Take Care

Poems at an exhibition

Here are some words I wrote to accompany the works in "Between Cellar and Attic"...I chose not to write an essay, because its form and required objectivity felt much too cold and restrictive - not at all applicable to the feeling of this show or the dreamy, nostalgic, aggressive and intangible qualities of personal relationships to space as hinted at by Genevieve Robertson, Ryan Lord and Paola Savasta's works. Very graciously, by the artists, I was indulged in my preference to write poetry, as a text-based way of opening the works up to interpretation. I wanted to give a response that was subjective, emotional, reflective of my psyche in the same ways these artists each capture complex inner worlds. Perhaps these poems worked to activate new ways of experiencing the show in the imaginations of the audience, as they offer at times campy, irrelevant, odd and humble ideas. I mean, speaking from personal experience, reading the literature that accompanies exhibitions at most institutions usually doesn't get me flipping out with sheer excitement. A particularly brilliant insight will get a giggle from me, yes. And respect, sure. I'm not trying to make the case for populist art and "dumbed-down" art writing. I am not promoting gimmicks at museums meant to tempt viewers in. But I wonder what writing about art from a deeply personal, intuitive place (ie, not the distilled intellectual language of academia, but something that rings true - more revealing, earnest, romantic... bordering on humiliating maybe?) can do for improving audience engagement, for stimulating deep reactions, for improving the public's relationship to contemporary art, for improving enjoyment, honest dialogue and criticism across the board. What can it do for breaking down silos, and opening art up to new possibilities? I wonder if I can write in such a way successfully...so this is my start. I wrote these poems while safely snuggled in my own bed, where I spend a lot of time, and manage to do many things, including working quite comfortably (definitely more so than at a desk). My bed - intimate, inspiring, and yet sometimes as stormy as the sea - is surrounded by all that I love and can't live without, located between cellar and attic, and where I absolutely feel the most at home. So, I thought, it would be appropriate to write from that place, for these artists and their show. I hope you like the poems...xoe

In the starlit place
(for Genevieve)

Wallpaper
roses layered in
clouds. Ash cloaked
suitcases kept close for
wandering. Big gentle sleepy
blankets piled up to collect some
rest. Black silk panopticon shadow
cat tethered to shifty grinned somnolent
meditation. Musty moss woven bird made
nest thieved from a mud slicked wood beam
after its inhabitants took flight to search for a home
elsewhere. Perfume absent vintage mottled lead glass
vessels sweetened by memories of once near loved ones
a milk a pink a frosted white with touch-worn patches of handpainted
flowers cramped together securely in a Bermuda Triangle of sentimental
arrangement. Induction unravelled linen bound threshold navigation guide
books gathered around me like the crumbling ruins of a stone amphitheatre
on shelves table floor bed precarious stacks stuffed with pressed leaf love letters spilling
into an unknown river’s waters that sweep buried bone words deep downstream to be sought
after gleaming in the starlit place I visit whenever there is an opportunity to take a little time to
look.

Internal monologue for Mr Olympia’s workout
(for Ryan)

Work that chest out
Work it hard
Pump it pump it pump
Incline bench press
Four times ten
Burn hot to get big bumps

Now the biceps
Incline curls
Donkey kickbacks fast
Rip, sliced, shredded
Cut extreme
Who cares about the rest

Deadlifts, pulldowns
Build that back
Rugged to the max
Say you’re unsure
Kill that noise
And get your body jacked

Don’t you try to
Hide from me
Where you gonna go?
We’re not done here
Flesh machine
Until your mass gets grown

Feeling tired, wow
Malcontent
Think that’s all you are
Cardboard body
Empty box
You’re void of any power

You’re fucking weak
Dead to me
Call yourself a man?
Just don’t you dare
Abandon me
I don’t know who I am

Rectangles of dysfunction that occupy my wall
(A semi-fictional list for Paola)

Painting of productive agricultural land sold
to industrial property developers.
Fastidiously organized to do list always
neglected to be read.
Love note on postcard of exceptionally
hideous Icelandic sunset.
Water-resistant found dog poster with high
res picture of a duck.
Counterfeit-proof train pass already
lost five times and counting.
Fortunes of prosperity from
inedible cookies.

Newspaper article on furniture shipment
sent straight to the dump.
Photo of university graduates destined
to lifetime of career insecurity, circa 2002.
Definition of some pithy zeitgeist word
no one will use in a year.
Self-portrait sketched on envelope orphaned
from proper identification papers.
Perfectly recorded full contact information
for person I will never call.
Award announcement for directional signs
designed for election nobody voted in.
“Bonne chance” stamped on metal keepsake
containing carcinogens.

Precious quote by esteemed dead intellectual
that derailed my art practice.
Coordinates of public space requiring
permits to use and patrolled by police.
Wise words from mother inadequately
recognized for her contributions.
Prescription for drugs to treat
the wrong problems.
IOUs from trusted friends with
no plans to pay back their debts.
Myspace user name and password.

Bringing a few items out of the collection...

I collect constantly. Not as much art as I'd like. Mostly websites. Emails. Exhibition pamphlets. Images. Books. Birds' nests. Ideas. Part-time jobs. Everything is currently in a big pile. Well, stuff is filed away and gives the appearance of being somewhat organized. But it's all just collected together and stuck. Not properly sorted and cross-catalogued for quick reference. Not mobile enough in my mental and physical space to be shared coherently, intelligently. Maybe it is more accurate to say that I consume.

I had promised to share further references to explore ideas about "the commons". I even dared to brag that I would critique my own interpretations of the works in my latest exhibition, Meet us on the commons. Oh, it's all been collected and some notes are scratched out. It's just stuck right now. What I'm not good at collecting is the time to do all this, the fearlessness of imperfection to just put it out there. But Internet, if you're listening, just know that it is in the works. I do want to share my collection. Let it go, piece by piece. Starting with these little balloon videos I made last month, and hope to continue making as long as I keep finding balloons on my travels.

And while we're at it, here are a few other things of note that I've been meaning to share:

The Three Tongues is a free knowledge exchange project that I co-curate with the exquisite Stacey Sproule, whose performance, installation and video art has been shown at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, FADO, Forest City Gallery, 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, and Xpace, amongst others. The Three Tongues revolves mainly around our blog, where you can find more information about accessing information and education for free, and skill swaps that we host in free public spaces. For these swaps, we invite three people to teach a skill they are intimately acquainted with - something they practice in everyday life - and that is fairly easily to pass on, without the need for many extra materials or equipment. One person teaches a skill related to Truth, another to Beauty, and another to Chance. After teaching a group a skill, the "students" then break off and partner up with each other, and exchange the skills they have just learned by teaching them to each other. This continues until everyone has learned all three skills. I am excited to be speaking more about this project at the Art Gallery of Windsor for Broken City Lab's Homework conference, where artists will be sharing their thoughts and experiences with infrastructure and collaboration in social practices, as they relate to education, cities and space, artist run culture and more. If you're not heading to Windsor this weekend, you can catch it all on Livestream.

Also happening now is Between Cellar and Attic at Xpace, until November 5. In this exhibition, Ryan Lord, Genevieve Robertson and Paola Savasta investigate relationships to domestic spaces and the objects contained therein. I wrote poetry to accompany the works in the show, which I'll post at a later date.

Meet us on the commons keeps on

Ever feel like you're being taunted by the regulatory signs that dominate public space? Like they are daring you to challenge their authority by acting in opposition to the rules they declare? I noticed these Keep Out stencils beside the ridiculous blue non-swimming pools when I was over on the Toronto Island a few weeks ago...While I have to admit that I obeyed this teensy bit of spray paint on the ground, the attention it drew to the pool invited me to consider the possibility of going in, a thought I might not have otherwise had if the sign wasn't there. What would move you to act on such an impulse?

Until September 11, I'll be blogging about Meet us on the commons over on the Art Gallery of Mississauga's website...

Posts will include alternative perspectives on works in the show (including critiques of my previous interpretations, gasp!), musings on taking action for the public's right to public space, profiles of related artist and curatorial projects, troubleshooting public art projects and events, and responses to questions and comments from anyone that feels like speaking up.

To share your thoughts on the exhibition and participate in the discussion, email: agmcommons [at] gmail [dot] com

And as much as I can, I'll try to post updates about my other projects in the works and continue to share them here.

Until then, keep on, friends!

xoe

Meet on the commons @ The Art Gallery of Mississauga

Meet us on the commons

Curated by Elizabeth Underhill

The Art Gallery of Mississauga

July 21 - September 11, 2011


Featuring new and recent works by
The Department of Unusual Certainties
Sarah Febbraro
Serena Lee in dialogue with Anna Okrasko
Derek Liddington
Nathalie Quagliotto
Sarah Sharkey Pearce and Mariangela Piccione
Stacey Sproule

Meet us on the commons is an invitation to explore the public realm and encounter the people within it, by imagining and experiencing shared gathering places over a fragmented series of built environments, natural settings, and online networks in projects that focus on the role of youth in the formation of the commons. Through performance, sculpture, video and interactive works, emerging artists document, conceptualize and mythologize the rebellious actions of young people as gestures that open up space and welcome us to consider new places for play, discovery, and belonging.

The commons, a term used to describe shared public places, often take the form of parks or city squares that serve as accessible spaces for all members of the public, yet constantly face regulations and barriers that restrict their usage. Works in this exhibition investigate alternative uses and versions of the commons by citing the agency of defiant young people to freely enjoy and create shared gathering places. As provocateurs who flout authority and resist “fitting in”, such youngsters are frequently perceived as rule-breakers and undesirable troublemakers. However, artists in Meet us on the commons propose non-normative behaviour to be a vital catalyst for the making and sustainability of the commons, and explore conflict and resistance as liberating acts that disrupt hegemonic control over the spaces we visit, transforming them into publicly-malleable heterogeneous meeting places of pluralistic use that welcome difference and dialogue.

not until after tomorrow, after the show...

Sure has been awhile, hasn't it? This lonely little blog just sort of appeared and faded away... Suppose it's time to shake things up around here again. I'll just make myself comfortable first with a little Talking Heads...

This question of what happens "after the show" is rather open, don't you think? As an independent curator it crosses my mind every time I'm working on an exhibition. Inevitably I wonder, what will happen after the show closes, what becomes of all it contained, and what will I do next? Sometimes I go the super-optimistic Jay Z route and get pumped up with that fearless, "I can't be stopped cos I have the balls to follow through with all these ideas that bust loose from my own bad ass practice and challenge everything that's been done in this whole art game thing so yeah obvs I'm on to the next one and it's going to be even better than that last thing I did and totally rule your face with mindblowing awesomeness so eat that and like it" attitude (not going to lie, this tune and its implications for working in the world of contemporary art were brought up in conversation by Derek Liddington, though I'm not claiming this is how he applies it to his own practice, phrased this immodestly, nor will I suggest that he secretly raps along when no one's looking, like I do, for that matter).

Most other times, such as now when I'm on the very precipice of closing, or even opening, another show (which, is, uh, not until after tomorrow, btw) and peering into what seems like a giant chasm of unknowns, my thoughts are going in the same general direction as this narrative Spalding Gray's character in True Stories (perhaps self-deceivingly, see below) presents. He mixes up this question of "after the show" with a complex string of associated euphemisms: the edge of civilization, the end of the world, an imaginary landscape...In clumsily reductive terms, what I initially get out of this is essentially: "Yeah, things are ending, but hey, other things are beginning, too. Cool, huh?" Thinking about an exhibition’s end point as starting point is a way to see fresh possibilities for this moment in time and space. After the show - that chasm of unknowns - is like territory that's been razed by some event of apocalyptic proportions, but because of this new life is able to proliferate. It's a great metaphor, and even though I'm not exactly prepared to talk about zombies right now just let me say that it weren’t for no reason I named my cat Phoenix, fyi. Rising from the ashes. Life coming out of death. Transformation. David Altmejd being my favourite...Yes, you have to move onwards if there's going to be a "next one".. And yet..

I kind of want to use the critical implications of this video as framework to briefly venture into thinking about exhibition making in the same terms as the failed suburban dream. If we take the exhibition (before, during, after) as a place of potential, the unknown, the space created to dream and conceptualize, does this implicate it as being an alienated, anti-social space, uncaring and cut off from active participation in the world? Can we even go so far as thinking of exhibition as a form of delusion?

Okay, whoa! You know what? I'm not ready to go there. That's a rather cynical, ungenerous perspective, and does a huge disservice to the work of arts practitioners and audiences' engagement with art, so I'm going to leave that route alone for the time being! I love art. I can't live without it. The closest comparison I can draw to seeing art at a good museum or artist's studio is like lying on a beach at night near a quiet lake and witnessing the entire galaxy sparkling above you. It's a fucking beautiful thing. You feel elevated and crushed at the same time, knowing you're part of a brilliant universe and yet realizing you really don't have the ability to fully fathom where the hell you are at all. Being here transports you somewhere else. Not much else out there that provides experiences like that. So instead I'll argue from the other direction, countering with the idea of exhibition indeed as dwelling place, yet prone to spontaneous transversal excursions that support and/or stimulate new, unexpected yet relational thoughts and experiences. ie, check the rockin' group of random kids a'singing and a'dancing in the as-yet-undeveloped field. It’s someplace where you can be free to play, to dream, to dissent... You might want to bring a goat, too.

Alright, yes, so, as I have alluded, I do have a new show coming up very soon. Called Meet us on the commons. Happening at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. Runs July 21-September 11. Very excited for it, very grateful for the opportunity and having the chance to show lots of really beautiful, challenging works by artists I have a great deal of love and respect for. Will dedicate another post to it shortly.

I’ll wrap up by saying that this blog will remain active as place for me to present my projects and continue to explore them even after they have reached some institutional standard of finitude. The idea of "after the show" makes me uncomfortable. Being so intensely close to a project for so long, I'm reluctant to totally let go of it. Recently awakening to the fact that Meet us on the commons will eventually end, I strangely began to grieve the loss of the exhibition. It hasn’t even opened yet, and already I worry, after the show, what remains? I'm not just going to stop thinking about it entirely. The essay is published but it doesn’t go into the level of depth I’m happy with. So what if I want to dwell on it for a bit longer? Stay in that imaginary landscape? What do I do if there are perspectives, works, ephemera, fragments of visual culture, etc, that I discover later on that are relevant to it? Experiences that evoke and deepen the beauty and insight the artworks hold? Blah blah blog about it! For now, anyway. We’ll see what happens next. Until then…

Love to the universe

xoe

WhiteFeather: My Pretties

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe...

There is a slipperiness to this poetic line from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Floating loosely between the recognizable and the otherworldly, it is adrift in a chimeric space: a location paradoxically evocative of the sparkly and bright along with the dark and murky, where attempts to reconcile light and shadow into meaning collapse. Like Carroll’s slippery words, the dolls of textile artist WhiteFeather inhabit the realm of chimeras that spans the puzzling threshold between the real and imagined, vacillating from the charming to the ominous. Though they are woven together from recognizable found organic and manufactured objects, WhiteFeather’s dolls prompt us to grapple with an irreconcilable space.

My Pretties is an installation of three of WhiteFeather’s chimeric dolls, Tattie Bogle, Bambin and Poppin. Visibly knotted together with twine and sealed with beeswax, they are strange looking creatures made up of hair, animal fur, feathers, bone - amongst other remnants of the living - and manufactured materials like synthetic gloves and funerary flowers. The transient nature of their organic components dictates a certain lifespan; decay is an inherent part of their existence.

Out of decay comes life, and well representative of this is the scarecrow, to which WhiteFeather’s dolls bear resemblance and are sometimes named for. Used to scare away hungry pests in an idealized hope to protect crops from destruction, scarecrows are made by revitalizing cast away objects; in use and makeup, scarecrows conflate the disposable with the vital. That they should be regarded as folkloric speaks to contemporary attitudes toward the real feasibility of harmony between what is apparently disparate, in particular wilderness and humanity.

Indeed, WhiteFeather’s chimeric dolls give us the impression of distinct realms attempting to merge in their woven appearance with seams undisguised. My Pretties alludes to the “unknown”: a seamless union between the world we know and an otherworldly place that is mysterious to us, which remains relegated to the imaginary. The eeriness of these dolls reveals a sense of awe we feel when faced with this merger, and beg the question: how would we react if these seemingly separate realms were to fully reconcile in reality? My Pretties, with their revitalizing collision of different elements, open up consideration for new possibilities in the world around us.

WhiteFeather: My Pretties, was on view at the Window Box Gallery, 1313 Queen Street West, from 4- 29 March, 2009.