Riding the train beyond the tunnels of downtown, rumbling along in the semi-new carts and into the chain-linked isolation of north and east Edmonton, I sat numbed by the graffiti removal just east of 95 St. Where there was once a milieu of unsolicited creations lining the otherwise grey zone of industrialization, there now only exists more grey, in the form of patches outlining the former bursts of expression.
If you saw this particular stretch of graffiti that resided there for seemingly as long as I can remember, you would remember that it was a mix of amateur works stretching between the nothingness of Stadium and Churchill. For the most part, the works were mediocre, being neither mind-blowing or base in articulation, but still there was something intrinsic in their quality; everytime you saw them amidst the emptiness, there was something deeply moving about the experience of encountering these works that situated you into an “Edmonton” experience.
Their removal is natural to the medium of graffiti, and on one hand the situation presents itself as a prime blank canvas. On the other hand, though, its targeted removal by a civic committee intentioned to replace all unsanctioned works with blotchy patchworks of muted blue-greys actually creates another type of Edmonton experience: the experience of isolation, or in terms of visual understanding, an isolating aesthetic.
Beyond the inherent issues of improving architectural standards and public art engagements, the city reinforces a visual solitude. Navigating through the city, the conditions isolate you into the solitary commuter: sand and grit dunes lining every meridian and sidewalk from Beverly to Lewis Estates creates less-than-desired treks; the horizon breaks up into hubs of big box stores along inhumane lanes of traffic; gravel lots extend from homogenous single storey abandoned buildings; the soulless walks through sidewalkless paths leading you to nowhere.
Erasing those marks left by the anonymous only perpetuates the disconnection that already permeates our dirty city streets. With each step we take to “clean up” this city’s image, we are removing those who have contributed to Edmonton’s identity, and in turn, the potential of ever forming a self identity and heritage.
As the Edmonton Heritage Council begins to form adjacent to the Edmonton Arts Council, a look back at The Art of Living Plan emphasizes that heritage “is the knowledge of the watersheds in human experience that provide the framework for how communities and individuals understand themselves.”
Heritage is a form of living history cultivated down into a collection and archive, but what boils down to inclusion and exclusion will inevitably shape our history and heritage. There are plans to open up a city museum, but will this museum feature an Edmonton that I remember? Through erasure, there leaves no possibility for remembrance and understanding, be it through the difference and expression of opinions. In starting fresh everytime, there is no momentum, no continuation, no follow through, leaving only the static representation of the present. This in many ways may be our identity, partaking in an ongoing amnesia of not just the past but our past mistakes in believing that it’s easier, cheaper and better to start all over again. Staying on this path, there will never be anything more than this self-effacing cycle of denial, which looking back and looking ahead, leads again to a state of isolation.
- A.F.
*First published in Vue Weekly, February 19 - 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Manatee Mammaries, Travis McEwen and Mandy Espezel, The Fringe Gallery, Jan 1- 31, 2009 REVIEWED by Pam Baergen
I have known Travis McEwen and his work for several years, yet as I followed him down the steps of the Fringe Gallery to see his latest show I wasn't sure what to expect. This exhibition was to be a collaboration with Mandy Espezel, and the impression I had of collaboration is that it was a difficult practice, especially for young artists.
Image credit: Travis McEwen and Mandy Espezel. "Untitled" from Manatee Mammaries. Photo credit: Travis McEwen 2009.
What I found at the bottom of the staircase was an array of imaginative, awkward creatures--figures birthed from the collaborative drawing efforts by these two young Edmonton artists.
McEwen completed his BFA in painting, and his work produced up until this point has been largely representational portraiture based on memory and imagination. Espezel's work is also figurative, often mixing animal elements such as horns and paws with human limbs, breasts, and body hair. Fusing their separate interests and aesthetics together, each piece created for Manatee Mammaries expresses a sign of trust, as each piece was worked on by both artists, beginning a few pieces on their own, then trading and adding to what the other had made. The artists selected 40 of the 50 works they created and pinned them around the gallery in lines or groupings of similar size.
Espezel and McEwen explain that their creature-figures were created as a way to explore the conceptual relationship between instinctual drawing and figuration. This exploration has pushed both artists’ works and themes to achieving a sense of social anxiety. One drawing that I found interesting was of a bulbous head shape with small, unbalanced eyes on a flat green and grey background. In this piece the artists have established a play between appealing and appalling, most notably in the figure's forehead and scalp where a piece of decorative paper curves around areas of yellowish pimple-like growths. I found this work to be a successful fusion of both artists' styles.
The unity of the works was aided by the repetition of materials, and the variety of colours and techniques used was a strength of the show. However, there was one image that I felt added little to the show's overall aesthetic and its overall conceptual exploration. The central male face and chest as well as the painterly background disappeared into the dark colours of this untitled image, and pulled visual focus away from its surrounding drawings. This was unfortunate, since it was close to one image that I found particularly intriguing: a plain swipe of colour overlayed with gold pigment on the bottom half of a plain white sheet of paper. Was this image meant to be figuration in it's simplest form? Was it a shadow: something that suggested the presence of a figure? I was torn between pondering this piece and staring back at the other.
After viewing the exhibition my impression of collaboration as a difficult practice has not changed—artists take risks when they step out of their own studios, not only because they are challenging themselves, but because they are challenging each other. According to McEwen, the show would not have been possible had he and Espezel not had "a high level of respect for each other as well as each other's work." Facing the challenges that collaboration presents was definitely worthwhile for these two artists, since it has led them to develop effective and interesting ways of communicating their ideas.
- P.B. Edmonton
Image credit: Travis McEwen and Mandy Espezel. "Untitled" from Manatee Mammaries. Photo credit: Travis McEwen 2009.
What I found at the bottom of the staircase was an array of imaginative, awkward creatures--figures birthed from the collaborative drawing efforts by these two young Edmonton artists.
McEwen completed his BFA in painting, and his work produced up until this point has been largely representational portraiture based on memory and imagination. Espezel's work is also figurative, often mixing animal elements such as horns and paws with human limbs, breasts, and body hair. Fusing their separate interests and aesthetics together, each piece created for Manatee Mammaries expresses a sign of trust, as each piece was worked on by both artists, beginning a few pieces on their own, then trading and adding to what the other had made. The artists selected 40 of the 50 works they created and pinned them around the gallery in lines or groupings of similar size.
Espezel and McEwen explain that their creature-figures were created as a way to explore the conceptual relationship between instinctual drawing and figuration. This exploration has pushed both artists’ works and themes to achieving a sense of social anxiety. One drawing that I found interesting was of a bulbous head shape with small, unbalanced eyes on a flat green and grey background. In this piece the artists have established a play between appealing and appalling, most notably in the figure's forehead and scalp where a piece of decorative paper curves around areas of yellowish pimple-like growths. I found this work to be a successful fusion of both artists' styles.
The unity of the works was aided by the repetition of materials, and the variety of colours and techniques used was a strength of the show. However, there was one image that I felt added little to the show's overall aesthetic and its overall conceptual exploration. The central male face and chest as well as the painterly background disappeared into the dark colours of this untitled image, and pulled visual focus away from its surrounding drawings. This was unfortunate, since it was close to one image that I found particularly intriguing: a plain swipe of colour overlayed with gold pigment on the bottom half of a plain white sheet of paper. Was this image meant to be figuration in it's simplest form? Was it a shadow: something that suggested the presence of a figure? I was torn between pondering this piece and staring back at the other.
After viewing the exhibition my impression of collaboration as a difficult practice has not changed—artists take risks when they step out of their own studios, not only because they are challenging themselves, but because they are challenging each other. According to McEwen, the show would not have been possible had he and Espezel not had "a high level of respect for each other as well as each other's work." Facing the challenges that collaboration presents was definitely worthwhile for these two artists, since it has led them to develop effective and interesting ways of communicating their ideas.
- P.B. Edmonton
Friday, February 13, 2009
Afshin Matlabi, Terrorism, Democracy, Leisure. aceartinc., January 23 - February 28, 2009. REVIEWED by Noni Brynjolson
The introductory text to Afshin Matlabi’s Terrorism, Democracy, Leisure at aceartinc., taken out of a Sandals Resort catalogue, reads: “It is a dream as old as time. Every moment is rich with a thousand delights.” This clichéd statement is followed by the digital photograph “Cuba,” and the video “Four Cuban Impressions.” The sunny utopia pictured in these works is the destination Matlabi visits annually with his family, in part, he says, to relieve accumulated anxiety accompanying the threat of global terrorism. The work consists of digital photos and videos, as well as several works on paper, all of which are informed by the artist’s humour-inflected drawing sensibility. Matlabi, a Montreal artist of Iranian descent, intends to expose hypocrisies in western, liberal democratic life. However, he has not been entirely successful in communicating a clear message.
Image credit: "Cuba," Afshin Matlabi, 2002, digital photograph.
Missiles are featured in many of Matlabi’s works. In “WMD,” a missile dances to the tune of ancient, and very beautiful Persian music. In the crayon and paper pieces “Ballistic Missile’s Weekend Family Outing,” plump tourists dive alongside grey missiles into vast expanses of swirling blue. Water, symbolic of refreshment, rebirth, and also salvation, is a common theme throughout the show. Nearby, the piece “Anxiety Apology” shows dozens of zombie-like figures running over surreally coloured hills, towards a spouting fountain much too small to save them all.
Matlabi cites his influences to include Magic Realism, Persian miniatures, faith-based art, and political art. He abhors the art for art’s sake approach, believing strongly in art’s didactic potential. In an artist talk the day after the opening, some critical questions were raised about the connection of Matlabi’s artistic influences and political beliefs to his work. For example, Persian miniature paintings are much more detailed and decorative than Matlabi’s drawings. It is also hard to see the influence of Shirin Neshat, a reference brought up by the artist. His attempts to parody advertising would have been aided by a more slick, polished aesthetic in some of the works. Matlabi named Théodore Géricault’s “Raft of Medusa” (1819) as an inspiration, an iconic painting that condemned the then-recent failure of the restored French monarchy to save one of France's shipwrecked navy ships. In contrast with Géricault’s accusatory work that focuses in on one isolated event, the focus of Matlabi’s works is far less clear. Is it the concept of democracy, the individual, the government, the media, or all of these interrelated units that Matlabi is contesting?
Matlabi’s own political beliefs add another layer of opacity. After he talked about reconsidering “family values, core values, a faith-based system, and religious texts, which are more sophisticated than philosophy,” he stated “voting dictates the value of your artistic creativity,” adding that he had voted Conservative in the last election. Does this change the political message associated with the show? Matlabi sees democracy as flawed, but what kind of change is he after? To me, the artist’s words were more confusing than enlightening, both aesthetically and politically. Considered next to each other, one might piece together a critique of the inhabitants of western liberal democracies: unquestioning, flabby followers whose political systems inherently result in war, and who relieve their anxiety by escaping to warm, sandy beaches to regenerate. However, the works were more difficult to comprehend after hearing Matlabi speak, and I am left with questions surrounding the connection, and in this case disconnection, between aesthetics and politics, intention and expression.
- N.B. Winnipeg
Image credit: "Cuba," Afshin Matlabi, 2002, digital photograph.
Missiles are featured in many of Matlabi’s works. In “WMD,” a missile dances to the tune of ancient, and very beautiful Persian music. In the crayon and paper pieces “Ballistic Missile’s Weekend Family Outing,” plump tourists dive alongside grey missiles into vast expanses of swirling blue. Water, symbolic of refreshment, rebirth, and also salvation, is a common theme throughout the show. Nearby, the piece “Anxiety Apology” shows dozens of zombie-like figures running over surreally coloured hills, towards a spouting fountain much too small to save them all.
Matlabi cites his influences to include Magic Realism, Persian miniatures, faith-based art, and political art. He abhors the art for art’s sake approach, believing strongly in art’s didactic potential. In an artist talk the day after the opening, some critical questions were raised about the connection of Matlabi’s artistic influences and political beliefs to his work. For example, Persian miniature paintings are much more detailed and decorative than Matlabi’s drawings. It is also hard to see the influence of Shirin Neshat, a reference brought up by the artist. His attempts to parody advertising would have been aided by a more slick, polished aesthetic in some of the works. Matlabi named Théodore Géricault’s “Raft of Medusa” (1819) as an inspiration, an iconic painting that condemned the then-recent failure of the restored French monarchy to save one of France's shipwrecked navy ships. In contrast with Géricault’s accusatory work that focuses in on one isolated event, the focus of Matlabi’s works is far less clear. Is it the concept of democracy, the individual, the government, the media, or all of these interrelated units that Matlabi is contesting?
Matlabi’s own political beliefs add another layer of opacity. After he talked about reconsidering “family values, core values, a faith-based system, and religious texts, which are more sophisticated than philosophy,” he stated “voting dictates the value of your artistic creativity,” adding that he had voted Conservative in the last election. Does this change the political message associated with the show? Matlabi sees democracy as flawed, but what kind of change is he after? To me, the artist’s words were more confusing than enlightening, both aesthetically and politically. Considered next to each other, one might piece together a critique of the inhabitants of western liberal democracies: unquestioning, flabby followers whose political systems inherently result in war, and who relieve their anxiety by escaping to warm, sandy beaches to regenerate. However, the works were more difficult to comprehend after hearing Matlabi speak, and I am left with questions surrounding the connection, and in this case disconnection, between aesthetics and politics, intention and expression.
- N.B. Winnipeg
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