View on canadian art

Thomas Hirschorn: Information Overload at the Power Plant

2011-04-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

My experience with Thomas Hirschorn’s work is that it’s often about overkill. And It calls attention to the fake-ness of things, as if to suggest that what we assume is solid isn’t in fact all that stable. It’s just held together with tape, or made from cardboard.

Thomas Hirschorn, Das Auge, at the Vienna Secession, 2008. Images: artnews.org

Thomas Hirschorn, Das Auge, at the Power Plant, Toronto 2011. Images: artsynch.ca

He has said, “I’m interested in the ‘too much,’ doing too much, giving too much, putting too much of an effort into something. Wastefulness as a tool or weapon.”

I would describe his installation, Das Auge at Toronto’s Power Plant, as altogether too much. It seems as if Hirschorn is trying to incite the feeling one gets of being bombarded by too many advertisements, protests, commodities, soundbites, messages etc.

My favorite part of the installation, which occupies the entire large gallery space at the Power Plant, was the viewing platform, from which viewers can overlook the whole bloody mess, which takes as its main theme the seal hunt and the protesters who so vehemently rally against it.

He’s going for a kind of emptiness. He wants the viewer to feel the void within all the cacophony. And, to a certain extent we do. But it must be hard, as an artist, to balance that without actually making artwork that is empty and tiresome.

Hirschhorn was quoted in Frieze magazine as saying “Art doesn’t give satisfaction. Art poses problems. Art gives questions. Art inflicts sadness.”

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, The Phantom Truck, 2007. Image: thepowerplant.org

Whether Hirschorn makes the balance work is a moot point, though when you consider the entire exhibition, whose most interesting gesture was by curator Gregory Burke in pairing Hirschorn’s installation with a video and sculpture by Chicago-based Spanish artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, at the other side of the gallery.

In the front room was Always After (The Glass House), a video of broken glass accumulated after the windows of the Mies van der Rohe-designed Illinois Institute of Technology’s Crown Hall were smashed. The glass is being swept up by someone with a broom. In the back room, in almost total darkness was Phantom Truck (2007), an enormous, full-scale model of a truck, imagined by the artist as one that was carrying the elusive ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as described by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Visitors are invited to circle the entire truck touching it, even using it as a guide in the darkness. The work engages the imagination in a way that is unusual for contemporary art, aided by the sense of touch and the potency of the video of shattered glass.

Together with Das Auge, it neatly presented two perspectives on today: Information overload and lack of information.

Slutwalk Toronto & the Third Wave

2011-04-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

I was fascinated by yesterday’s Slutwalk that took place in Toronto, and sorry that I wasn’t able to attend.

Slutwalk in Toronto yesterday. Image: scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.com

The walk attracted around 1,000 people and was arranged in part as a protest against comments by police Constable Michael Sanguninetti who, while speaking to students at York Unviersity, said “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Women were outraged, and rightly so. It is an outrageous suggestion that women should bear the full responsibility in a case where sexual assault occurs. Even if she is dressing ‘like a slut’, surely the man must take responsibility for his own actions. I mean it’s hard to believe that Sanguinetti was actually serious.

With women brandishing placards that read ‘Slut Pride’ among other things, Slutwalk also has a refreshing third-wave feminist ring to it. Third wave feminism, comes after first and second wave, and is more focused on expression and acceptance of cultural, ethnic and sexual orientation than the previous two. At the same time, the third wave seems to have less of the defiance, the passion, the causes that first and second wave feminists stood for.

Les Fermieres Obsedees in performance. Image: idata.over-blog.com

So Slutwalk was a great expression of passion by the women who took part. And it seems to be talking off, with upcoming Slutwalks across Canada in Sackville, Yellowknife, Ottawa, Vancouver and Hamilton. And in the States in Boston and Dallas.

I wonder if the organizers could harness the power of Slutwalk to generate some fire under women’s issues in the current Canadian federal election? I bet Michael Ignatieff would take some time to listen…

Speaking of feminism, one of my recent discoveries is the Quebec collective Les Fermieres Obsedees, a Quebec art collective made up of two artists, Annie Baillargeon and Eugenie Cliché.

Les Fermieres Obsedees in performance. Image: lieu-ressource-ornicart.over-blog.com

They seek to create, in their um, unconventional performances, an effect that speaks to the mass standardization and lethargy of contemporary society. The group, always in uniform - but never pretty - create cross-disciplinary performances that are a clash of dance, theatre, music and visual art.

I hope they come to Toronto soon….

ATTN: Historical & Critical Studies Students. View on Canadian Art is recruiting contributors

2011-04-05T07:14:00.001-07:00

Historical and Critical Studies was interested in getting the following distributed to NSCAD students. Below is a copy of the original email:

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself - I'm a Toronto-based art writer and publisher of View on Canadian Art (VoCA), a blog on contemporary art in Canada.

I am presently in the process of expanding VoCA into an in-depth, cross-Canada online magazine on the visual arts.

VoCA will be recruiting regular contributors from cities across Canada, and I’d like to know whom to speak with about about the possibility of involving students at NSCAD.

In return for contributing to VoCA, students will receive a by-line, online bio and significant national and international exposure. Additionally, VoCA will archive articles indefinitely online.

Writing on contemporary art gives students a chance to broaden their outlook, develop a critical mindset vis a vis their own work (and that of others) and to become immersed in their local art community.

Please see http://www.viewoncanadianart.blogspot.com/ for more information. The full VoCA website is presently in beta – it should be up and running in the next few months.

Best,

Andrea Carson
Please read VocA:
http://www.viewoncanadianart.blogspot.com/