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Base Camp
Alexandre David (Montréal, QB), Atom Deguire (Toronto, ON), Michael Fernandes (Halifax, NS), Ashley Neese (Portland, Oregon)Runs from July 1, 2009 through to July 31, 2009
Opening reception: Friday, July 17 at 8:00 PM
Virtual Tour
The text below was written by Scott Rogers and appears in the invitation to accompany this exhibition.
Scott Rogers is a Canadian visual artist who also writes about art and curates. He has upcoming sxhibitions at the Soap Facotry (Minneapolis), Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Stride Gallery (Calgary), Khyber ICA (Halifax), and Artcite (Windsor).
When asked by Hans Ulrich Obrist to discuss public art in regard to his own work Olafur Eliasson made this remark, “...I see a great potential for art in public space because there’s always the possibility that people might not realize that it is art.” (1) Eliasson’s comment reveals that public art, because of its more ambiguous context and accidental audience, can in many ways become something beyond what an artist or institution might intend. In other words, public art functions as a gestalt that viewers infuse with new or unexpected meanings rarely discovered within an art gallery. Base Camp draws from this supposition, aiming to capitalize on the possibilities of ephemeral public art, while simultaneously experimenting with unconventional exhibition structures.
In mountaineering a base camp is a provisional site from which numerous objectives can be attempted. These temporary encampments are places for planning and preparing an expedition. Likewise, TRUCK will become a “base camp” for art in public space, functioning as a hybrid between a workshop, a studio, an archive, a gallery, and a residency. Rather than a fixed exhibition, Base Camp will unfold progressively during the month of July, with each of the artists arriving at different times to construct, print, install or perform their projects. The participating artists in the exhibition are diverse, but their practices are linked by a desire to engage public settings as well as traditional exhibition sites. While at TRUCK each of these artists will work within the gallery and outside of it, creating dialogues between the urban environment, the exhibition space, and the viewers in each location. Thus the experience of the exhibition is expanded, creating a constellation of varied ideas and processes that are revealed throughout the course of the show, and in multiple sites within the city.
Alexandre David
Working primarily with plywood sculptural forms, Alexandre David addresses the performative capacity of architecture within his work. Utilizing public sites and gallery settings, the artist creates temporary works which are platforms for participation and reinvestigations of architectural space. For Base Camp David will contribute two sculptures: one a mobile folding “stage” which will be left outside the gallery free for public use; the other a static wooden construction that he will build within the gallery. Members of the public are invited to remove the outdoor work and wheel it about with them, perhaps using it as a meeting place, a spot to eat lunch, or to simply relax. In contrast, the indoor installation initiates a more contemplative experience, leading to direct observation of the gallery space, and reflection upon David’s itinerant al fresco construction.
Atom Deguire
Atom Deguire is best known for his public interventions that accentuate or augment built environments, blurring the lines between art objects and the sites in which they are situated. In the past Deguire has often used colourful vinyl tape to create works that activate spaces such as staircases, bus shelters, park benches, and street signs, with the photographs of these works forming additional layers within the project. While in Calgary, Deguire will produce Magic Can Be Found Here which consists of a series of postcards incorporating text from popular culture. These posters will be installed in public locations as an attempt to engage passersby in a more profound, sensitive understanding of Calgary’s urban surroundings. Documentation of the posters as they are installed will be included in the exhibition as both an archive and directory for the work.
Michael Fernandes
For Base Camp Michael Fernandes will produce a new performance/installation that involves the artist splitting his time between the inside of the gallery space and the outdoors. Fernandes is interested in the ways in which political notions are constructed within the gallery and outside it and how these ideas shift as they pass from one zone to another. During the exhibition Fernandes will exhibit two signs, one inside the gallery, and one outside. Each of these signs bear the text “if you don’t see it ask for it”, with the sign inside the gallery remaining stationary and the sign outside the gallery being carried about by the artist. Through this action Fernandes draws attention to the complex, hazy division between the supposedly neutral white cube and the more saturated public sphere.
Ashley Neese
Based in Portland, Oregon Ashley Neese produces artwork exploring the notion that artists can–and should–use their work to positively enhance the lives of others. For her project Collective Awakening Neese will be working with the Alberta Printmakers Society to produce six silk-screened posters (each in a run of 75) which will be stacked in the gallery and distributed throughout the city in shop windows, on telephone poles, and in other public sites. The texts on each of these posters are intended as affirmations and encouragements to the people of Calgary; personalized messages that the artist shares publicly. For Neese this act is intended to affect a shift in consciousness, reminding individuals of their value and importance, and promoting a sense of cooperation within the city.
Ultimately, Base Camp emphasizes the production of encounters rather than final works or results. The projects in the exhibition are artistic experiments that deeply involve the viewer, encouraging her or him to actively reconsider both the space of the gallery and the urban world which we inhabit, navigate and explore. Through this strategy the exhibition becomes a catalyst, with its impacts manifesting in the thoughts and discussions of gallery-goers and non-gallery-goers alike. We may never know the exact outcomes of the project, but this is really the point. As with Eliasson’s view of public art, the potential of the exhibition is that it is not necessarily recognizable as such.
Notes:
1. Eliasson, Olafur. The Conversation Series. Ed. Hans Ulrich Obrist. Köln, Germany: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008 (p 52).
Image: Courtesy of Atom Deguire.
Press
Velvet Ropes Need Not Apply by Mark Stowbrigde
Alexandre David
Alexandre David lives and works in Montréal. He works mostly in the field of sculpture, and his work often relates to architecture. His work has been shown in different museums and galleries in Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France. In 2006 he was awarded the Louis-Comtois Prize, given to a mid-career artist by the city of Montréal. In 2009 he will be showing at Aceartinc in Winnipeg, at Grunt Gallery in Vancouver and at Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery in Montréal. He will also be participating in Paysages Éphémères in Montréal.
Atom Deguire
Atom Deguire received his BFA in Painting from the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary in 2002. He also completed his MFA in Visual Arts at York University in Toronto in 2008. To date, Deguire has exhibited in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. Internationally, he has exhibited in Chicago, New York City, London, Berlin, and Prague. Recently, Deguire has exhibited with Paul Petro Contemporary Art (Toronto 2008), YYZ Artists’ Outlet (Toronto 2008) and has upcoming exhibitions with TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary 2009) and Centre CLARK (Montreal 2009).
Michael Fernandes
Based in Halifax, Michael Fernandes was born in Trinidad. An instructor at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Fernandes’s art practice includes mixed-media installation, performance as well as audio, and book works. His work has been exhibited extensively nationally, notably at the Blackwood Gallery, Mercer Union, The Power Plant, and YYZ (Toronto,ON); C.I.A.C. (Montreal Biennale); Articule, and Mai, (Montreal, QB), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, SK); The National Gallery of Canada, and Saw Gallery (Ottawa, ON); Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Eye Level Gallery, and Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery (Halifax, NS); and internationally at P.S.1 (New York, NY); Art Public Calaf (Barcelona, Spain); In The Context of Art Biennale (Warsaw, Poland).
Ashley Neese
Ashley Neese (b.1980) grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. Her projects and interventions have been exhibited and executed across the US and Canada. In 2008 she founded AFY, a publishing company that specializes in small runs of contemporary art books. Currently she is working on several social projects around the concept of healing and discussing publication plans with selected artists.
Ashley has upcoming exhibitions and projects at Beloit College (Beloit, Wisconsin), Truck Gallery (Calgary, Alberta), Eyedrum (Atlanta, Georgia) and Ampersand International Arts (San Francisco, California). This year she will also participate in artist residencies at threewalls (Chicago, Illinois) and the Berlin Office (Berlin, Germany).
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