Art Burn

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From My Life with Pamela Anderson by Kristin Nelson

I didn’t see everything that Winnipeg had to offer in 2011, but I think I’ve seen quite enough, thank you.
   
1. Postcommodity: Repellent Eye (Manitoba Hydro Place)
   
There’s too much to recommend about Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years to recap here, so I’ll highlight one piece that exemplified the interplay of reflection and confrontation that made the exhibitions so exhilarating. Most reviews I’ve seen of American collective Postcommodity’s Repellent Eye — a 10-foot "scare-eye" balloon of the type used in some industries to frighten birds, done up in red, white, black and yellow, looking for all the world like a giant evil eye charm, and, crucially, hung in the atrium of the Hydro building — have described it in terms of its "wryness" or "subtlety." Without attempting to speak for the artists (who were markedly cagey in discussing their intentions), let me say that, while the gesture might have been "wry," it was not — in that venue, at least — one I’d be inclined to call "subtle."

2. Germaine Koh: DIY Field (Central Park)
   
I don’t envy those who make public art — it’s an easy thing to do poorly. Responding to innumerable constraints, many artists settle for cornball populism, non-confrontational blandness, or else, in their eagerness to please any and all potential viewers, produce works so bloated and incoherent that they please nobody. I won’t rehash my review from two weeks ago, but suffice it to say that Koh makes no such concessions. The work stands as both a gift and a challenge to all of us, and we should be thrilled that it’s ours forever.

3. Glen Johnson: Artistic License Bureau (PLATFORM Gallery)
   
Yes, the installation and performance (of a fictitious agency that’s part Canada Council and part DMV) offered a trenchant critique of bureaucracy and its chilling effects on art production, but listen. I’m not one to decry the (always pejorative) "professionalization" of the visual arts (I could frankly be its poster-child), but neither could I quite manage to call myself "an artist" with a straight face until I saw that selfsame, sweaty face on my own "Artistic License" card, issued at the opening for a nominal fee. It expires the day after tomorrow.

4. Language Formed in Light (Presented by PLATFORM Gallery)
   
Any selection of experimental films touted to explore issues of narrative touches upon two of my most cherished bigotries — toward "experimental film" itself and against the cloying, characteristically Canadian preoccupation with telling (or not-telling) stories. But here was a series of screenings, curated by Clint Enns and humanely spread out over several weeks, that elegantly argued the merits of both. Should Enns ever tackle neo-Surrealist figurative painting or new-agey performance art, I’d have to find new things to hate.

5. Kristin Nelson: My Life with Pamela Anderson and Other Work (aceartinc.)
   
Narrowly-focused, project-based exhibitions by emerging artists — mainstays of most artist-run centres — often look pretty thin. By contrast, Nelson’s show seemed at first to suffer from, if anything, an overabundance of excellent, though largely unrelated bodies of work. It’s rare, however, and in this instance highly rewarding, to see a younger artist afforded the retrospective treatment. Meticulous, moving, and often hilarious work aside, the show’s approach was a welcome a break from convention and one that likely bears repeating.

   
Steven Leyden Cochrane is an emerging artist, writer and educator, always looking for new things to hate.