Robert Lendrum’s “Living Documents”

This is partly shameless self-promotion since I wrote the exhibition text being handed out at the gallery for this show, but I highly recommend checking out Toronto-based artist Robert Lendrum‘s solo exhibition, “Living Documents: Dr. Frankenstein’s Guide to Self-Portraiture”, at the Ryerson Gallery this week.

Robert Lendrum, Grandpa 1965 [still], 2008

Lendrum’s work uses performance, video and photography to explore how identity is socially and dynamically constructed and often borrows from documentary traditions as well as methodologies from institutional and corporate structures (like market research surveys, for instance) to restage autobiographical narratives. The series of durational performance “stills” that recreate Lendrum’s family snapshots, “Family Re-Semblance,”which was shown in curator Shaun Dacey’s “Cake on the Icing” exhibition at Interaccess last year, is featured in the Ryerson show, but the emphasis in this new exhibition is on the ongoing “Impostor” project.

Robert Lendrum, Impostor: The Audition [still], 2006-09

For the “Impostor” series, Lendrum compiled survey information about himself in order to cast an actress to play him in a series of videos that explore how his acquaintances, family and friends perceive him. The results of the project, and in particular actress Jacqueline van de Geer’s improvisations of “Robert” based on the survey data or in response to Lendrum’s prompts, are both ridiculous and hilarious and open up an interesting new way of conducting performance art for the camera. What I like best about Lendrum’s work (though I know this is a contentious issue) is the way it uses feminist and queer theories about performance to interrogate how non-marginalized identities (like that of a straight, white, middle-class, male artist) are constructed and enacted and challenges our understanding of “objective” data gathering, but in a playful, humorous and, one would hope, accessible way.

The show opens at the Ryerson Gallery this Thursday, March 19th from 6-9 pm. Most of Lendrum’s video work can be found on his website and information about the exhibition, and the accompanying essay, can be found on the gallery’s site.