to look out for transportation on Ward Island is who are participating in Rogue lohn Ward actually walking, and the dominant Light and Dark , 1999 mode of moving goods and belong­ Wave include Geoff Currie, Paul Acrylic on canvas 134 x 274 cm ings is a bundle buggy! Grajauskas, Kathleen Doody, and Robin Christmas. Now in its fourth year, Rogue Wave, in the past functioned very Rogue Wave is certainly a special much as a community art show. exhibition in a very special place. Surprisingly this year an open call It's the kind of show you can pack a for submissions from artists else­ lunch and make a day of! I suggest where was held. Though admittedly -y you try and time your visit for mid- that community is chock full of pro­ afternoon to evening. The view of fessional artists, the open call the city at night from the Island is brings Rogue Wave to another level breath taking! as an exhibition. The decision to open up the exhibition to non- Elizabeth Fearon Islanders may have been spurred by For a ferry schedule: (416) 392 8193 the recent addition of The Gibraltar Rogue Wave tour maps are avail­ Point Centre for the Arts in the able at the Wards Island ferry dock Island community. The aim of the

VIE DES ARTS N°l84 73 Chuck Close paints the contempo­ jumps the chasm between a spiritual Similar to Cai's earlier perfor­ canvas each day from memory and rary portrait. Ward's visual relativism absence and the ongoing advance of mances, Performing Chinese pain­ photographic records of Extrater­ perceives nature through optical lay­ technology. ting orchestrates a group of artists restrial explosions. Such a large ers, then lays it down onto the can­ John K. Grande working in a traditional medium- production target undertaken in vas/membrane. As Ward states: Chinese ink brush painting-in public such a short time required explosive "These (leaf) paintings were not at the Sun Yat-Sen Garden. This Ming bursts of energy from the artist. The born of an idea, in the sense Dynasty styled garden, recreated in artistic act itself recreates its subject. of sitting down and intellectually downtown Vancouver, provided a The fourteen colourful, gestural deciding to do a series of paintings VANCOUVER kind of theatrical set for the event. images Cai made resemble Western about leaves (...(They're about a Miniaturized landscape features in abstract expressionist painting, yet feehng, rather than being just depic­ the garden-rock, trees, waterfall and we recognize something real even if RECKLESS DOING: tions or descriptions. I would have pavilion-served as traditional refer­ ultimately unrepresentable in them. failed if people looked at them as CAI GUO-QIANG ences for three Chinese ink brush It is the complex interplay of film, botanical renderings. I see them as a Contemporary Art Gallery painters to create imaginary land­ memory, intuition, physical action vehicle for some kind of magical 555 Nelson Street scapes. Cai added a mechanical and the qualities of the oil medium quality, a mystical sense. I see them Vancouver, B.C. smoke machine device to these. Its itself, that reconstruct a more com­ as carrying that kind of energy." V6B6R5 bursts of vapour simulated the effect plete kind of representation than Oklahoma City-born Cajun sculp­ of real mist. could ever be possible in the Tel.: (604) 681-2700 moment. tor Don Bonham, an immovable www.contemporaryartgallery.ca The painters took their paint­ fixture in the London, Ontario arts ings, as well as the smoke machine, For his finale, Cai literally paint­ scene that included Greg Curnoe, The Charles H. Scott Gallery back to the Contemporary Art Gallery ed with fire. In Drawingfor Fountain, Ed Zelenak and Paterson Ewen, has and in a day, produced a single, huge he attached fuses and packets of gun­ always attracted controversy. His 1399 Johnston Street, ink-on-paper mural of mountains, powder to a wall-sized sheet of heavy- Vancouver, B.C. performances included the unfor­ waterfalls, and gnarled pine trees. Japanese paper, tracing the outlines V6H 3R9 gettable Herman Goode Racing They finished it during the opening of a previous outdoor explosion as it Team, a fictional car racing team Tel.: (604) 844-3809 the same evening. Bursts from the is recorded on video. When ignited with a fictional life size racing car, [email protected] conspicuous smoke machine drifted at the public opening, the fountain and volunteer pit crew with uniforms July 27 to September 23, 2001 past the scenery, a surprising illusion flashed and charred its image into of expansive space and atmosphere. and a "documented" history. They "Art allows one to be reckless", the paper. A video record was then The intricate layers of artifice and visited racing sites with their car/ says internationally acclaimed Chinese added to the compilation already landscape and painting formulae artwork, signed autographs, raising artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Renowned for on view in the gallery. Strangely rem­ reflected the differing ways people questions about the great gap the spectacular gunpowder explo­ iniscent of ink brush painting, the look at landscape in the East and between art and hfe and people sions he stages throughout the drawing is a dehcate yet brutal West. believed they were the real thing. world, and invited as guest artist for reminder of devastation. The meshing of technology and three projects created and on view in At the Scott Gallery, Cai reconsid­ Cai's art fascinates both by its mythology is succincdy addressed Vancouver until September 23, Cai ers his Project for Extraterrestrials engagement of the senses, as well in Bonham's Twentieth Century Guo-Qiang is an artist who disrupts that has involved staging gunpowder as by its endless subtle references. Technology Utilized by Third World the boundaries between media and explosions in locations around the The original Fountain concept, Mentality. This helicopter, a human­ cultural traditions. world since 1989. Sometimes vast, representing water with fire, travels ized hybrid machine is detailed The Contemporary Art Gallery like the Project to Extend the through several forms. Initially staged down to the rivets and blades. The and the Charles H. Scott Gallery invit­ Great Wall of China by 10,000 as an ephemeral outdoor explosion metal skin of this beast has arms ed Cai to produce three projects Metres (1993), the explosions pro­ in the tradition of Oriental fire­ extending out of its body, and pairs interacting with the place and people vide brief moments of spectacle works, it finds permanence in the of human feet as landing gear. A of Vancouver. First, in Performing that chmax months of preparation. new Western medium of video and hybridized dream creature sits mali- Chinese Painting he staged pubhc Beyond entertainment, however, then, in the historical Western medi­ ficently in the cockpit, a cinetic painting by masters of traditional Cai conceives his elaborate blasts um of oil painting. The fragile explo­ sculptural spectacle that could only Chinese ink brush. In the second as metaphorical signals to the sion ironically draws its source from have originated in the black lagoon project, Cai himself painted a rapid universe that escape any logical a quasi-representation of the record of Don Bonham's ubiquitous imagi­ series of oil paintings that illustrate constraints, weaving ties between of a quasi-representation. Cai con­ nation. A wheel stands apart from his earlier explosion events. The cosmos and self. siders the explosion to be a com­ the main piece, an icon of an earlier final project, Drawing for Fountain During the two weeks of his pelling metaphor for the creative stage of civilization. The free stand­ is an explosion drawing performed at Vancouver residency, Cai undertook act, where dangerous forces are dis­ ing Zic Zac II is a gargoyle that has the Scott Gallery opening on August 2. the performance task of painting a charged. The residue can exist in our grown up and left home. This high- memory as it does in the material. tech primitivism is born of Bonham's But creative force is not entirely naive celestial imagination. Bonhams' reckless. In Chinese ink painting, Monument for the Children of the years of disciplined practice pre­ 20"' Century, a solemn large scale cede the instantaneous flow of ener­ sculpture monument, is cordoned gy through the brush. off with chain. This chariot is like sarcophagus with wooden wheels. Joan Richardson The arms of unknown people sup­ port this mortal body machine, that sits atop a support pedestal with carved bas reliefs of children's haunt­ ing faces. An epitaph engraved in metal declares this monument to be in memory of all the children who have died in wars in the 20"' century. Bonham's sculptures are prototypes for a visionary world. Fusing the tro­ Cai Guo-Qiang phies and tools of today's technology to build myth objects, Bonham's art

74 VIE DES ARTS N°184 VICTORIA, B.C. many great artists unusual precisely EMILY CARR a disembodied soundtrack. This because their lives were not pre­ encampment embraces the heart scribed, their experiences not nor­ ECCENTRIC, ARTIST, and soul of the artist's later years THE LAUGHING ONE: mal? This is why their art sheds light AUTHOR, GENIUS (1933-1938), a time in which Carr's A JOURNEY TO EMILY CARR on the inner glades of ordinary peo­ June 1, 2001-April 7,h, 2002 work matured in the secluded ple's hves. How seldom we actually woods of Beacon Hill, Coldstream SUSAN CREAN hear any description or delight in Royal British Columbia Museum Park, and Metchosin. 675 Belleville Street Harper Flamingo Canada, Emily Carr's actual paintings or In the years since her passing, Victoria, B.C. Toronto, 2001, 496 pages artistic process in this book. Instead much has been written, revised, and V8W 9W2 we get a mishmash of gossip, jargon, rewritten about Emily Carr. As with stereotypes and psycho babble-rein- Tel.: (250) 356-7226 or most revisions, there are many SUSAN terpreted-of course. Emily Carr 1-888-447-7977 •ambiguities that accompany a con­ expressed her own view on this end­ www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca temporary reading of the artist. For C II E A N less probing, describing a passage Lining an alcove at the rear exit example, although Carr led a privi­ from D.H. Lawrence's book.SÏ. Mawr. leged existence in her early years, "Everything these days of people to the Emily Carr exhibit in the Royal B.C. Museum, large wall hke so many she was impoverished talking of sex and psychology. (...) during the war years, sustaining It's so impertinent, digging around maps trace journeys made by the artist during the course of her fife- herself by operating a rooming i inside people and saying why they house. Was Emily Carr really a fem­ time. The journey lines criss-cross did tilings, by what law of mind they inist as contemporary writers tend came to such and such, and making two continents, intersecting Alaska, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, to suggest? Like so many female hideous false statements and yanking artists from earlier generations, up all the sex problems." Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, London, GHING and Paris, tracing the development Emily Carr evolved in isolation on Is this book a script for some of the artist as she studied, taught, the Canadian west coast, a subject future National Film Board of exhibited, met The Group of Seven, the high-spirited, independent artist ONE Canada docudrama? It has that and formalized her art practice. wrote about in her journals, yet it postModernist (nationalist) Canadian They grow more numerous-indeli- was the company of male artists like feel to it-part travelogue, part fic- ble-along the north and west coast­ Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, and tionalization, part gossip, along with lines of Vancouver Island and the Mark Tobey that Carr sought out, a timorous Hollywoodization-all remote areas of the Queen Charlotte and whose work inspired and in black and white-of Emily Carr's Islands (Haida Gwaii). Like blood­ informed her own (as did Post- CARR life. Crean's fictionalized account lines, they connect Emily Carr to Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism, of Carr's brief meeting with Georgia her time in this place that she loved, all inherently male dominated All biographies are fictional to O'Keefe in New York, for example, the wilds of Vancouver Island and Western European artforms). There some extent. They seek to present is overblown, embroidered on and its indigenous peoples. is also the subject of appropriation. an accurate sketch of their sub­ speculated on far too much. The Did the natives who called her ject/personality, but can never com­ event is presented too self-con­ Throughout the exhibition, there Klee Wyck (the Laughing One), pletely enter into that person's sciously, as if it had occurred in are vitrines containing letters, jour­ appreciate Carr's intrusion into experience as it was at the time. a book rather than real fife. Why nals, correspondence, and early their culture? Did Emily Carr overly Realism, rendering, representation does Emily Carr's meeting with manuscripts of Carr's fictions and sentimentalize their lives? One all play a part. Sue Crean's The Mark Tobey, a truly fascinating autobiographies. Other memora­ must return to the legacy of her Uiughing One: A Journey to Emily artist, receive only two sentences bilia include Carr's pottery, her own work to unravel the mysteries, Carr does not try to follow the path in this book? Minimal, diminutive travel trunk, and personal effects- of traditional biography. Instead, it politics? Do we really need to know jewelry, gifts, photographs, and is part travelogue, part recreation, absolutely every anecdote about an china-that embellish our sense of and part literary interpretation of artist's life to enjoy their creation? her creative life. On the walls we Emily Carr-the person-and the As a child, I remember laying on my can see a vast collection of Emily places and people she knew. Crean bed and looking at a Sampson & Carr's sketches, watercolours, and digs, delves, picks the anecdotal Matthews image of Emily Carr's oils on canvas. The objects and art­ data shards she finds and reassem­ chapel in the woods. The immense works, categorized into sections, bles them. The subject is Emily scale of the trees and grass that gave parallel the stages of her life. The Carr -one of North America's most it an Alice in Wonderland feel. tides are drawn from the artist's unique modernists. Why was the chapel there? Where award winning books and journals (Book of Small, Growing Pains, Crean's search for Carr's was it? Carr's own own extensive Klee Wyck, House of all Sorts, essence includes examining her and immensely popular writings... Hundreds and Thousands) and childhood, looking at her rejection House of Small, Klee Wyck... cap­ remind us that Carr's life and art of a man's love, revisiting the ture the beauty and truth of her were inseparable. Skeena river and native territories vision, describe her encounters Carr went to. It often becomes with West coast aboriginal culture The most poignant part of the opaque, for she divides the details, and life in Victorian Victoria, the exhibit is a recreation of a forest splits the strands and shades them humour and hardship, in a live­ setting in which a reproduction of with her own ideational nuances- ly way. In the conclusion to The Emily Carr's elephant is situated. feminist, colonial, post-colonial, Laughing One, Susan Crean The Elephant was Carr's travel trail­ familial, regional, postModernist. describes Emily Carr as the penul­ er that she had moved to various The passion is lost in the jargon, timate malleable myth-an artist locations, setting up camp and tossed about as if the subject-Emily who serves any meaning-is every­ painting in the woods for extended Carr-were a mere product label-so thing to all people. I prefer to keep periods of time. In this area of the much art historical dross or dead- that distance Carr loved and enjoy museum, portions of old totem wood used to fulfill a writer's agen­ her paintings as a sublime spiritual poles are installed; wild birdcalls da. There are speculations about and uplifting visual experience. echo through the semi-darkened Emily Carr had a vision. Emily Carr her being abused as a child, and spaces; scrims with painted forests Grey, 1931 shopping lists of her potential mal­ encircle the forms; excerpts of adies and idiosyncracies. Aren't John K. Grande Emily's writings are heard from

VIE DES ARTS N"184 75 struggles and ambiguities. In so OTHER CURRENT EMILY Une question haute en couleur ? doing, one begins to realize that CARR EXHIBITIONS: Un problème abstrait? maybe because of it all, a strongly DOWN FROM THE FOREST Pas la peine de nous independent artistic spirit grew, Charcoal drawings faire un dessin ! developed its own language, and sustained itself. Victorians have Art Gallery of Greater Victoria now reclaimed their cantankerous eccentric artist, mythologizing her EMILY'S ALL SORTS into a celebrity, bestowing upon her Objects, paintings, pottery a status that is not hers to enjoy. A Carr House new generation of art lovers has 207 Government Street, Victoria come to realize that a great one lived among us and deserves our LONGTIME, respect. Perhaps Emily Carr will ONGOING EMILY CARR smile in her grave and enjoy the Paintings from the ironic position of coming into her permanent collection DROIT D'AUTEUR own glory. DROIT DES NOUVELLES TECHNOLOGIES Linda Giles Vancouver Art Gallery DROIT COMMERCIAL LITIGE EN PROPRIÉTÉ INTELLECTUELLE CARR, O'KEEFE, AND KAHLO ,^V FISCALITÉ DES DONS McMichael Collection, Ontario Me Séverine Biderman Ligne directe (514| 393-7486 Courrier électronique : [email protected] rasi^ Robinson Sheppard Shapiro

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76 VIE DES ARTS N°184