Okay, so I’ve been the worst blogger ever this week and completely letting myself down on my New Year’s consistency resolution. School came back with a vengeance this week, as did deadlines at the magazine and comments from my Vtape editor on my catalogue essay. General insanity, basically. I’ve gotten up ridiculously early to try and get an assignment done for my 2:30 class today but am, of course, writing in here instead. I have trouble with work/life/school priorities sometimes.
Anyways, can we talk for a minute about Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins’ show “Wha Happened?” currently at Gallery TPW in Toronto? I went to go see it last week when, in a “once in a blue moon” sort of thing happened: Cait asked if we could go to some galleries (usually I’m doing the asking/begging/bribing in such an exchange) and specifically asked if we could go to this show.
Not having been to Nuit Blanche, I’d heard a lot about these two’s installation, Event Horizon, and since all of their press material featured a photo of the (in)famous piETa, I was really looking forward to finally seeing two of my all-time favourite childhood aliens (well, except maybe for ALF) together in a Michaelangelo-type arrangement. So I was sadly disappointed when we arrived at the show and found out that only a photo of the sculpture is in this show, not the actual piece.
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, piETa
But, disappointment about no real-life aliens aside, I actually enjoyed the show. I mean, just by referencing A Mighty Wind in their exhibition title, they sort of had me at hello (you can’t really use that reference any more because it just makes you think of creepy, crazy Scientology man). But I appreciated how a large group of seemingly disparate works came together to not only give you a sense of the pair’s body of work, but also to draw out some subtleties within the themes of war, violence, terrorism, pop culture and dancing. And the accompanying essay by Jess Atwood Gibson, which I finally got around to reading earlier this week, ties everything together nicely in a engaging way. It was good to read some inspiring arts writing before I face my own curatorial essay attempt.
I particularly liked Double Negative, the quasi-minimalist sculpture that you might almost miss in the hallway on the way into the gallery.
Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins, detail of Double Negative, mixed media, 2007
Maybe it’s just because I’m a huge nerd who would actually talk about things like fonts and typesets with people even if art didn’t make me, but I really enjoyed the apposition of light, clean Helvetica against a Black Power-shaped dildo.
And the light-up Michael Jackson dancefloor is definitely a crowd-pleaser. I actually sort of wish they were available in a take-home model
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In other news, Fastwürms’ DONKY@NINJA@WITCH show opened at the CAG in Vancouver last night, complete with witch haircut performances from the Worms and Andrew Harwood. I think I emailed everyone I know in Vancouver to tell them they
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