Kitchener, Cambridge, London
posted by Andrew Wright - February 27th, 2008. (http://www.akimbo.biz/akimblog/index.php?id=178)

Artfully installed in the foyer of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kelly Richardson’s Exiles of the Shattered Star is placed where it is at its most insidious. Gallery visitors perusing the latest newsletter, reading the donor wall, or actually looking at art can’t help but watch as a flaming downpour of stellar detritus falls on Richardson’s quiet landscape. Despite the sense of apocalyptic foreboding, its relentlessness is alluring, even soothing at times.

Kelly Richardson, Exiles of the Shattered Star (video still), 2006, high definition/standard definition video projection

Exiles foregrounds a new work by Richardson that is premiering at KWAG. Curated by Assistant Curator Crystal Mowry, Forest Park is a dual video projection where nothing much happens: a wooded area that had been cleared some time ago is dotted with high-powered streetlights that flicker in the purple-blue twilight. There are no streets, just overgrown thickets of grass. The crickets chirp pleasantly, but ceaselessly. This is the kind of place that sits just off a highway, bordered by trees, ready for residential development. In fact, the view is constructed from an actual place not far from the gallery, on the way to Richardson’s family home.

Kelly Richardson, Forest Park, 2007, two channel widescreen video projection. Photo: K. J. Bedford, KW|AG

The two screens seem to float magically in their own reflection in the middle of the gallery floor. This video projection made object, where light and even the video pixels are integral physical materials, remind us that the sublime can be found in even the most banal of circumstances. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully installed, the work reflects the astounding amount of time Richardson spends constructing and processing her video. Her image is so tangibly palpable, you actually forget it’s video. If a painting could move - and if it were lit from within - it might look like this.

Kelly Mark, Stupid Heaven, installation view (Photo: David Popplow)

While Richardson slows us down to re-invest our looking and contemplate protracted moments of potential significance, Kelly Mark takes the fast pace of video and TV to ridiculous new heights. I didn’t see the installation of her new opus, R.E.M., at the University of Toronto last fall, but I can’t imagine a more appropriate venue for this work than Cambridge Galleries. R.E.M. is a full-length film made entirely from scavenged footage from marathon television-watching sessions. It played endlessly on four monitors in four recreated living room scenes, themselves domestic vignettes replete with Ikea furniture. Cambridge is somewhat of a bedroom community and the gallery’s carpeted floor only added to the authenticity. Mark will happily tell you how the continuity of the film is carefully monitored despite the constant flux of various actors “playing” the protagonist. This was the second stop of Stupid Heaven, Mark’s mid-career traveling survey (it opens next at Mount St. Vincent University Art Gallery in Halifax on April 5th), and many, if not most, of her best-known works were here too.

The Hespeler Library

Steps away, the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture Gallery, Design at Riverside presents Logotopia: The Library in Architecture, Art and the Imagination curated by CBC producer Sascha Hastings. This is a refined exhibition that features book lore and architectural library projects from around the world, notably Cambridge’s recently refurbished Hespeler Library. Alar Kongats Architects encased the 1922 brick Carnegie library building entirely in glass last June, preserving books and building alike. How cool is that? This is a must-see on any architectural tour of South-western Ontario.

Another big piece of news from Cambridge: the exhibition 41 DEGREES TO 66 DEGREES has been selected by the Canada Council to represent Canada at the Venice Biennial of Architecture in 2008. The exhibition originated in Cambridge at Design at Riverside Gallery in 2005 and is currently touring the country. Rumour has it that the Venice Biennial of Architecture will then be coming to Cambridge in 2009. I can’t wait to take a Gondola on the Grand River.

John Armstrong at the piano.

And finally, the second performance in The Piano Project: Solo Piano Performances took place on Valentine’s Day at Museum London. This is a concert series conceived by Curator of Public Programs Paul Walde featuring compositions for the piano by visual artists Michael Snow, John Armstrong, and Paul Collins performed on the museum’s historic 1902 O-model Steinway Piano. Toronto painter John Armstrong played an appropriately romantic, hour-long improvised composition that began and ended with him plucking middle C while reaching into the soundboard - a kind of nod to the basics. In contrast to Snow, Armstrong’s composition was melodic, lyrical and, at times, staggeringly beautiful - not unlike his paintings.

Andrew Wright is an artist living in Waterloo, vice-chair of CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum | Kitchener & Area), and Executive Producer of CAFKA.TV (www.cafka.tv), a fledgling arts & culture podcast.

Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery: http://www.kwag.on.ca/section/view/
Kelly Richardson: Forest Park continues until March 23.

Cambridge Galleries: http://www.cambridgegalleries.ca/flash/index.htm
See website for current exhibitions.

Design at Riverside: http://www.cambridgegalleries.ca/flash/index.htm
Logotopia continues until April 6.

Museum London: http://www.londonmuseum.on.ca/
The Piano Project: Solo Piano Performances continues with a concert by Parisian artist Paul Collins on April 24.