Blake Senini

Blake Senini's current exhibition we are all of the same air extends themes from his previous work, particularly of his 2007 show informed by the landscapes of Lawren Harris. Returning to ideas centered around the phenomena of negative and positive space, pockets of light, and sculpture as wall pieces, Senini shifts these ideas into subtly altered perspectives, refocusing upon the role of light and lightness, and the spaces that exist in between painting and sculpture. Influenced by stories of Buddhist monks and their protests in Burma, Senini explained in an interview, "the [exhibition] title refers to the fact that no matter how far away, these situations affect us all."

Upon entering the exhibition, a large piece in wood and red stain appears as a spindle-shape, rising from the floor and met by a much larger twin in stasis-drip, meant to resemble what Senini called "a spinning fluid". The transparent cable holding the top piece in perfect position is a little distracting, and tends to push the piece into a weightier association such as stalagmite-as-mirrored-banister. A quartet of comedic ballooned shadows created by the sculpture seems to try to soften this reading, although they are dwarfed by the size of the piece.

Sculptural pieces which appear to float independently and seem much lighter than they are, are a strength of Senini's work and are better shown in the piece "lying to this sea of milk." Two thin arcs of smooth wood both sit upon and hug the floor, meeting to create a mouth shape somewhat reminiscent of arched skeletal remains. Layered and toned down to a soft pallor with chalk, the two pieces exist in between fossil and sculpture in a way that provokes sympathy and a compulsion to touch. A seam of silver-leaf, oddly ornamental, encircles both pieces as if wanting to mirror the darts of reflected light cutting through the inner shadows of the "mouth."

The piece "our hands clenched tightly together," a large two-sided shell-shape of wood jutting out from the wall, accompanies "lying to this sea of milk" with its darker side given a light-absorbent layer of charcoal. This side is generous and intimate, as if it were a piece all its own. This is because of its shyness and vulnerability, allowing the materiality to breathe and fascinate by its imperfect surface, which, full of seams, appears lovingly doctored towards a softness which draws in the eye like a safe zone amidst other pieces with strangely prosthetic touches. This piece approaches one of Senini's repeated processes of covering elongated wood in silver-leaf halfway as if they were mechanically dipped, and when faced from across the room, the foreshortened sides of "our hands clenched..." resemble this shape. Shafts of light appear between the silver-leaf side and the wall, its smoky nature softening the candy-wrapper appearance of the silver-leaf.

The remaining two pieces in the show seem the most directly related to landscape painting. Both wall pieces, "as she returns with nothing" and "with nothing," are of dark-stained and silver-leaf layered wood, their milky, bluish and reflective surfaces creating associations with the cosmic phenomena of landscapes through paintings such as those of Patterson Ewen or William Blake. Standing back about ten feet from each piece, the silver-leaf "skies" seem carved into the shapes of billowing cloud-sails hovering over the sullen shapes of blackened terrain.

When in tangent with light and intimacy with surface, Senini's new work links to that of artists such as Thomas Zipp, wherein residual aspects of landscape painting and formalism are resituated through a kind of romantic shorthand of visual codes. The most successful pieces in the show slow the eye without interrupting the poetic and personal, and don't shy away from the presence of their material, wherein vulnerability means room to breathe.

All images courtesy of Skew Gallery.

Service: Dinner for Strangers

It's too late to be nervous as I make my way across a very icy dark parking lot to the gallery where tonight I have been invited to participate in Robin Lambert's Service: Dinner for Strangers. I hope that I have not misunderstood the very minimal instructions I received from Lambert for the potluck, which stated simply to "bring your best dish". If I was supposed to bring dessert, I'm going to be in trouble.

Entering the brightness of the gallery, Red Deer's Bilton Contemporary Art, a group of people are already chatting and being photographed by the local media. A couple of small tables and various plinths display two distinct sets of ceramic dinner ware; a third set is laid out ready on a large table in the back of the gallery.

Dinner is about to start, but before we take our assigned seat we are ushered into the center of the gallery for a group photograph. A photographer hired by Lambert snaps a series of formal feeling photographs of the group, which true to the title of the work are all strangers, at least to me. The only person I have met before is Lambert, who I recognize from the art community, but prior to tonight have never sat down to have a conversation with.

Robin, who introduces himself to all the guests by his first name only, a familiarity I'm going to pass on, very openly tells us that these photographs will be displayed as part of the exhibition, which will continue until the closing reception on February 6th. He also tells us that we will be having another photograph taken after our meal. These before and after shots, of our dining group and those of the next two dinners, along with the different dishes each group eats off, will be the entirety of what is on display to the public. Robin has commissioned each set from a different ceramic artist: Robin Dupont has produced a set of quirky wood fired vessels, Maggie Finlayson's dishes are pale low fire casts with decal and luster and finally Candice Ring has created the bright, friendly and extremely practical set of terracotta dishes that my group will dine off.

As we sit down for dinner, introductions are made. We are indeed eight strangers, all brought together through different channels. Some guests were recruited by word of mouth, by friends of friends, others by posters, some through Facebook and a couple even boldly responded to Robin's Facebook add asking: " Do you like art? Do you like to eat?"

The food, despite the intentionally pared back directions, coordinates extraordinarily well; we have everything from curry to chicken and even some excellent desserts. Conversation begins guardedly, but livens up rapidly as wine is poured and the evening progresses. One of the most telling moments is when a woman describes calling up her grandmother to ask for a recipe to make. After explaining the context of her cooking query, her grandmother refused to give her the recipe and incited her not attend the event. Eating with strangers is a bad idea, warned her grandmother, because you can't tell what kind of people they are or if they'll leave the chicken sitting out on the counter all day.

Everyone laughs at this story, and both the story and the laughter seem to resonate with the intention of the event. The work draws on something very ordinary, but also difficult; the drive we all have to connect with others and be involved in something meaningful and the awkwardness and risk that accompany this mission. The participants in Service have a level of responsibility and centrality in the work usually reserved for the artists themselves, and the result of this event is in our collective hands. The sum of our experiences becomes the piece, whether or not all of this comes across in the before and after photos. When participants tell their children, friends and partners about the event, those ripples will form part of the network that makes up Service. Writing this down is another part of this web, as is reading about it.

Finishing up our dessert, we realize the evening is beginning to wind down, questions and discussions people have been too shy to attempt surface at last with some personal beliefs getting aired out and local politics debated. Several people also confront Robin with very direct questions about the work, and what exactly will happen at the closing reception. He explains that in addition to seeing the final manifestation of the piece, complete with all the before and after photographs of the three dinner parties, we will each be given the dishes we ate off as a parting gift.

A distinct murmur of appreciation goes around the table at this news. The decision to redistribute the physical evidence of the work emphasizes anther important way in which Service creates interconnection: exchange.

While Robin is a ceramic artist and could have easily made similar dishes to these ones himself, he instead passes both the recognition and the financial benefit onto other artists, resigning himself to the less glamorous task of organizing, grant writing and washing dishes.

In previous works Robin has developed ideas around exchange and personal interaction. In Sincerely Yours, which he has preformed multiple times, Robin bartered his letter writing skills for the promise of a good deed. He is also part of the collective the Social Evolution Research Gang (SERG), along with Ashley Neese and Lori Gordon, who as part of Calgary's Artcity Festival this summer read aloud to people in the back of their van.

Service, however, is the first of the artist's undertakings that requires the cooperation and engagement of a large network of people in a great variety of roles. This decentralization of the individual artist is what really brings the piece to life. In creating this work which is deeply rooted in its community and lives more as a network of people, ideas and stories than as a single object or event, Robin has created a criteria for success that can only be met if the piece succeeds for all the participants and the community.

Leaving the gallery and stepping back into the cold, I wonder what gallery goers will make of the exhibition. The sense of inclusion and activity speak so strongly to me that it seems like an instant disadvantage to have to try and recreate events from the outside looking in. But networks have a tendency to grow, good ideas to spread, and I wouldn't be surprised if Service causes a ripple of participation-based artworks to spread across the community.

Photos credit Karen Dean, courtesy the artist.

Robin Lambert
Bilton Contemporary Art

Behind the Red Curtain

The small space feels enormous, the scuffed up floors and muted lights adding an appropriate air of sterility. An enormous curtain hangs in one corner, the heavy weight of its latex material grasped by wires, attached to a metal ring hung from the ceiling. The curtain strains against its vastness of crinkly creases and folds, imprinted with countless syringes. It's illuminated from within, casting out a glow like burnt sugar.

In the opposite corner of the gallery, two gurneys (like those carted around clinics) sit splayed with what first appear as assorted medical ephemera (gauze, tensor bandages). A closer look reveals a collection of garments - lingerie, bras, underwear. Among the collection are bras made from tensor bandages, held together with clips, like a mummy's wrappings. Other garments made of latex look like cured skin, some imprinted with syringes. A belt made of condoms hangs from a drawer. Underwear is made of fragile tensor bandages, adorned with crinoline. The clothes appear lost in time, like deathly underwear from some post-apocalyptic future, or stolen from a hidden tomb.

Adina Edwards' Behind the Red Curtain is unsettling and erotic, loaded with commentary, a medical fetishist's dream or another's nightmare. The poster for the show has Edwards, sporting boxing gloves, meditating in the corner of a ring. She's either worn and weary, or ready to fight. (And despite the mournful and meditative nature of the exhibition, I'd suspect the latter.) The name opens itself to multiple interpretations: "The negative, secretive; violence behind closed doors," says Edwards. "It's from the '80s, the Cold War - asking what's behind closed doors. There's blood and infection in there too."

The creepy, gauzy underwear make one feel as a voyeur to someone's private pain, the usual arousal caused by them usurped by their haunting, medical nature. While the appearance of such signifiers like condoms and needles would suggest social outrage, one fails to find an easy way of according pat ethical judgments upon the work. "I've made work in the past that smacks people in the face," says Edwards. "I've moved away from that. I appreciate the activist approach, but this is more ambiguous, riskier. The show has some degree of hopelessness."

The curtain hides the deterioration of those deemed socially unworthy, while brushing against fetish, arousal and death. Garments used to both arouse the wearer and their objects of desire aren't supple or made for comfort, but constructed of materials cribbed from a hospital supply closet. "It's a really vulnerable exhibit for me," says Edwards. "[I'm] looking at sex and its relation to power, and the loss of intimacy. The power of seduction as this easy way you may think you're gaining power and control. As women, we're inherently objects - to deny that is a joke. Usually, [lingerie] are garments of seduction, but these aren't Hanes undergarments."

Behind is partly informed by her own experiences with social work, which she's done for the past 10 years, harm reduction theory, and "negotiating health care services and the problematic ideas around confinement and gendered spaces." Edwards is also candid about her past: "During conversation, it does come up," she says. "I'll talk about it - it's in my artist's statement. I was using; I worked in a strip bar, sold myself. I had these jobs... I got treated like a fucking asshole. School was a break, and art was a necessity."

Behind the Red Curtain ran from November 3 - 7, 2008.

University of Calgary Faculty of Fine Arts

Graeme Patterson: The Puppet Collective

The first question that comes to mind upon seeing Graeme Patterson's new body of figurative work, showing and selling at Calgary's Trépanier Baer Gallery, is what makes them puppets? It's a bit of a silly question, but it seems inconsistent that an artist like Patterson whose work also entails so much mechanical or animated movement, would call still figures puppets.

Patterson demystified this incongruity in a lecture he delivered at the Alberta College of Art and Design, the afternoon before his show's opening, to a packed crowd of students. The figures, which Patterson had been attempting to create at a rate of one per week as a New Year's resolution, are indeed fully mobile puppets, created to have the same functional potential as ones he has previously used in his animation projects.

Their potential for motion is central to the extremely individual characterization that defines each puppet. Each one varies from the previous slightly in physical stature, though if they were lined up next to their mass produced contemporaries, they would come out slightly taller than Batman but significantly shorter than Barbie. Their potential for movement, and obvious playfulness, links them to dolls and action figures, but the way they are constructed could not be more different from the cloned plastic faces of robotically articulated playthings. Enchanting in their detail, which attends to everything from the type of fabric to accessory objects such as keys, they are equally rough, with dabs of paint and raw edges making no attempt to conceal their material origins.

Patterson describes these figures as caricatures, based on actual people from memory. Like caricatures, they exaggerate the features of their model, though unlike many caricatures, the puppets give no hint of satirizing these features. Instead, the puppets contain a sense of reverence for the people they recreate; in each puppet there is some kind of affirmation that each of the characters are undeniably themselves.

Maybe it is too common to praise an artist for capturing 'the essence' of their subject, but the translation Patterson executes from person to puppet is far from commonplace. Each figure's muscular-skeletal structure is poised, about to move. The posture of the puppets conveys the mannerisms they might have if brought to life. The physiological structure of each puppet indicates a deep working knowledge of the relationship between kinetics and individual anatomy, it is easy to imagine which puppet would drag its feet and which would dance the most wildly.

Another subtle feat of recreation that Patterson accomplishes in this work is present in detail and scale. The practice of puppet making may fit more into a tradition craftsmanship than fine art, and Patterson does this association justice through his commitment to detail and shrewd approach to materials. If a certain puppet's sweater needs brightly colored stripes, Patterson paints them right onto the fabric with a gloopy layer of paint. Hair becomes feathers and at this reduced size feathers are hairier than hair; they catch the movement, the tangled quality that hair has when attached to a human head.

The work also benefits from a keen sense of when not to give too much away. Features, hands and other details are often left quite abstract and rough. This emphasizes the materials but also builds realism: the blur of people moving quickly past, or the fuzziness facial features have in memories. Equally, these inconclusive details function in a theatrical way, invoking a suspension of disbelief instead of illusion or trickery.

The exhibition demands one final question of the puppet watcher: what kind of puppet would I make? A theoretical question for most, it is a more real and perhaps exciting reality for anyone looking to collect the work. Patterson, in what he describes as an attempt to compensate for being parted from each of his puppets, will be crafting a new puppet in the image of each buyer. The most famous puppet of all time just wanted to be a real boy, but real people, it may turn out, crave just the opposite.

All images courtesy the artist.

Graeme Patterson

Trépanier Baer

Simple Functionalism

What might not be clear from reading Jasia Stuart's previous review is that Simple Functionalism was not a remake of a previous exhibition. It was not a twin. It was the fragment of a previous group exhibition presented as a solo exhibition. In 1981 Simple Functionalism was part of the exhibition Vocation/Vacation curated by Brian MacNevin which included work by Michael Asher, Hans Haacke, Garry Neill Kennedy, Jan Pottie and Tom Sherman. In Vocation/Vacation the gallery was not left spare and empty, but had the work of Asher and Haacke installed inside it. Kennedy's attendant's desk was installed outside the exhibition doors, acting as a simulacrum, barely distinguishable as an artwork at all. Additionally, the three artists exhibiting in the show used a research text compiled by Pottie and Sherman to develop their projects. At the time MacNevin assembled the exhibition as an informal survey of what would later be termed "institutional critique" practices (the term was likely not viewed in print until 1985) and an investigation of how these practices might variously be applied to an institution such as the Banff Centre.

Garry Neill Kennedy, Simple Functionalism, from the Vocation/Vacation catalogue, 1981

What was common to all the works in Vocation/Vacation was an interest not simply in the 'white cube' as a contextual framing device, but in how the ideology of the Banff Centre influenced the artistic activity that took place under its umbrella, and the ways in which this often critical artistic activity actually served to reinforce the dominant corporate and government agendas of the Centre. Asher, Haacke and Kennedy all referenced material outside the gallery space in order to draw these contexts into the exhibition. For instance, the desk which constitutes the major element of Simple Functionalism is not simply an old desk. It is a very specific desk which was constructed in order to comply with the Banff Centre Statement of Design Guidelines established by the Banff Centre Aesthetic Committee. These guidelines were a set of rigorous (and at times absurd) aesthetic principles which determined the material construction and physical appearance of the public and private spaces of the Centre. The desk in the most recent exhibition not only complied with those guidelines, but also (perhaps more importantly) replicated the look and era of the desk from the original Vocation/Vacation exhibition. The new Simple Functionalism desk is a remake. Therefore, the most recent version of Simple Functionalism actually adhered to two sets of rigid aesthetic systems: those of the Design Guidelines as well as the historical specifications imposed by the previous piece.

At the time of Vocation/Vacation (as Benjamin Buchloh's post-exhibition essay makes very clear) the limits and possibilities of critiquing institutions were already widely understood. In keeping with this sentiment, Kennedy's work in the exhibition represented a tacit acknowledgment of the tautological reality that one cannot be 'outside' the institution. Nowadays the situation is even more complicated. Where once the attendant's desk was a 'new work', which made visible the presence of an overarching aesthetic principle implicating the Walter Phillips Gallery, it now also functions as an artifact linking the most recent exhibition to a historically documented previous exhibition. In this sense the current Simple Functionalism historicizes institutional critique while at once signifying and reinvestigating it. This is a challenging situation for a contemporary art gallery to be entering into, but speaks of a necessity to reopen many of the debates which institutional critique originally propagated.

In staging Simple Functionalism Garry Neill Kennedy and Sylvie Gilbert (former Senior Curator at WPG) posed some very tough questions about the capacity for current contemporary art to provide effective critique of the institutions which support it. Primarily, if institutional critique is already being preserved and re-presented historically by contemporary art galleries such as the WPG then how can artists today make work which is critical of institutional contexts, but includes and expands the previous conditions of debate? Perhaps one way we can continue to critically evaluate art and institutions is by reconsidering 'artifacts' like Simple Functionalism as historical, but not as anachronistic. Instead, an exhibition such as this is a prescient reminder that artists, art galleries, dealers, collectors, studios and critics as well as the social and political reality in which we are embedded are all 'the institution', and we all determine its course.

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For further writing on the topic of institutional critique, see Andrea Fraser's "From the critique of institutions to an institution of critique."

Photos credit Laura Vanags, courtesy of the Walter Phillips Gallery.

Walter Phillips Gallery