Review: The Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery

Good Day Blogger world!

On Monday I posted a review of an exhibit at MSVU, and it occurs to me that the gallery itself would be worthy of further description.   It's a nice little space, just off the main entrance of the Seaton building, but it tends to escape notice.  That's a shame, because boring content is a rarity in this venue.

It's not a big gallery - technically just one room - but the gymnasium-height ceiling allows for some very unique exhibitions.  Most recently, artist-in-residence Steve Higgens constructed a very large wooden structure devised of clashing architectural elements reminiscent of his charcoal drawings.  This took up most of the lower gallery, which made for an amazing view from the mezannine.  There's been art of all sizes in this space.  The one that sticks out in my memory is the life-sized latex lighthouse by Kim Mornga, which hung diagonally from the ceiling in front of the Mezzanine to the floor a the opposite end of the gallery http://www.canadianart.ca/see-it/2010/11/11/kim_morgan/.  I think this openness also speaks to the kind of art that has been housed here over the years.

Part of the MSVU Art Gallery's mandate is to give representation to women artists and their work, as well as local artists and artisans, often in the early stages of their careers.  I love that about the place, and I feel it's brought in some really interesting and unique content.  I've made reference to the exhibit by Christine Redfern that included the actual drawn cartoon panels of "Who is Ana Mendieta", the graphic novel, specifically in this post:  http://sketchesandswatches.blogspot.ca/2013/05/book-review-who-is-ana-mendieta.html).  Also included in this exhibit was a film that showed one of Mendieta's art works, a flaming armature silhouette, possibly a goddess symbol, burning on a continuous loop.  Sharing the gallery, and the exhibit, with these, was a curtained-off projecting of a woman in a sheet, seeming to be asleep and shifting around in charcoal dust.  The animation would speed up and slow down as the viewers' movements were detected by motion sensors.  This installation by Philomne Longpre (titled "Xia"), and the "Who is Ana Mendieta" display, were shown as a joint exhibit.  I find them both to be good examples of work focused on women's issues, one on the struggles of decades past, and the other on the lingering struggles that still permeate culture, society, and psychological conditioning.  http://philox.net/xiasystem/

The gallery does not shy way from controversial subjects or potentially offensive subject matter.  The exhibit "Oriental Ornamental" featured walls full of giant silk flowers, each featuring what appeared to be human genitalia, complete with human hair.  These were also made of fabric, and perhaps this went some way toward disguising their intended nature, as there were people who actually took each other's graduation day pictures in front of them.  Or perhaps this was completely deliberate.  I like to think that MSVU attracts people with a healthy sense of humour, or at least irony.  This exhibit also featured a giant wig, on which visitors could pin origami flowers with over-sexualized images of oriental women printed on them.  In the upper gallery, there was an entire faux opium den, put together by another artist and assembled entirely from "oriental" style decor such as one might find at wicker emporium and other decidedly inauthentic sources.  I found this exhibit to be exceptionally interesting.  The one thing I found really off-putting was the background soundtrack in the opium den, which included 5 minutes of screaming every 15 minutes.  A key to the intent of the work, but it did begin to grate after a while.  The subject of this joint exhibit was to do with ethnic stereotyping, specifically of Oriental people.  Plenty of food for thought to be had.

Other exhibits have brought large colour photos of railway systems across North America, a forest of umbrellas attached to toy accordions that played themselves on loop, gigantic canvasses painted with poured acrylic, a pile of 1 million pennies, and numerous other wonders of contemporary art. The work often takes some explaining, but that's what makes it interesting.  Definitely worth a visit, or two, or more if you get the chance.

Website: 
http://msvuart.ca/index.php?menid=01&mtyp=3
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MSVU-Art-Gallery/177537538924695

Exhibit Review - Arthur Lismer: Halifax Harbour at War Time

Good Day, Blogger world! 

I've decided to devote some time to actual art review on this blog.  I often have the opportunity to see good art, and it's an experience worth sharing. 

Today I'd like to talk about a small collection of paintings and lithographs by Arthur Lismer currently on display at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery.  This is a slightly unusual exhibit for this particular gallery.  The kind of work on display in this venue tends to be very contemporary, by artists who are still midway through their careers, or at least still alive.  This work has more history behind it, not to mention the name of one of the Group of 7 members.  It has a lot of local relevance too, which is part of what MSVU looks for.  As indicated in the name, all the work in this exhibit depicts scenes of Halifax Harbour during World War I, in the form of lithographs and paintings which Arthur Lismer was commissioned by the Canadian War Records to create.  All told, this is a pretty special show for the gallery. 

Seascape and landscape painting are one of those genres that gets taken for granted in this era.  We think of them as something nice to have on one's wall - tasteful, unobtrusive, and unexciting.  Even though we can usually appreciate the work that goes into such a thing, it's hard to get fired up about them, no matter what the historical significance.  At first glance, the paintngs included in this exhibit are calm, even tranquil-looking.  The lithographs are somewhat more exciting, perhaps because they have more images of people, or perhaps because of the raw sketchiness of the medium.  The paintings may hold one's interest too on second glance.  Once we get past the instantaneous impression of the collection of shapes and colours that says "seascape", it's worth it to look at the paint itself. 

The quality of mark-making is really spontaneous, careless even.  In the long panoramic painting "View From Chebucto Head", the strokes are clearly visible.  You can see canvas between the strokes in some spots, but the paint goes on thick, forming glossy ridges where the bristles drew it along.  This particular painting reminds me of something I heard second/third-hand about Lismer and his practice:  that he would collection garbage and detritus on the way to his studio, and then ask his studio assistant "Landscape or seascape?".  He would then arrange his findings in some kind of formation and paint said land or seascape from that arrangement.  Not sure that this is an established truth, but looking at that one painting I can imagine him doing that.  Great idea, really. 

When looking at these paintings, it's interesting to look at the painting technique and try to imagine what the artist was thinking at the time.  The technical competence is clear, even thought the technique does not imply that minute detail was the be-all-end-all for this artist.  This wasn't created as an image rendered in paint - it is a painting.  The subject matter is stayed, though impressive - the technique is exciting. 

This exhibit is up until August 11th, so if you have a chance, I recommend checking it out.  Thanks for reading.  Later Blogger world!  :)