Oh, don’t trip over the Nazi flag on your way into Strength-Duty-Honor exhibit by Spyder Yardley-Jones. This dictator themed display shows members of our government and society in a circus-poster caricatured way. The shouting satire of Alberta’s and the world’s problems yell from every comment painted on Yardley-Jones' canvases.
With pictures such as "Karla Holmoka Alive? Why?" you don’t really have to stop and think about what Yardley-Jones is trying to say. Growing up as the son of Edmonton Journals editorial cartoonist Spyder has definitely taken after the opinionated editorial side of art. Spinning through "Ralph Klein the ass talker" to "Helping Mutate Alberta’s future: the tar sands" a little smile may creep on to your face that speaks to both the absurdly extreme and bemusedly pop cultural nature of the exhibition.
Then there are the most magnificent forts made out of popsicles sticks (or some kind of sticks) hanging out in the middle of the room. With the detail of wind mills, resting points ,and multi-tiered rooms designed for communal living, I wonder if they are maquettes for our getaways from this crazy society when we try to escape the tyranny of this so called diplomatic government.
- E.C. Edmonton
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Prairie Artsters - Is there a "here" in Here Now or Nowhere?*
Serendipitously walking by a piece of graffiti text that read “Be here now or nowhere” near his Toronto home, artist and curator Micah Lexier thought he had stumbled upon the perfect title for his curatorial exhibit in Grande Prairie.
Following on 2008’s Ed Bader curation featuring international and regional video-based artists such as Bill Viola, John Will, David Hoffos and Lexier himself taking over storefront windows throughout downtown Grande Prairie, Lexier was invited back by the Prairie Art Gallery to curate this year’s exhibition.
Running until the end of January, Here Now or Nowhere features a series of temporary public art works throughout Grande Prairie’s downtown core in windows, shops and theatres. Robert Steven, the gallery’s executive director, noted the anagram between “here now” and “nowhere” and suggested dropping the “be” all together, feeling the verb may be too emphatic. Only after artist talks and surveying the exhibit, I’m left wondering if the omitted “be” also plays upon the lack of a local ontological presence.
Constructed as a public art intervention exhibition banking on Grande Prairie’s remoteness, Here Now or Nowhere features several new works by artists like Adad Hannah and Jan Peacock, but features mostly older works by the likes of Kelly Mark, Germaine Koh and Neil Goldberg. Hannah and Peacock’s works are the only storefront pieces that successfully collaborate with their venue, while the remainder of the works appear in rotation along a two-block stretch.
The overall exhibition was repeatedly touted by senior critic Robert Enright as “good an exhibit as you’ll see anywhere,” but therein lies the problem: that this exhibit has mostly been crafted for anywhere, and in so doing disconnects it from a relative social milieu.
Grande Prairie, like most small to midsize cities dependent on automobiles with low pedestrian traffic and a sparse central population, shares the fate of a quiet downtown district. After dark, the core inevitably empties, with the exception of a consistent murmur surrounding the York Hotel and a steady flow of pickup trucks hauling skidoos to and from the highway. So for an exhibit where the majority of works are situated downtown and can only be seen after dark, the exhibit is certainly as good an exhibit as you’ll see anywhere, but the major difference is whether the exhibit will be identified by the present and local public.
Standing as mostly strong works independent of each other and of the public spaces they have been situated, the video projections finally became visible by early Saturday evening. After walking the three blocks of a deserted 100 Avenue, I was basking in the encounter of works on display, but left wondering if I’ve gained any insight into the actual places visited.
An ephemeral encounter such as Mark’s “Glow House” is perhaps the best example of the conundrum. Filling an old two-storey house with dozens of televisions set to identical channels, the simultaneous flicker of their synchronized screens illuminate the house into a pulsating glow. As an all-too-familiar sight for any suburban walker in the night, “Glow House” was first created in 2001 through Winnipeg’s Plug-In ICA to an audience that Mark estimates to be no more than a dozen. Reincarnating in various cities since, the idea arrived in Grande Prairie for a single weekend to a small handful who sought it out, but mostly existed for the majority of oblivious drivers and an idling security vehicle. Although some vehicles would slow down and ask what was going on, more often than not the reception was to honk or rev at the out-of-place onlookers standing in the street.
Although I strongly agree that the calibre of this exhibit are as good as anywhere, I could only suggest that the art works alongside their locations build upon a shared sense of “here” for next year.
*First published in Vue Weekly, January 21 - 27, 2009
Following on 2008’s Ed Bader curation featuring international and regional video-based artists such as Bill Viola, John Will, David Hoffos and Lexier himself taking over storefront windows throughout downtown Grande Prairie, Lexier was invited back by the Prairie Art Gallery to curate this year’s exhibition.
Running until the end of January, Here Now or Nowhere features a series of temporary public art works throughout Grande Prairie’s downtown core in windows, shops and theatres. Robert Steven, the gallery’s executive director, noted the anagram between “here now” and “nowhere” and suggested dropping the “be” all together, feeling the verb may be too emphatic. Only after artist talks and surveying the exhibit, I’m left wondering if the omitted “be” also plays upon the lack of a local ontological presence.
Constructed as a public art intervention exhibition banking on Grande Prairie’s remoteness, Here Now or Nowhere features several new works by artists like Adad Hannah and Jan Peacock, but features mostly older works by the likes of Kelly Mark, Germaine Koh and Neil Goldberg. Hannah and Peacock’s works are the only storefront pieces that successfully collaborate with their venue, while the remainder of the works appear in rotation along a two-block stretch.
The overall exhibition was repeatedly touted by senior critic Robert Enright as “good an exhibit as you’ll see anywhere,” but therein lies the problem: that this exhibit has mostly been crafted for anywhere, and in so doing disconnects it from a relative social milieu.
Grande Prairie, like most small to midsize cities dependent on automobiles with low pedestrian traffic and a sparse central population, shares the fate of a quiet downtown district. After dark, the core inevitably empties, with the exception of a consistent murmur surrounding the York Hotel and a steady flow of pickup trucks hauling skidoos to and from the highway. So for an exhibit where the majority of works are situated downtown and can only be seen after dark, the exhibit is certainly as good an exhibit as you’ll see anywhere, but the major difference is whether the exhibit will be identified by the present and local public.
Standing as mostly strong works independent of each other and of the public spaces they have been situated, the video projections finally became visible by early Saturday evening. After walking the three blocks of a deserted 100 Avenue, I was basking in the encounter of works on display, but left wondering if I’ve gained any insight into the actual places visited.
An ephemeral encounter such as Mark’s “Glow House” is perhaps the best example of the conundrum. Filling an old two-storey house with dozens of televisions set to identical channels, the simultaneous flicker of their synchronized screens illuminate the house into a pulsating glow. As an all-too-familiar sight for any suburban walker in the night, “Glow House” was first created in 2001 through Winnipeg’s Plug-In ICA to an audience that Mark estimates to be no more than a dozen. Reincarnating in various cities since, the idea arrived in Grande Prairie for a single weekend to a small handful who sought it out, but mostly existed for the majority of oblivious drivers and an idling security vehicle. Although some vehicles would slow down and ask what was going on, more often than not the reception was to honk or rev at the out-of-place onlookers standing in the street.
Although I strongly agree that the calibre of this exhibit are as good as anywhere, I could only suggest that the art works alongside their locations build upon a shared sense of “here” for next year.
*First published in Vue Weekly, January 21 - 27, 2009
Sean Montgomery, Crooked Head, Latitude 53, Jan. 9th - Feb. 14th, 2009 REVIEWED by Mandy Espezel
Currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University, Sean Montgomery's Crooked Head is a representation of the work he is doing as a graduate student in Montreal.
The show consists of seven fairly large scale acrylic paintings on un-stretched canvas averaging 50" x 70". Ranging in subject matter from bandana's, bears, beards, flags, blankets, and trouser snakes, Montgomery uses bright and contrasting colours, creating an aggressive visual impact within the small space.
Image credit: Sean Montgomery "Gang Members" 2008
Interested in gender signification, he appropriates culturally masculine symbols, such as the bearded-man or flannel patterning, and reconstructs them contextually in order to question or alter their validity. The stylized slot mouths and obsessive wood grain patterning are definitely eye-pleasing, and create a strong relationship between all the work. But what really interests me about this show is the literal connections to objects that are created through the use of structural shape. The figure / ground relationship is stripped away, leaving only the figure as the subject. In this way, Montgomery's paintings become almost sculptural in their emphasis on material nature. Contrasting with this is the excessively flat paint handling Montgomery has developed. There is no "painters hand" at play here; no lush physicality to indulge in. By using the canvas in direct relation to the image or object being symbolized, we enter a kind of surreal understanding and dialogue of representation. Three works specifically engage in this way, "Bandana", "Bay Blanket", and "Jean Mathieu Montgomerie".
"Bandana" is the most obvious and powerful in terms of direct representation.
Basically a decorated red triangle, this painting hangs on the wall as an oversized detailed version of something completely based in reality. Recognizable as the cowboys bandana used to cover the face and protect one's identity, "Bandana" hangs in existence as a physical object, as a symbol, and as a non-functional image.
Much the same effect is created with "Bay Blanket", a painting that resembles, as its title suggests, the fundamentally Canadian and culturally epic Hudson's Bay blanket. Montgomery replicates the basics of the visually geometric symbol, a large white rectangle with four colourful horizontal stripes across one end. He complicates this with the use of subtly weaving lines that barely alter in tone, but are easily recognized as wood grain patterning. Again, the painting is an object and a symbolic representation, but the slight alteration suggests a kind of additional commentary of personal significance.
The last example, "Jean Mathieu Montgomerie" uses Quebec's provincial flag, a blue rectangle divided into four quadrants by a white cross, as the root of its formal structure and content. Replacing the fleur-de-lis are four delicately executed white line drawings of the bearded-man heads, slightly angled and open mouthed. Presumably representing a Francophone-version of Montgomery's own identity, this painting is the most self referential in the show, and also the most complex in terms of the relationship between symbolism and physical reality. It is also one of the strongest pieces, in my opinion, because it so clearly embraces and epitomizes the necessity, absurdity, and the power of image and identity making.
M. E. Edmonton
The show consists of seven fairly large scale acrylic paintings on un-stretched canvas averaging 50" x 70". Ranging in subject matter from bandana's, bears, beards, flags, blankets, and trouser snakes, Montgomery uses bright and contrasting colours, creating an aggressive visual impact within the small space.
Image credit: Sean Montgomery "Gang Members" 2008
Interested in gender signification, he appropriates culturally masculine symbols, such as the bearded-man or flannel patterning, and reconstructs them contextually in order to question or alter their validity. The stylized slot mouths and obsessive wood grain patterning are definitely eye-pleasing, and create a strong relationship between all the work. But what really interests me about this show is the literal connections to objects that are created through the use of structural shape. The figure / ground relationship is stripped away, leaving only the figure as the subject. In this way, Montgomery's paintings become almost sculptural in their emphasis on material nature. Contrasting with this is the excessively flat paint handling Montgomery has developed. There is no "painters hand" at play here; no lush physicality to indulge in. By using the canvas in direct relation to the image or object being symbolized, we enter a kind of surreal understanding and dialogue of representation. Three works specifically engage in this way, "Bandana", "Bay Blanket", and "Jean Mathieu Montgomerie".
"Bandana" is the most obvious and powerful in terms of direct representation.
Basically a decorated red triangle, this painting hangs on the wall as an oversized detailed version of something completely based in reality. Recognizable as the cowboys bandana used to cover the face and protect one's identity, "Bandana" hangs in existence as a physical object, as a symbol, and as a non-functional image.
Much the same effect is created with "Bay Blanket", a painting that resembles, as its title suggests, the fundamentally Canadian and culturally epic Hudson's Bay blanket. Montgomery replicates the basics of the visually geometric symbol, a large white rectangle with four colourful horizontal stripes across one end. He complicates this with the use of subtly weaving lines that barely alter in tone, but are easily recognized as wood grain patterning. Again, the painting is an object and a symbolic representation, but the slight alteration suggests a kind of additional commentary of personal significance.
The last example, "Jean Mathieu Montgomerie" uses Quebec's provincial flag, a blue rectangle divided into four quadrants by a white cross, as the root of its formal structure and content. Replacing the fleur-de-lis are four delicately executed white line drawings of the bearded-man heads, slightly angled and open mouthed. Presumably representing a Francophone-version of Montgomery's own identity, this painting is the most self referential in the show, and also the most complex in terms of the relationship between symbolism and physical reality. It is also one of the strongest pieces, in my opinion, because it so clearly embraces and epitomizes the necessity, absurdity, and the power of image and identity making.
M. E. Edmonton
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