phaino
Xandra Eden
The title of the exhibition, In Through the Out Door refers to a common
figure of speech that conveys a refusal to
conform to conventional patterns of behaviour and suggests a crossing
of boundaries – physical, social or
intellectual. It connotes a way of experiencing the world from a critical
perspective, a phrase that embodies my
encounter with the work of David Armstrong-Six, Germaine Koh and Nestor
Krüger. Using a variety of media –
including painting, sculpture, digital media, photography, video and
performance – these three Toronto-based artists
turn our attention away from the idea of the discrete art object, so
that we focus instead on our physical and mental
perceptions of space. Some thirty years ago, artist Michael Asher instituted
a vigorous analysis of the relationship
between viewer, artwork and architecture. It is Asher's contention
that, "Modernist tradition has created cultural
boundaries within which aesthetic production is viewed as being autonomous
and particularized: usually those of
institutions such as museums and galleries. There the works of art,
as objects, are solely interactive with the viewer,
disallowing any other routines or reality to take place within the
field of the viewer's perception."1 The focus of
Armstrong-Six, Koh and Krüger is in keeping with this idea in
so far as they share a keen interest in altering the
viewer's perception of space within a gallery context. However, another
layer of complexity has been added to the
examination of the phenomenology of the gallery space through the artists'
deft incorporation of other points of
reference, such as found objects, representations of the natural world
and historical and cultural indicators.
Nestor Krüger
Known for his large-scale wall paintings that incorporate the architecture
of the presenting gallery, Nestor Krüger
frequently uses context as a point of departure for his artistic practice.
Yet, he initially creates much of his work within
the virtual space of a 3-D computer-modeling program. For his installation
Misfit at Optica in Montreal in 2000,
Krüger presented the structure of Eye Level Gallery in Halifax
as it would appear if it were cut up into pieces and
inserted into the space of Optica, then cut up again and inserted into
the space of Eye Level, and then subsequently
re-inserted into Optica. Shown in the form of two twenty-foot long
wall paintings, the work thwarts our efforts to
position ourselves perspectively, with flatness taking precedence over
perspectival illusion. The work produces a
frustrating visual dilemma since parts of the paintings are clearly
recognizable as parts of the space we are standing
in, yet we can never get the painting to conform to a common visual
logic. Recently, the artist has been investigating
issues of perspective through the use of rural landscapes, in particular
country roadways and groupings of trees. For
Poplars at Goodwater Gallery in 2001, Krüger presented twenty-five
variations of spatial trajectories through an
imaginary roadway lined on either side by tall poplars. Up a hill,
down a hill, a sharp curve left, a sharp curve right,
and straight ahead, these five viewpoints are also produced in five
gradations of grey, one of which is, curiously
enough, white on white. These tonal gradations create entirely different
perceptions of the distance and depth
inferred by the poplar-lined path, continuing Krüger's analysis
of the limitations of perception and the spatial tricks to
which our minds are subject. Seeing is only believing, after all.
two turntables (2002) at The Power Plant is a dual-screen projection
for which the artist has again employed
trees as a formal device. This sound and video work consists of a two-minute
digital animation sequence that
circumnavigates two fictional forests of wintry, leafless lindens.
Rendered in his trademark shades of grey, Krüger's
trees are silhouetted against a slightly lighter silvery-grey background.
One projection presents a view into the forest
while circling around its perimeter in a clockwise direction. On the
opposite wall, the movement in the second
projection is counterclockwise. As the two forests slowly begin to
move, the audio component makes a low, rumbling
sound, similar to that of large engine lumbering into motion. The tempo
of the sound and the circular movement of
the two forests increase in tandem. After about thirty seconds, the
mechanical drone transmutes into the ambient
sounds of a rural landscape. This transmutation in sound has the surprising
perceptual effect of opening up and
deepening the space, not only within the two videos, but within the
gallery space itself. The work's two separate
audio tracks are an assembly of the calls of eight different species
of birds, a dog's bark, a motorcycle, a car, an
airplane, etc. As the sound component slows down again, these distinct
sounds blend together to form a
reverberating drone as the projections of the two forests simultaneously
come to a slow stop, followed by an ever so
slight return in the opposite direction. The loop immediately begins
again. two turntables produces alternating and
contradictory physical/perceptual sensations of being caught in a large
machine and then released into a pleasant
virtual landscape. When the animation begins, the low, vibrating rumble
produced by the two subwoofers makes it
seem as if the entire world is being put into motion. The palpably
different spatial effects produced by the sound in
combination with the two projected animations is surprising since the
forest, although seen from different points of
view, remains essentially unchanged. The accompanying prints, lindens
(2002), provide an aerial view of the forest in
the animation. But what we see is small, white, points in space set
against a pitch black background - the forest as a
fantastic constellation in space. As Krüger states, "what distinguishes
two turntables is that the trees exist as points
in space, in the same way that the birds in the audio track are points
in space."2 This work, Krüger's first endeavour
into sound and moving image, questions our understanding of space as
static and exposes how sound greatly
influences visual perception.
Germaine Koh
Germaine Koh's work explores abstract forms of communication whereby
the viewer must negotiate a transaction or
physically encounter a situation that the artist has staged. For example,
in 1999, Koh installed a simple metal fence
post in the middle of a commonly used dirt pathway along a grassy expanse.
Over the course of several months,
pedestrians were compelled to choose which side of the pole they would
walk around. Their choices were made
evident by the trodden grass on either side of the pole, creating a
physical representation of a public Poll (the work's
title). For her performance Watch (Montreal, 2000 / Edmonton, 2001
/ Toronto, 2001), Koh stood in a storefront
window on a busy street for three to five full eight-hour workdays,
looking out at the world in an active way.
Individuals walking past may not have noticed her at all, but those
that did experienced a subtle disruption in their
daily experience of the street. Rather than the street being a site
for their own visual consumption, with shops and
restaurants offering items for purchase, these pedestrians became aware
of themselves as part of the display --
implicated as representatives of the social character of the street.
The work recalls French theorist Michel de
Certeau's idea of the tactic, an action that creates a space for an
ephemeral subversion of power: "A tactic boldly
juxtaposes diverse elements in order suddenly to produce a flash, shedding
a different light on the language of a
place and to strike the hearer."3 Koh gently encourages viewers to
increase their consciousness of their involvement
and contribution in even the most mundane of circumstances.
The context for Koh's work is even more critical when positioned
within the gallery since this space is set up
to attract and capture the viewer's full attention. For this exhibition,
Koh's Fair-weather forces: wind speed (2002)
brings the effect of outside weather conditions into the otherwise
controlled conditions of the gallery's interior. An
anemometer, a small device that measures wind speed, is attached to
the roof of The Power Plant. Signals from the
anemometer are sent to a control box that triggers movement in a standard
metal turnstile that Koh salvaged from an
old bookstore in Montreal. The turnstile is positioned in an area near
the gallery entrance and, so, is encountered
directly after paying admission. Fair-weather forces can potentially
restrict the flow of visitors within the gallery since,
in high wind conditions, it spins at such a rate that passage through
it is deterred. The work not only implies that
weather conditions actively inhibit attendance at cultural institutions,
but calls attention to issues of access to high
culture.
While with Fair-weather forces the exterior world produces effects
that are experienced inside the gallery,
Koh's second work in this exhibition offers a reversal of this dynamic.
Prayers, first exhibited in 1999 for Ottawa Art
Gallery, links activity generated within the office of the gallery
to the more public realm. At the Power Plant, in the
administrative offices above the gallery, data produced during the
course of the day by a staff member (in this case,
the curator of the exhibition) is relayed to another computer in the
exhibition space. Each time the staff member
strikes a key on her keyboard, it is transmitted to the computer in
the gallery below where it is translated into Morse
code and subsequently, sent out into the world. Each letter is released
as puffs of smoke from a smoke machine
located on the northwest corner of The Power Plant roof and is visible
from the surrounding area. By sending the
signals of a staff member's labour out into the world – labour normally
invisible to gallery visitors – Koh highlights the
way the gallery architecture functions as a structure that privatizes
information.
David Armstrong-Six
In 1999, David Armstrong-Six produced as model in a temporary exhibition
space in downtown Toronto. In this work,
the artist reproduced the architectural structure of the exhibiting
gallery, but reduced it to half its size and suspended
it from the ceiling of the gallery. During construction, Armstrong-Six
applied yogurt to the wooden frame before
sealing it in industrial strength plastic and placing a sheet of green
Plexiglas at the model-gallery's entryway. Over
the course of the exhibition bacteria grew and infested the pristine
interior. Upon entering the exhibition space, the
viewer encountered a levitated and afflicted representation of the
space in which they stood. Similarly, for Leak into
space (first installed at Mercer Union in 2000) Armstrong-Six situated
a large, open dumpster within a small gallery
leaving just enough room for the viewer to move around the perimeter
of the dank, rusted trash bin. A brown, gooey
substance (cooked up from a combination of corn syrup, cement, detergent
and Vaseline) lay in pools in the bottom
of the dumpster and, over the course of the exhibition, oozed out onto
the gallery floor through the many holes rusted
through the dumpster's sides and base. On a video monitor set into
the back wall of the gallery alternately played two
videos: The Soup (excerpts), which shows the goo being concocted; and
Track it around, which follows the artist's
feet through the nighttime streets of downtown Toronto as the goo,
a viscous, formless matter that is a physical
representation of what the artist terms "impure thought," mysteriously
drips in his path, leaving a sticky trail, like the
secretions of some giant snail. In another variation on this theme,
also titled The Soup, Armstrong-Six dumped a
similar substance over a drop ceiling of clear Plexiglas. Throughout
the exhibition period, the brown goo dripped
through the sides and fissures between the panels of the ceiling, over
time creating small stalagmatic forms from
seepage through the ceiling and small reflective pools on the gallery
floor below. Armstrong-Six states that "the
architecture (in this work) is only significant in so far as it acts
as a support system for other concerns."4 His
incorporation of an element of change - a bacterial growth or a slow
liquid ooze - that invades a setting of clean lined
sculpture is tangentially related to the idea of mental cognition as
fluid and mutable.
Armstrong-Six's new work for this exhibition, Antimatter Island,
incorporates the viewer's physical encounter
with the concept of the work. Antimatter Island is a large geodesic
dome built from steel and smoked Plexiglas. The
structure's references span time and space, from the facets of an organic
crystal, to mid-19th century greenhouses,
to the cockpit of a futuristic vessel. In fact, a reptile's skull -
that of a primitive sea turtle - provided the model for the
dome. Reflections generated by artificial and natural light bounce
through and across the smoked Plexiglas;
however, the interior is dark in comparison to the surrounding pristine
white walls of the gallery. Something alien has
settled here. Entering the work, the viewer is enveloped in a mammoth
cranial cavity; the comings and goings of a
multitude of individuals within this empty skull imply an uncontrolled
and fluid passage of thought. The accompanying
All Around is a miniature self-portrait of the artist situated in a
smaller gallery at the northern end of The Power Plant.
Sporting a Joy Division T-shirt, this forty-two cm high representation
of the artist has a direct correlation to the
viewer's physical experience when standing within Antimatter Island
- small and transitory in comparison to the
gargantuan skull, and a blip on the proverbial radar screen in comparison
to the vast expanse of time that has come
before us and is yet to come.
* * * * * * * * *
The reflexivity encouraged by Minimalism is evident in the work of Krüger,
Koh and Armstrong-Six. Minimalism
sought a heightened level of critical thinking and open-mindedness
from the viewer. Hal Foster writes, in Return of
the Real, "the viewer, refused the safe sovereign space of formal art,
is cast back on the here and now; and rather
than scan the surface of a work for a topographical mapping of the
properties of its medium, he or she is prompted to
explore the perceptual consequences of a particular intervention in
a given site."5 More than the perceptual, this new
generation of artists integrate a trove of references (a skull, a spaceship,
a group of trees, a starry night, a turnstile, a
puff of smoke) that move their work beyond the phenomenology of the
gallery space. They investigate and create
associations with the world outside. The artists in In Through the
Out Door apply the spatial and perceptual
strategies first brought into play by Minimalist sculptors, but produce
entirely different situations by binding together
the familiar and the unfamiliar, content and context, the material
and the intangible - providing us with a space in
which to become more aware of the complex web of meaning all around
us.
notes
1 Michael Asher, Benjamin Buchloh ed., Michael Asher: Writings
1973-1983 On Works 1969-1979 (Halifax: Nova
Scotia College of Art and Design / Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary
Art, 1983), 65. Although Daniel Buren
and Hans Haacke were developing ideas along similar lines, Asher's
efforts to alter the circumstances of the
viewer's encounter in order to increase their consciousness of
the contextual parameters differs. He challenged,
not the ideology or financial interests of the museum, but its
spatial and sensory apparatuses. The artists involved
in Arte Povera took a similar stance, in particular, Luciano
Fabro, whose work encouraged a perceptual reflexivity
and called attention to the forms he presented as being "nothing
so much as themselves, inverting the logic of
representation," (from Richard Flood, Zero to Infinity: Arte
Povera 1962-1972 (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center /
London: Tate Modern, 2001), 17).
2 From an interview with the artist (May 10, 2002).
3 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1984), 37.
4 From an interview with the artist (May 24, 2002).
5 Hal Foster, Return of the Real (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1996), 38.