It isn’t the most obvious theme, that’s for sure.
Until May 2, Articule is presenting a group show entitled Psychic Sublimation, bringing together the work of emerging artists Valérie Lamontagne, Christian Kuras and Duncan MacKenzie. The binding element is purportedly each artist’s respective manipulation of the notion of subject.
Lamontagne’s Becoming Balthus series, already exhibited in Banff and Peterborough, is the most at home in the show, thematically speaking. Her large-scale digital printouts warp existing paintings by Balthus through photographic superimposition. Turn-of-the-century French painter Balthus was known for his sexualized, romanticized portraiture of women. Lamontagne very bluntly appropriates his work by injecting her own sense of femaleness, her own version of his subjects, into his paintings. It’s a classical case of feminist cultural repossession.
Slightly further from the concept is the cerebral, sophisticated work of Kuras, whose statement in The Control Room addresses something like the inhuman nature of notions of progress and excellence depicted in 1930s science-fiction movies. His aesthetic is minimal and quirky, pleasing in an alienating sort of way. In that sense, the subject-as-gallery-goer feels disjointed, out of place – an interesting form of sublimation.
And then there is the work of MacKenzie. His approach is less clear, both in its relation to issues of subjectivity as well as its independent raison d’être. Comprised of large photographs of blown-up miniature dioramas – forests and mountain ranges made of dough and dyed icing sugar, from what one can tell – as well as a video of scenarios involving similar dioramas, his works seem groundless compared to the others. The photographic paper bubbling off their lamination support is confusing, an unwanted effect at first interpreted as intentional – how does it all relate to the sublimation of subjecthood? Does it rest on the idea of scale? To be honest, the relationship is too weak to warrant much investigation.
Psychic Sublimation, at Articule until May 2
3 comments
I do not agree at all. And apparently I`m the only one who thinks MacKenzie was the real fun.
As you mention, Lamontagne is using a strategy
that we`ve seen a thousand times. Not that Balthus
doesn`t deserve a mock, but nothing too shockingly
original either. Kuras`s paintings are fine, but the sculptures look a little bit bland, like they are prototypes (compared to a computer desk seen in a recent Guy Laramée show as a comparison).
They stand somewhere between painting and sculpture, but if anything felt “disjointed” is how they rest contemptly between representation and design.
MacKenzie on the other hand is a poking fun at the sublime. I thought that his deapan attack at the tiring (but immortal) tradition of landscape was pertinent enough that it even replies to similar works made by previous artists on the subject (Holly King, Alain Benoit).
He doesn`t hide anything, we even see his hands: it`s absolutely fake. How can you not have seen the hands of this guy literally “manipulating its subject” ?
What is different to you between attacking Balthus or tragically mocking a deadend art tradition (because tragedy is inherent, natural disasters are not supposed to be comic, they represent our worst doom, what the work is adequatly pointing) ?
The artist took the photos off. That was a mistake. Bubbling lamination supports sounded
like an interesting art practice.
Cheers .
Personally this type of work is not my cup of tea. However I am open to diversity and I respect the arts interpretation. I guess what I am always looking for is uniqueness and a connection between the artist work and my inner feeling of it . Lemontagne does not do much for me , but has interesting work.
Sublimation into one’s hands. The artists here have different psychic subliminal responses and turned them into their own work. Valerie’s superimpositioning of her photographs on the works of Batheus shows her insight into the femininity of women. Culturally astounding and impressive.
Kuras moves into the alien warped awareness of sublimination with his 1930ish depiction of art. Taking our minds and releasing them in another time. Different..
MacKenzie’s diorama disoreintated, confusing forms of sublimation catch your eye and imagination. Are we trying to figure out our form and relationship to one another walking through a process of up hills and turns. I am not quite sure what MacKenzie is saying but I understand it in my own view as we are what we are made of. Sublimanly or not.
I like art and its forms…different artists express the same intention through different ways and works of art. I find this article interesting and mind tempting to the psycic realm of interpretation. An awareness into ones being and beyond.