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Vie des arts

English Report

L’art et la guerre dans tous les États Volume 49, Number 194, Spring 2004

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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 document (2004). English Report. Vie des arts, 49(194), 92–99.

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TONY URQUHART'S LIFE PASSAGES: INSIDE + OUT

an interview with John K. Grande the family had some ruled lettering, keen on the Group of Seven, but art open and got bigger and bigger. Born in Niagara Falls, Ontario in some advertising design from the school and a trip to Europe sort of One at the National Gallery of 1934, Tony Urquhart was known for Albright. It amazed me because it knocked that out of me. The first trip Canada is 5 1/2 feet in size. Soon all his abstract landscape style in the was all done by compasses. We didn't to Europe I saw old Masters in the four sides and the top were painted. 1950s. Associated with the London have Letraset then. I said "Oh! Wow! "flesh". All the paintings that I saw In 19671 cut one open with a sabre group of painters that included It must be a great school!" It was in art history class I now saw in saw and hinged it. Now I could hide Jack Chambers, Walter Redinger, a great school, but mainly because reality. I had my first works with things. Or I could change colour. Ed Zelenak, Paterson Ewen and they had good people, and the Isaacs Gallery in 1956, a solo show I could change volume. I could Gregory Curnoe, Urquhart was a Albright Knox Art Gallery was right there in January 1957, and another change gesture. You could open co-founder of CAR (Canadian Artists across the street so I had first hand in October of 1957 because I sold it and close it. You could change Representation). In 1965, Urquhart experience of all this abstract expres­ so well - mostly oil paintings - the texture. One was very rough on began integrating surreal, mythic sionist stuff. They were purchasing landscape with some abstraction. the outside and had black velvet for and symbolic elements into his art De Kooning, Rothko, Gorky, every­ its inner lining. There was nothing thing was there, even a Francis JG: In the 1950s you were pro­ in it. With some, you open a door and using a variety of combined media. ducing some remarkably abstract Tony Urquhart's "box landscapes", Bacon, which I initially thought was cannot see inside. It is just black. terrible. Two weeks later I was landscape work possibly under the containers with landscapes inside, JG: Tombstones, sarcophagi, painting away and found I was pro­ influence of Franz Kline and drew a lot of attention when were coffin shapes, all with a light dark ducing a "Bacon". I now think William de Kooning. first exhibited. Universal themes, all contrast. These are things one sees Bacon is by far the best painter of TU: I am quite eclectic. I always meticulously interpreted with an in Europe. Did a member of your that era. The Albright was strictly counseled my students to steal from eye for real life detail, all make his family work in a funeral home? a painting school. No sculpture. at least five different artists. Then art an invaluable part of Canada's art TU: My grandmother ran a No printmaking. people say you are original. I found scene. For Tony Urquhart, life is the out in The Crisis of Abstraction funeral home. So it is not surprising ultimate source for all thing (s). JG: You were one of the few (paintings from the 1950s) show that coffins are in my work. He was awarded the Order of Canadians to show in New York everybody worked on the surface But I didn't start with boxes... Part Canada in 1995. early on weren't you? a la prima (with opaque paint). But of it was seeing Baroque and JG: Did you show with Dorothy TL: I did exhibit individual my works were glazed so they Rococo churches in Germany Cameron in Toronto in the 1950s? paintings in New York, including looked old masterish. with no differentiation between the at the National Academy of Art and 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional, TU: Never formally. She used to JG: Gradually you moved into Design in the late 1950s. They pur­ between painting and sculpture. visit Niagara Falls in the mid - 1950s the 3-dimensional works, sculp­ chased a Francis Bacon-like piece Looking up on a church ceiling you when I was still in school. I used to tures with your Landscapes in a of mine that I have never seen since could not tell whether the putti were call her aunt Dorothy. She was so Box sculptures. and I was in the Guggenheim Inter­ 2D or 3D. This seemed to give me good to me. People from Toronto TU: The 3D started in 1964 national with Jack Shadbolt, Jean- leave to do this kind of sculpture. came with her and bought things. In when I came back from Europe. Paul Riopelle, Graham Coughtry and 1956 I went with the Isaacs Gallery. I realized when I saw Fra Angelico JG: Your paintings are so dif­ Charles Gagnon ( 1958). We won the When she opened a gallery (1959- or Duccio they had carved frames, ferent from your drawn pen and prize for the best group of paintings 1960), she tried to get me to exhibit gold leaf, they had substance. So ink sketches. The colours are so with her. I would have loved to, but JG: There is often this fusion when I came back I started doing vivid they could be called Baroque Av Isaacs wouldn't split my output. of natural forms and human built 3-dimensional stuff. I didn't actually or Rococo... Some of these paint­ JG: Tell me more about your structures - sometimes archaic - do boxes. The first thing I did was ings have a figure in the land­ early works? in your art. a papier mâché head with plastic scape. Are they autobiographical? TU: By accident I went to the TU: When I started out, I was an flowers and I painted it all up in oils. Albright School in Buffalo rather abstract landscape painter, espe­ Then I started doing landscape Hughey and Jim, 1999 oil and collage than OCAD in Toronto. A friend of cially as a student. Everybody was sketches on Little boxes. They didn't Collection: Mike Bevelander, Toronto 60.7 x 182.7 cm

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in your painting as well as SACKVILLE the more actual sculptural structures you have been INTERLACE: commissioned to do... this amalgam of metal sculp­ PAINTINGS BY JINNY YU tural passageways, free­ 12 March-10 April 2004 standing sculpture struc­ Struts Gallery tures, and living gardens Korean born Canadian painter j. elements are all part of the Jinny Yu is new to the Maritimes. art. Magic Wood (1987), at This is her first Atlantic Canada the MacDonald Stewart Art Interlace I (detail), 2003 exhibition since moving to Sackville mixed media on paper Centre has an archway, last year to teach at Mount Allison. 127 x170 cm something we also discover Place, it appears, plays an important in your paintings. role in her work. Prior to moving more precise, sections of the gallery TU: When I visited the Mac­ to Sackville, Jinny Yu's paintings walls the same size as the paintings Donald Stewart, I was told reflected her city life in Montreal are cut away. The paintings are set there had been a 100 year and Toronto. These paintings were in the cut away section. These paint­ old driveway there - since all done since moving to Sackville ings cast no shadow and become gone. So I designed to build and reflect her new very non-urban one with the gallery's walls. The Box Fantasy B The Wall, 1976 a 45 feet long, 25 feet wide and Pen and black ink with oil wash environment. A key to all her work result brings new meaning to the 15 foot high structure. Magic Wood on cream laid paper that I have seen is that her art is word illusion, as it is difficult to 14.5x11.3 cm is an homage to trees and Roma­ National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa a reflection or meditation on what place these paintings in traditional Gift of Jane Urquhart, Wellesley, Ontario nesque cathedrals. It has an abstract surrounds her. As Yu says: "I find space. Normally paintings are hung tree in its centre that moves ever so that I am very susceptible to the on a wall and remain separate both slighdy. You are encouraged to walk TU: Actually my Figure in the environment I am put into both psychologically and physically from through it - but of course it is a walk Landscape works were the subject visually and mentally." the wallspace. In this show those of a recent solo show. Joyce Zemans through nature. There are fivelarg e mixed media differences disappear, causing one found some early works from 1961 JG: I like the way your sketches paintings on paper in the exhibition to think more about their inner con­ and 1962. These included a single capture a universe in the small mounted flush to the wall or, to be tent than their physical presence. figure cut from a photographic details drawn from life. One feels reproduction, a predecessor to my a spiritual intimacy, but your recent figure in landscapes. The My scenes are very contemporary, Gardens series from the mid- 1960s even if history permeates them. revealed a love of Italian frescos, We sense that in your small scale Artistes, amateurs ou professionnels, of Duccio and Fra Angelico and ink, watercolour, multimedia the Italian primitives. The Italian trouveront chez nous pieces. This process begins with painters spurred me on. I had them the real and becomes art! une ligne complète all framed with a nice kind of silver leaf for a 1962 Isaacs gallery show. TV: The ornate French graves de matériaux. In 1999, I rediscovered an unfin­ are beautiful tombs, knocked down ished My Garden among my sou­ if no family has visited for 3 years. venirs. The sky was painted but Underneath these very old tombs nothing else. A photo that had been are caveaus that go down about in it had gone - so I put myself again 8 or 10 feet. Here you find three in another location in the painting... coffins on top of each other. That is I made the frames, insisting that the what exists beneath these wonderful STEVENS N painted frames and coloured sec­ monuments. I made various works tions were a part of the art just as based on the French caveau the size THE C0LC COM they were for my heros Fra Angelico, of a grave that I called Thresholds. Giotto and Cimabue. I am still Installed on a wall, they resemble inevitably blurring the boundaries an opening or threshold and I also Nous manufacturons huiles, between painting and frame, and made some miniature ones. I use painting and sculpture. my drawings as primary research - acryliques et aquarelles. almost replication - although no one Nous vendons pinceaux, JG: The recent My Garden really replicates ever, Alex Colville, series relate to that 19th century the Pratts, each has their own very toiles, etc. Catalogue gratuit. tradition in portrait photography. distinct style. I sort of experience You are re-siting a photo portrait the object in the initial drawings. within a larger photo like William Then if I continue I will reconstruct Notman did with group portraits. it or totally change it in the subse­ Placez votre commande par téléphone ou par télécopieur Your studio is likewise situated in quent sculpture or paintings. et renseignez-vous sur nos rabais. a beautiful garden and Stratford has very special public gardens D.L. STEVENSON & SON near the Festival. We can see gar­ 1420 Warden Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario M1R 5A3 dens have developed into a theme Téléphone: (416) 755-7795 Fax: (416) 755-5895

VIE DES ARTS N°194 93 ENGLISH REPORT

The results were quite beautiful beautiful objects places her outside and use have long ago been forgot­ and these paintings are about the mainstream of contemporary ten, just as their lost technology has. beauty. Beauty is a word seldom postModernism. The art park is a place to dream, used to describe today's theory- Of course Jinny Yu is still a if just for a moment, in an open driven art. And yet beauty is central woman and artist of her time. How space. This is an amusing amuse­ aft*.. to Yu's vision and has been since she could she be otherwise? Art may be ment park with a real eclectic and was a student. Beauty for Yu, is a less about linear progress (moder­ home-made folky atmosphere. An window into content and meaning. nism to postModernism, etc.), and inveterate bricoleur and recycler of Her work does have meaning and more an ebb and flow, perhaps a materials, sculptor Glen Lemesurier is more than just pleasant to look at. circular history. I would prefer to has built a surreal world on this The tide of the exhibition, and of gage art on quality which is not only previously unclaimed space. These the works, Interlace, can be under­ old fashioned, but based on an sculptures, whether kinetic or sta­ stood as an intricate interweave. As assumption that I know what I am tionary catch our attention and lift well, the horizontal fines of inter­ talking about and can define qual­ our spirits up. Some of them whirl ference are like the lines you some­ ity. I know it when I see it and I see around if there is a breeze, and content of her panels is biomorphic. times see on a television screen. it in Yu's paintings. She takes care many are painted brighdy. You can Clusters of painted panels on a wall, I had this impression of a TV screen in the application of her materials sit on a bench with a heart on it. with "missing elements" - the space on first seeing these paintings, but and her formal concerns are self- There are traces of lives lived, of between - suggests a randomness. the interweaving aspect is closer evident. There is a sense of pleasure personal or forgotten experience in There is a sense of mystery but what to the real meaning. in this exhibition. Jinny Yu, if she the time worn refuse used to make is the artist's intention? The Tantramar marshes sur­ continues to march to her own these sculpture works. It has all The presentationism of Issaly's round Sackville, New Brunswick. drummer, is a painter with a great been done without any state help. work resembles writing - but visual They are a powerful landscape that feature. This park embodies a craftsman's writing. The way each panel of is impossible to ignore and they are Virgil Hammock practical sense. paperworks intersects, almost in a central to these paintings. It is a flat The park is a delight for people mathematical way, in the exhibition, landscape of dyked land covered MONTREAL who use the area daily, and brings makes them look like markers or with grasses that stretches for miles colour and life to a once desolate indicators. They hint at a broader around Sackville. It is this landscape AN IMPROMPTU patch of unclaimed Montreal land, scale, the suggestion being that that Yu overlays with horizontal lines ART PARK! transfixed between roadways and there is a greater picture we cannot of interference. It creates an odd railway tracks. Some of these sculp­ fathom in its entirety. Issaly assem­ and visually ambiguous vision. The A new art park full of recycled tures are child-like and beatific, de­ bles images, whether with papier paradox is between the flatness of sculpture, has gradually been grow­ light in the everyday excess with a marouflé applied onto wood, or on the lines and the depth of the un­ ing and evolving. Located in the Mile visionary sense. This is a sculpture canvas, the way an ancient would derlying landscape. It is an equivo­ End district of Montreal, the Art garden made for, by and with peo­ when trying to develop a language cal vision where the eye jumps back Park is on the north side of Van ple of all ages in mind. Time feels of writing. We cannot decode this and forth between the two fields:th e Horne, east of Park Ave. and west of different here. The atmosphere is visual language, just catch a glimpse grid and the landscape. One is Blvd. Saint-Laurent. Created by Glen less rushed and you can leave the of its hieratic meaning from frag­ drawn in and pushed back at the Le Mesurier, the art park has become daily grind behind, if just for a ments. The actual painterly style is same time. Nothing is quite as it a place where factory workers in the minute. Lemesurier's art park is rigid in its abstraction but the seems. Indeed the nature of the building next door can now relax, worth seeing, if only for the fun of general idea of grouping panels with Tantramar Marshes is itself man- and that passers-by can enjoy. Any it. He will be creating a sculpture parts missing is very clever - and made (albeit done over two cen­ number of object parts, and ele­ for the balcony at the Maison de la the real art is in this gesture of turies ago). This is land reclaimed ments, many nostalgic refuse and culture Cote des Neiges in the near assemblage design. found old things, combine to make from the sea and turned into pas­ future. In the large scale horizontal up these sculptures. Many are ture and farm lands. These painting John K. Grande Configuration pieces we fill in kinetic and move if there is a wind, are about the complexity of the re­ the gaps to imagine the broader and they are colourful and whimsi­ lationship of humankind to nature. composition. The viewer actively cal, even childlike. We see door FRANÇOISE ISSALY: interprets the work, and the biode- It may be that these paintings are parts, air vents, bells, horns, indus­ ET TOUT A-T-IL UNE FIN.... signs are connected by our concep­ most about the act of painting itself. trial components whose function In spite of the fact that Yu is still in Galerie Port Maurice tion of the work. These groupings of January 7th - 31 st her twenties, her art is firmlyroote d paintings seem to exist as part of Tel.: 514-328-8400 in the traditions of modernism. In a a larger potential presentation. talk on her work she said: "A large A modem well lit space with an Configurations become a kind of part of my interest in painting lies open architectural feeling, Galerie sublime incantation on the contem­ in the formal and visual elements Port Maurice suits Françoise Issaly's plative aspect of representation. Any and the materials. In my works, the presentational art. Her wall works representation whether "figurative" medium of painting takes a signifi­ comprise collections of tableaux or "abstract" draws us into broader cant part. In that the medium serves with open spaces between. This grid questions about appearance and not only as a material, but becomes layout builds a visual counterpoint reality. a part of, or a means to the content. between the art and the linear char­ Inspired by the Buddhist philos­ More and more I see a balancing of acter of the architectural interior: a ophy of the middle way, Issaly says formal and conceptual elements in visual dialogue develops. Issaly's art that she "creates a visual space my works." Statements like this that is simple, abstract, and the forms where realities overlap each other." indicate Yu's interest in making rendered in a gritty textural way. The This notion that there are layers of

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SHIRLEY KATZ: LES from that nebulous realm between DEMOISELLES life and death, these women are movingly coquettish, their feminin­ February 10 to March 5,2004 Espace Trois at the Saidye ity as yet unsoiled by fear and pain, Bronfman Centre for the Arts really no different than you and me.Katz's brush stoke adapts to the Death is the unlikely muse in Les image. Each sitter's face and char­ Demoiselles, an exhibition of works acter is captured. by artist Shirley Katz. Death both While in her previous works the extremely personal, and pubhc. The artist focused on skin texture and underlying theme of this innocendy tone, in this series the accent is on tided show is the nightmare of the fabric, and expression.Expanding Holocaust and the ocean of people her palette, from the trademark it swallowed forever. It included Installation view Françoise Issaly's cool blues to a wider range of pas­ exhibition at Galerie Port Maurice, many of the artist's family members, tel tones, Katz has clearly moved Wojcioch Prazmowski (Poland) January 2004 making this a particularly poignant into a new phase in her career. Used "Homage to Gunter Grass" undertaking. Focusing on images of to working with live models, she reality (even in physical object- women and girls, Katz based her managed to transform the photo­ of what imagery, or the image is and based presentations that result from portraits on photographs she found graphs that served as material for can represent. A video clip at VU by the creative process) is esoteric. of her own family, her friends, rel­ this exhibition into portraits at once Charles Guilbert from Quebec, The layers or multiple levels of the atives and other families, as well as realistic and beautifully painterly. seems to endless reconfigure itself real exist in a state of suspension. those taken from contemporary With emotional discipline and artis­ in a process of line drawing in film Each element of a larger composi­ publications. The challenge was tic exploration, Katz brings to the (slightly reminiscent of William Ken- tion could potentially be moved or clearly formidable. How does one pubhc a suitably honorable remem­ tridge). At Vu again, the extremely displaced. translate such horror into a work of brance of the dead. She transforms sensitive dark/light, ephemeral/ Catching something of the organic art? What more can possibly be said nameless martyrs into the loving im­ spiritual photo imagery of Stanislaw or cosmic (take your pick), some­ about that frightening chapter in our perfect beings they once were, J. Wos from Poland is among the where between the micro - and common history? Going out on a whether delighted in the simple joy highest points in this wide ranging macro - (cosmic) Issaly works on limb, Katz approached the exhibi­ of gathering wild flowers or trying exhibition. While the images are an "abstract" level of perception - tion with particular aplomb and on mother's shoes. drawn from nature, and could be as yet the shapes look natural or simple as a tree stump, or a field, courage, softening the pain by By juxtaposing images garnered "real". Arranging the panels is a way they shift and blurr, evoke feelings of bringing to life moments far re­ from old photographs, mainly from of developing in compositional for­ presence and absence, even of lost moved from the encroaching evil. Eastern Europe, with those taken mat a kind of visual meter or rhyme. histories. The notorious Natalia LL from contemporary North American The paintings are contained, serially from Poland has presented a series magazines, the artist removed the arranged. As Issaly says: "I try to of portraits that have their surfaces concept of time and space, for, bring to the fore an aesthetic of the and edges manipulated, so much so indeed, both beauty and horror 'in between' where the eye is capa­ that the artist/subject begins to look respect neither. ble of perceiving two worlds simul­ like a funerary mask! At l'Oed de Dorota Kozinska taneously, the same way we are Poisson, the Quebec photographers capable of seeing on a window glass include partially occluded and the refection of a Lighted interior QUEBEC shadow images (Now you see it, now and, at the same moment, in trans­ you don't!) by Jocelyne Alloucherie ... LA DISPARITION... parency, all that is happening outside." and Patrick Altman 's images loaded PHOTOS DE BELGIQUE, Françoise Issaly's art communi­ in situ, literally on top of one another, cates directly to the viewer without POLOGNE, DU QUÉBEC as homage's to a material culture, trying to represent a pure real or Jan. 16-Feb. 15, 2004 Belgian Pol Pierart's narrative photos pure abstract world. She innovates *ja\ \ ÂH Galerie Vu take real life documentary in surreal visually, with line and colour bias Rouje Magritte-like sets that are partly but the general idiom of her art is Oeil de Poisson incongruous but in ordinary looking intercontextual. These are concrete Galerie des arts visuels places. At Rouje in the Bas Ville... visual idioms that build linkages de l'université Laval beautifully textural yet naive reminis­ between notions of the artwork as Co-organized by the centre de cences by Polish photographer ideation and of an art that develops Wojciech Prazmowski from a middle Shirley Katz's mixed media diffusion et production photo Vu a dialogue with the real life environs Europe heavy with history. One such works present a pantheon of faces in Quebec City, the Museum of of the exhibition space. image has a folky angel in a child's from another era, smiling girls and Contemporary Art in Warsaw and wagon and another crosses applied John K. Grande women posing for the camera in the Liège Biennial Committee in onto a wall, and a tin drum on a wedding gowns and summer frocks. Belgium, this show which has been sculptural primitive assemblage, an Whether seated in a photographer's touring is making its final stop in homage to Gunter Grass. Let's hope studio, or captured against a green Quebec City. The artworks, seen for more exchange exhibitions like field, they are drawn in delicate at Galerie Rouje, Vu, the Galerie this one! Unes with blurred edges, hovering des arts visuels de l'université Laval, somewhere between a flesh and and TOeil de Poisson, reveal a broad John K. Grande bones being and a shadow. Emerging range of responses to the very essence

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OSHAWA electric fan, roller skates, Rogers TV not that interesting. Lori Andison's tubes. There is even a jazz trumpet camouflage 2, like Doug Buis' 1953 that Michael Snow played in his first Grass Machines from years ago, Robert McLaughlin Gallery trip to Europe and an album cover mechanically motivates wild grasses Nov. 20, 2003 - Jan. 25, 2004 for Jazz at Massey Hall designed by to move back and forth. The rhyth­ Art Gallery of Mississauga photographer Arnaud Maggs. Front mic "natural effect" though construed May 20-July 18, 2004 pages from the Globe & Mail hang and machine made, is quite beauti­ as banners, providing some context ful. One of the most amusing sculp­ Mendel Art Gallery for the show. Some great paintings tures is Andison's maid of the mist Nov. 19-Jan. 9,2005. in the show: Goodridge Roberts (presumably named after the famed Co-curated by Ihor Holubizky Standing Nude (1951), and some Niagara Falls tourist boat). This and Robert McKaskell, 1953 is an characteristic 1950s abstract art: encourages visitors to relocate it futuristic looking mannequin is exhibition that literally presents a Tom Hodgson's Yellow Hydrant, on a swivel mount in the gallery some Mama with holes in her clean brief slice of history. This approach Harold Town's Fat Lady, William entrance and utters pre-recorded white head out of which mist vapors cuts through strata and reads cul­ Ronald's Slow Movement, B.C. Bin­ voice fragments. Mr. White is a exude. This maid of the mist blows ture from a specific chronological ning's Little Seascape, Alexandra leader in the field of machine art, off steam straight into space this point in time. 1953 was a year Luke's Golden Glory and Lawrence and organizes the Ontario College of way, and she does it especially when marked by post-war optimism and Panton's Atlantic Fugue, Oscar Ca- Art's annual Sumo Robot Challenge you get close to her. A veteran of the generally the arts were a minor hen's Candy Tree and Michael for the art school each year. Bellevue, machine age art epoch Doug Back's blemish on the urban landscape of Snow's Smoker. Catch this time cap­ another White automaton on view Frantic is a politically correct Toronto. Robert Fulford, a dean of sule of a show at the upcoming actually disguises itself as an abstract anomaly, a strangely shaped object Canadian culture, gave a lecture on venues... the Art Gallery of Missis­ painting. that one can carry around the the 1953 show and provided some sauga this summer (2004), fol­ Simone Jones in collaboration gallery. This creature sculpture insight into the period stating: "Cul­ lowed by the Mendel Art Gallery. with Lance Winn projects images bleeps out an alarm sound - like ture was more probably enacted Time accumulates. Modernism did that rise and fall via a motorized child safety devices do when it is in churches than in art galleries in not erase the past. It fiveson.. . tripod mechanism, seemingly eras­ more than 30 feet from its surrogate the 1950s. As art critic for a Toronto John K. Grande ing and creating the image as it receiver Mom. paper, I could cover the entire city loops up and down. Peter Flemming's As Norm White says "The pre­ in one week with three reviews." In Manual is a wholly domesticated cious truths which we carry along his lecture Fulford went on to say KINGSTON robot that makes its circumnavi­ from year to year, never changing, that there was no Big Bang in south­ MACHINE LIFE gated deposits of dust piles on the are among the hard, brittle gears of west Ontario when modernism gallery floor. The patternings and our personal machines... our tech­ arrived. Jack Bush the ad executive Agnes Etherington Art Centre circular piles are quite beautiful in nology is nothing after all but a was the only member to really Feb. 6-April 18, 2004 and of themselves. A broom attach­ reflection of human anxieties, prej­ www.queensu.ca/ageth become known in New York. This ment then sweeps them up in an udices, lusts... humour and haphaz­ said, the influence of hard edge intentionally meaningless action. ard wisdom." His precocious robot abstraction and colour field theory, TORONTO The repetitive doing and undoing of kids will get together for their own Clement Greenberg's effect can be this robot's actions is a horizontal solo show at the Koffler Gallery in NORM'S ROBOTS felt throughout the show particularly version of Sisyphus eternal hill Toronto this summer. in works by the Painters 11, a self Koffler Gallery climb. This robot is a distant cousin John K. Grande made group. Toronto was their city. May 13th-June 27 to the servant robots designed to do The first exhibition of the Painters www.bjcc.ca human tasks, even robot pets, but a 11 at the Roberts Gallery Feb. 13, When McLuhan's Understand­ human technician still has to reload CHATHAM 1954 and not a single painting sold. ing Media was first published in the dust into this machine at times, Ingenious curating for this show MUMMY UNVEILED! 1964 it ushered in a whole new era. and adjust the broom device here.... enabled objects and implements, The vision was of a global village Jeff Mann's Adult Contemporary Chatham-Kent Museum design award winners, to be in­ culture enmeshed in and by tech­ projects a seemingly innocent pre Jan. 16th - cluded alongside the art; a chunky nology. McLuhan's comment "the Las Vegas 30 second clip of Céline 75 William St North Admiral TV stacking chairs, an Chatham, Ont N7M 4L4 medium is the message" became a Dion singing. Viewers can partici­ Tel.: 519-360-1998 mantra for the 1960s generation. pate by shaking a tambourine that Art and technology, the way human alters sound and image speeds. Forensic sculpture can involve culture and mores change in re­ David Rokeby's n-Cha(n)t config­ reconstruction of the human face sponse to technological change is ures a community of verbal proces­ and body, and is more often used in even more pertinent an issue now sors. This community of screens police work than by artists. Work­ than it was in the 1960s. Machine form a network. They speak simul­ ing with the human remains of Life organized by the Koffler Gallery taneously, producing a verbal and the 2200 year old Sulman mummy, in Toronto and the Agnes Ethering­ visual chanting effect. The seemingly Christian Cardell Corbet, has brought ton Art Centre in Kingston is a group random selection of words and this ancient lady back to fife for exhibition that brings together artists, the chaos of it all is definitely not the first time since she walked the sculptors, and new technologists who poetry. This gathering of machines, shores of the NUe River in Cleopa­ have consistendy applied their cre­ orchestrated by word and sound tra's time. The Chatham-Kent Museum, Kazuo Nakamura (1926-2002) ative juices to kinetic, robotic, and fragments seems a highly resource was given the mummy by the family Blue and Green, 1953 new media sculpture. Norman White, intensive way of demonstrating a of George Sulman, who bought it in The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa Gift of Alexandra Luke, 1967 whose Helpless Robot sculpture concept. The results are simply Cairo before the First World War.

96 VIE DES ARTS N°194 ENGLISH REPORT

Rebuilding this Ptolemaic-period TORONTO of his Codexes, now on view, can and Arhuaco people who inhabit Egyptian lady involved not only also resemble territories, as if seen this region five in a sacred balance facial reconstruction but also SKIN: DIEGO SAMPER afar. with the natural world. In Samper's adding hair and jewelry to complete Feb. 5 - March 14 When viewers look into the con­ own words, the act of gathering the work. As Corbet, an artist whose DeLeon White Gallery tainer/vessel Samper has made for these photos provided him with an portrait subjects have included Mar­ 1096 Queen St. W. the show at DeLeon White, they are "opportunity to explore in depth garet Atwood, and the late Queen Tel.: 416-597-9466 surprised at its contents. Life here territories and cultures. Travel has Mother, comments: "The sun came Diego Samper, a Columbian who is presented as a fragile vessel - been for me a way of life, but also through the window and she came now lives in British Columbia, has hand made of parchment - in the an art form by itself. A pilgrimage." to life" chosen the tangible subject of skin centre of the exhibition. This "con­ John K. Grande The initial process involved for his first show at Toronto's tainer" is filled with red seeds col­ scanning the mummy twice. A three DeLeon White Gallery. The exhibit lected in the Amazon region of dimensional laser mapped her out­ uses skin as a metaphor for the South America. The seeds inside are TORONTO INTERNATIONAL side, while a CT scanner explored physical body and likewise the not shocking, not violent, nor avant ART FAIR 2003 her within. This allowed Cleo the earth's skin. Some of his works look garde, nor dangerous. They are sim­ mummy to remain intact in her like living tissue. Their borders are ply there - rich and red and lus­ www.tiafair.com ancient wrappings. The resulting less defined, and their content/sub­ trous. The container is light and at November 13 to 17, 2003 scans enabled the piecing together jects are textural, with a variety of odds with its apparent size. The In its fourth year, Art Toronto of a virtual skull at London's Inte­ constituent parts including ink, lightness of the vessel is a metaphor 2003, Canada's own prestigious art grated Manufacturing Technologies beeswax, and the tike. Referred to for air and light, our life support extravaganza, was a picture of grace Institute, one of the best virtual as the Codex works these hand systems, and the fragility of life. and gende eclecticism, with 77 inter­ reality centres in the world. A plaster made parchment pieces include national galleries rubbing shoulders skull was then machine made in mineral, oil, and drawings. Near ab­ in Toronto's spacious Convention Mississauga. The plaster recreation stract, they are like maps with Centre. Less shock and awe - unless of the mummy's skull was then shapes that look animal or human you count the grimacing little men handed over to sculptor Christian within them. The Codex works at in Richard Stipl's installation Sleep Cardell Corbet. With anatomical DeLeon White Gallery, are made of of Reason (Christopher Cutts knowledge and artistry Cleo's face parchment, used since ancient times Gallery) - than creative exploration, was then reconstructed. Cordet to document the human experience. the fair had a lot to offer, in a vari­ commented that the sculpted mummy Its skin-like quality makes it a sta­ ety to please any buyer. There was is "90 per cent accurate". Its features ble medium for commemorating the the regular staple of famous artists were added layer by layer, a sculp­ soul's journey, the myths and deeds from Marc Chagall, Picasso and tural process that involves aspects of humans and gods. The Codex Joan Miro, to more contemporary of both art and science. series are made over goat skins. icons like Mapplethorpe, Hockney, Nature provides the support for a Codex Pulowi and Malcolm Liepke, not to mention Osteobiographical analysis has ink on parchment. 81 x 96,5 cm proven the mummy was at least human reflection on our place in the ubiquitous Joe Fafard whose 35 years old when she died and nature, both in the microcosm and An actual section of fucus tree work found its way into every nook her vertebrae showed she had os­ the macrocosm. They have layers, bark from South America extends and cranny of the exhibition floor. teoarthritis. Lines on her tibia sug­ strata, and tike skin, they are an epi­ across a gallery wall. An artist's Montreal galleries were well gest her growth started and stopped dermis. The vegetal and mineral co- book has been placed under the represented by the likes of René about eight times, probably because mingle in the surfaces of the works, tree bark. This bark is used by a Blouin, Simon Biais, Lilian Rodriguez, of illness or malnutrition. and permutate, change, transform, tribe in the Amazon for communal and again this year, Galerie d'Avi­ The mummy was alive in or decay eventually. healing, to bring them back into bal­ gnon, to mention but some. Their around the time Alexandria, Egypt, Samper, who lived rough in the ance with the nature that is so es­ popularity could be marked by the was the most advanced city in the Amazon jungle, published a superb sential to their survival as a society. lineups forming in front of Galerie world. Alexandria housed the Great book of photographs of this experi­ Parchment pieces hang from the de Bellefeuille, and all this can only Library and was considered one of ence tided Las Voces de la Terra. ceiling, and float in space like illu­ be good for Montreal and its artis­ the Seven Wonders of the Ancient With a forward by William Ospina, sions. They are very much like rit­ tic community. But was there really World, with a lighthouse whose this book again presents images ual objects. The tides like Codex anything outstanding, you may ask? mirror could be seen 50 kilometres of the natural, physical world. Samper's Pulowi, Codex Aarash, Codex The answer is a definitive yes. It offshore. Codex parchment works, like his Amazonica, are ascribed to the art could be found in the cultural mo­ University of Western Ontario photographs (published in National before it is made, and they reference saic of the exhibition, with artists anthropology professor Andrew Geographic and the book Makuna, sacred sites and nature spirits' tike Alessandro Papetti at Buschlen Nelson and his experts, who initi­ portrait of an Amazonian culture names. For Samper the parchments Mowatt Galleries. An icon on Italian ated the Cleo project, are now at published by The Smithsonian) re­ are: " an offering to the spirits of the contemporary scene, chosen to rep­ work on the reconstruction of flect a sense of belonging to the Earth, and a transmutation of the resent that country at the ever-pres­ another mummy at the Royal Ontario earth, that it is our home. The iden­ animal into a cultural artifact." tigious Venice Biennale, Papetti is a Museum Egyptian who dates from tification with earth becomes a On view at Montreal's Biodome, true painter. He produces murky, AD 100. The latter mummy is affec­ universal metaphor, a vehicle for are Diego Samper's At The Heart of monochromatic interiors, and sen­ tionately referred to as Our Lady of presenting these emblems of spiri­ the World photos from the Sierra suous, languid nudes, as well as Hudson's Bay because she is lying tual renewal - the Codexes. The Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain portraits and images of swimmers. on a blanket that resembles the allusion to mapping could just as range in the tropics known for its His style is like a whiff of fresh air, store's famous coverlets. easily have to do with biological rich biodiversity until April 18th. bold and assured, and clearly honed John K. Grande coding, genetic mapping. The surfaces The aboriginal population of Kogi on solid exploration of the medium.

VIE DES ARTS N°194 97 ENGLISH REPORT

ED ZELENAK branch/twig shape that both ob­ WOMAN AS GODDESS: Christopher Cutts Gallery structs and protects the bowl space ROBERT MARKLE & 21 Morrow Avenue inside suggests a search, perhaps the JOYCE WIELAND artist's, to find a meaning. The source Tel.: 416-532-5566 Nov. 29, 2003 - Feb. 29, 2004 - water - and the meaning - are Fax:416-532-7272 Art Gallery of Ontario quite literal, and direct us towards the 317 Dundas St. W Ed Zelenak presented three of his natural and physical, not the tempo­ Website: www.ago.net latest sculptures and the Divining ral world. The bowl could be a Rods series of wall pieces at Christo­ metaphor, or the actual container pher Cutts gallery in Toronto. Sited that gives and sustains life. There is in the centre of the gallery space, a tension in Zelenak's sculptures Channel Pass comprises four and a between an austere mass-volume half tons of steel brick, shaped into minimalist emphasis on scaling two curving walls. The basic ogival, down, reducing elements, and a essentially feminine shape of these two more intuitive, feminine sense that curving walls is offset by the weighty, unseen forces guide us in maintain­ Rebecca Belmore stolid nature and outward appearance White Thread, 2003 ing a balance in life. The divining rod ink jet print of the steel they are made of. Indeed is a device that directs one towards 160 x 127 cm these "walls" have a defensive or pro­ Joyce Wieland (1930-1998) (Pari Nadimi Gallery) an invisible source, is an unusual and Artist on Fire, 1983 tective quality while the opening in the potent one. Other forms reference Oil on canvas centre of the piece is smooth, light the container or vessel, an archaic 107.2 x 130.0 cm Galeria Moro from Venezuela Collection of the Robert McLaughlin also harboured a jewel in its small sensitive. This inner basin catches and emblem that carries water or reserve Gallery, Oshawa, purchase, 1984 bounces light off its interior walls. The © 2003 National Gallery of Canada, booth, a series of portraits by material. Gift of the Estate of Joyce Wieland directional nature of the two pointed Adonay Duque. Strikingly expres­ The 16 small wall mounted ply­ ends of the sculpture, its placement sive, pained in rich reds and ochres, wood pieces have poured tin sections. In those protean days of feminist within a white cube gallery space, re­ with an unusual sensitivity, these The tin filled areas, like the "inner liberation - the 1960s - guys could calls the early days of minimalism, and faces spoke of a distant culture, and bowls" in the larger works, are areas be macho and chicks could be sen­ Brian O'Doherty's essay Inside the a pathos that can only be found of containment, that compliment styl­ sual. Two Ontario artists one male White Cube, originally published in in a Latin soul. Positioned at the ized and simplified landscapes. Child­ and one female were part of that Artforum that defined the minimalist entrance to Argentina's Gradiva like, these wall placed landscapes are process. Curator Anna Hudson had moment. Galeria de Arte, tall monolithic metaphors for a natural world, in­ the ability to recognize that these columns made of rose Portuguese Channel Pass is one of Zelenak's scribed on gallery walls. The panels two very different artists "were not marble by Pablo Atchugarry showed larger "ground bound" 9000 pound rephrase the temporal and spatial opposites." and that each contri­ a different side of contemporary stationary sculptures. It could be a preoccupations dealt with in a more buted to "an interesting kind of Latin art. Smooth, abstract, tactile boat or vehicle embarked on a jour­ abstract manner in the "ground chemistry." they shot upward, glistening in ney, but its interior form and mass bound" sculptures Table and Chan­ Robert Markle figured as the the spotlight like alien sentinels. make it more intuitive, a metaphor nel Pass. The wall pieces with their ultimate life painter, capturing Argentina was also represented by for an inner journey as the titling of hieratic and symbolic markers cut Yonge St. strippers, combining neon Alejandro Boim's portraits of loners all the works in the show do. As with from tin, its painted clouds, its land and acrylic on wood,, working with and clowns at Galerie Orange. many of Zelenak's works, sculptures and sky equations, is entirely inten­ charcoal, tempera and inks on large Almost lost in all this kaleido­ can be markers that visually direct or tional. The fact they are arranged in scale paper capturing the sexy side scopic diversity were the magnifi­ define our sense of space making a sequence and play off the weighty of life. Joyce Wieland was already cent works of Canada's northern them a classic and physical kind of steel sculptures animates, builds a renowned for her nationalist Cana­ people represented by Fehely Fine sculpture. I say classical because sense of variation on the show's dian stance on art (as the stuffed Arts and featuring the talent of such in a screen bred world of DVD, in­ theme. This work has to do with life, beaver from her personal collection great carvers as Piseolak Ashoona, ternet and video, the 3-dimensional and the vessel or bowl shapes we see, or the famed Reason over Passion Kenojuak Ashevak and Toonoo Sharky. is less current in arts dialogues in are symbols for a sense of direction, quilt in the National Gallery of These are artists of the highest cal­ mainstream museology than the like markers but on a grand scale Canada collection testify). In the ibre. On display were complex fleeting ephemeral electronic or dig­ in the case of Channel Pass. This days before Nancy Friday and transformation masks carved with ital image. "vehicle" should move on water, and Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, Joyce breathtaking precision and a spatial Zelenak's Still Life With Divin­ it directs us outside the parameters of Wieland was already integrating imagination found in no other mod­ ing Rod is a 2 1/2 ton square sculp­ this gallery space. This redirection traditional female arts - like stitch­ ern sculpture, and mythical figures ture, literally a table with a concave towards an inner self, or universal ing, quilting - into contemporary in abstracted forms. They seemed bowl in its centre. The monochrome dimensionality, is like the inner vision art discourse. While books like Our entirely apart from the rest of the nature of the steel table, with a presented in Still Life With Divining Bodies, Our Selves marked a move­ colourful display, speaking in their Rod. Nature plays a seminal role, and ment towards women reclaiming own unique visual vocabulary, softly the journey is a metaphor for our life their own bodies, Wieland, as a yet distincdy. Their quiet elegance journey. It is an uneasy equation, woman of her time, wove an ad­ offered a nice closure to the fair. never resolved, only intimated and mirable narrative on male stereo­ A la prochaine! intuited. As this show evidences, Ed types of women in Art History. Dorota Kozinska Zelenak continues to evolve with an Her paintings like Untitled (mur­ accute sense of sculpture's physical derous angel) (1981-1984), more and tactile essences. abstract Redgasm (I960), Artist On Fire (1983) or hilarious Untitled Channel Pass, Steel, 2003 John K. Grande

98 VIE DES ARTS NT 194 (Goddess) (1984-86) are all about strokes. His colours are solid and his embarrassing the stereotypes on light does not glow from below but their own painterly territory. Wieland glints on the surface. His method best is mock folky with a tinge of tackiness. suits the rendering of bright, hard Arranged into distinct sections: plastic, polished metal and stone, and Studio, Home, Strip Club, Nature is a particularly meaty kind of flesh. a Woman, Carnival, Art Gallery- this In their non-collaborative paint­ show resonates with an air of ings, Haeseker is more drawn to peo­ exploration and expeditious social ple and Hall to things. Haeseker is banter. Art as a Open Field. Sweet best known for dreamy landscapes Beaver Perfume designed by populated by shaggy show dogs and Perhaps the best result of this John the Baptist to a few, autoerotic Wieland, a tiny sensitive Self-Portrait their hovering, legless masters. Hall conjunction is that Hall, who is asphyxiation to most. from 1978 by Wieland, and a fun constructs rich, claustrophobic still- known for his cool portraits of his Haeseker and Hall have never bronze casting of a beautiful nude lives crammed with the lustrous, friends by proxy of their shiny things, been big on messages and reasons. with French and English beavers playful and sentimental tokens of shows a much more human and Their work is usually just about lus­ suckling from her breast (1970-71) middle-class opulence. They meet in vulnerable side here. His and Alexan­ cious surface and opaque references, all wield a Wieland sense of humour. Pendulum/Pendula over a mutual dria's heads appear in most of the signifiers on a holiday from specific Sexual irony in blue denim shines attraction to surfaces, and a pleasure paintings: she peering from behind meaning. However, when they team through. From a self-designed in representing things and bright a shiny wresder's mask or a Mexican up, the delight in just-so stories of ap­ Wieland Penis Wallpaper (1962) colours for their own sake. They Dia de Muertos mask, he wrapped pearance is challenged by hints of with its phallic flesh-coloured delight in displays of small, sensual, in plastic or bursting through torn a disruptive emotion, a barely idioms in a pale blue sky, to Robert cheap, manufactured things: toy paper. While the two seem to be play­ contained sensual tension that is Markle's total take on burlesque. animals, vinyl, nylon, plastic bags, acting-artifice among the artificial- breaking through in one place and An infamous 1965 police raid on the Barbie dolls in cellophane tubes, there is a strangeness to Haeseker's being smothered in another. It is a Dorothy Cameron Gallery saw a photographs, comic books, and jello, grinning teeth and Hall's suffocating new dimension for these artists that Robert Markle black-and-white lots of quivering, electric jello. Apart open mouth. Haeseker seems caught excites their surfaces and threatens nude confiscated long before art from the artists' partially revealed in a moment of sometimes coy, some­ composure. was banal and mainstream in Cana­ heads and an occasional dog, theirs times carnal, sometimes awkward, dian society. Even Markle's embroi­ is an inorganic world. David Garneau eroticism. Hall's head might evoke dered denim jean jacket is on view. Hall and Haeseker have much in Robert Markle (1936-1990) was in common. They are close in age, the process of rediscovering his straddling sixty. They both married native Mohawk identity when he painters. And, for a long time, both died tragically in 1990, while Joyce taught art in Calgary for half the year Wieland (1930-1998) expanded and spent the remainder in San her art interest in animated film and Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Their the sequential presentation of nar­ collaboration is not a struggle of op­ ratives before Alzheimer's took its posites as much as it is a meeting toll. This show tells the 1960s like of tike minds with slighdy different it is, with the age of Aquarius being temperaments. a 24 hour happening. Such partnerships are rare John K. Grande in 20th century painting, partially GALLERY MOOS LTDo because painting labours under the REGINA ideal of the isolate genius, partially because coauthoring can lead to a JOHN HALL & ALEXANDRA struggle of egos that often result in an HAESEKER inaesthetic pissing contest, as with the en permanence PENDULUM/PENDULA awful Basquiat/Warhol tag team. Finding common ground on which to Rosemont Art Gallery February 4 to March 4 2004 base an association can lead to sim­ Jean-Paul Riopelle ply settling on the lowest common From 1992 to 1998 John Hall denominator. In this case, the artists and Alexandra Haeseker collabo­ seem so agreeable and so polite that rated on the twelve large, photo­ the result is a democratization that realistic acrylic paintings that make leads to nearly afocal and flat picture up Pendulum/Pendula. It takes a plane. The paintings have a space from discerning eye to sort out who did as deep as a dresser drawer to as shal­ what. For the record: Haeseker paints low as a pile of overlapping pho­ in washes. Her light is the white of the tographs. Hall and Haeseker have split 622 Richmond Srreet West, Toronro gesso showing through veils of the real estate fairly, 50/50, but have Ontario M5V 1Y9 colour. Her method is especially paid for it in often confusing compo­ Tel.: (416) 504-5445 suited for the representation of sheer sitions. The less cacophonous works, Fax: (416) 504-5446 fabric and crinkled, transparent such as Across Waste Ground and plastic. Hall builds up paint in opaque Comic Strip are the most engaging. Membre de l'Association Professionnelle des Galeries d'Art du Canada

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