Day 1 - Visual re-cap

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Harvey, Donald
Off Centre, 1966
Serigraph, 27 3/4" x 21"
Purchased with funds from the Sarnia Industries, 1968

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


MacKenzie, Hugh
Seated Figure, 2001
Aquatint, 5 1/16" x 3 11/16"
Gift of Artist, 2001

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Boyle, John
Northern Landscape, 1976
Serigraph, 17" x 24"
Gift from the collection of Jeffrey and Beverly Lipson, 2005

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


The walls were still looking pretty bare after the first day. There didn't seem to be much happening between the works or in the space. Day 2 could prove to be challenging for our curatorial contenders.

DAY 2 - Shelly is Back !!

Day 2 starts off with a sigh of relief as Shelly, the gallery registrar and framer, returns to work. This was especially helpful since both Lisa and Darryn pull another map drawer out of the karmic coffee tin.







Shelly and Lisa discuss the framing options for her second selection.




Shelly keeps a close eye on Darryn.


Cam, although he got to choose from a rack, the piece he chose required some framing "touch ups".

Day 2 - The curse of the Map Drawers

I must say I was quite disappointed to have pulled another map drawer location out of the karmic coffee tin. I was feeling 'underwhelmed' by the overall results at the end of the first day and was hoping to be able to jumpstart the energy in the room with a nice big, juicy painting. No such luck!

There was not much that offered any inspiration on this particular morning until I got to the bottom of the drawer and saw Bob Bozak's Study for Paul Henderson for Firestone. I was a little shocked by feelings of nostalgia when I saw that hockey player's face starring back at me. (did i say that?!) I had limited time to make the selection and didn't want to overthink it so, because I could easily make connections to the obvious theme of Canadian identity and nationalism that linked to the Boyle from the previous day, I chose it. I decided to just ignore Cam and Darryn's selections at this point and follow my own "game plan".

I found it interesting to consider the theme of hockey and art and Canadianism, particularly given the recent exhibitions that deal with a hockey theme like the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia's Arena: The Art of Hockey and the artists who have been using hockey imagery in their work like Diana Thorneycroft and Brian Jungen (to name only two). Is it to try and loosen the 'grip of the Group' on Canadian contemporary artists whose practice includes working with questions of identity? Is it a strategy to attract the hockey crowd into the gallery? Questions to ponder.

Bozak studied at the Alberta College of Art in the 1960s and received his MFA from York University in the mid 1980s. Given the work that we have in our collection, I was surprised to discover that he is first and foremost an accomplished ceramic artist with a number of sculptural works addressing the hockey theme in public collections. I was further surprised to discover his connection to the 1960s London art scene and his more recent invovlement with Burst: Outward Sound and Vision Festival in London in 2006.

A gap in our collection policy and protocols revealed itself. The eight works in our collection by Bozak came to us through a gernerous gift from Dawn Johnson of London, Ontario in 1992. The works all date between 1972 and 1982 and consist of paintings and drawings as well as the finished Paul Henderson piece below.

Bolzak, Robert
Paul Henderson for Firestone, 1972
Mixed Media, 26 3/8 diameter
Gift of Dawn Johnston, London, Ontario, 1992

Other than a permanent collection file that documents the gift, we have no artist file, no information about the work, his practice or his contact information. A mechanism that would allow us to track an artists practice and stay engaged in the career developments of an 'artist of interest' is necessary - as is a mechanism to identify 'artists of interest'.

Lisa

Day 2: Jessie Oonark

Jessie Oonark (1906-1985)
Inuk Catching a Bird (1981)
No. 12, 1981 Baker Lake Catalogue
Lithograph, printed by Martha Noah
(26" x 35")
Gallery Lambton: Purchased 1987

With Day 2 comes a real beginning to the Smackdown, as we have each made our first selections and therefore have something to curate against. By this, I mean that there is space taken up on the walls so that our freedom to put our selections anywhere in the gallery is already shrinking. Additionally, different themes (content, colour, composition, etc.) are starting to emerge, giving a springboard to launch our second selections.

The mixed feelings that I felt going through map drawer 11 from yesterday turned to excitement as he looked through map drawer 12 for Day 2. Right away, two different possibilities jumped out at me: one in response to Cameron's initial pick and the other in response to Lisa's. In a situation like this, I turned to research to help ensure the best possible selection. This was not only considering formal aspects of the work, but how the work advances or alters some of the thematic qualities being picked up from Day 1.

One of these thematic concerns seems to be the idea of nationality, and in particular, what it means to be Canadian and how artists deal with representing that. In a gallery like ours, with an extensive Group of Seven catalogue in our permanent collection, this theme is a no-brainer to consider. However, I hope that this decision will throw a bit of a curve-ball at my two competitors as there is such a small contingency of Inuit artists being represented in our collection. Of these, we are lucky enough to have a Jessie Oonark, one of the most prolific and most respected of the Baker Lake artists to work in Canada's rugged north.

Oonark holds many accolades for her work. In 1973, she became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, a distinction that she shares with my first selection, Donald Harvey. She designed the stamp for the United Nations Habitat Conference in 1976, and in 1984, Oonark became an Officer of the Order of Canada. Her work can be found in the collections of: Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, Art Gallery of Ontario, University of British Columbia, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, National Gallery of Canada, Edmonton Art Gallery, and many more.

The reason that I consider this decision to be a curve-ball is that with such a small contingency of Inuit artists in the collection, it is highly unlikely that a future selection will share a common history with Oonark. In this way, my selection stands to represent a piece of 'Canadianism' in stark contrast to the Northern Landscape offered by Lisa's first selection. Oonarks' work, like much of the Inuit art being produced, strove to represent everyday activities of life in Baker Lake. Her inclusion in a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario entitled "The People Within", focussing on Baker Lake artists, seems to indicate her place within Canada. While it is surely a foreign way of life to many Canadians, it is undoubtedly a part of Canada and what it would mean to be Canadian, at least in part.

Darryn

Positioning and Hanging

As Cam was considering the location for his 'Day 2' selection he noticed out of the corner of his eye that his first piece stood the risk of being overpowered by the Bob Bozak sketch Lisa chose as her second selection.
(note: Lisa uses the terminology- overpowered, to refer to her moving selection 1, almost off the wall to make room for her selection 2, not the fear that Mackenzie's Seated figure wont hold up against her choice of Bozaks sketch.)



Unwilling to change her mind so early in the match, Lisa agreed to enter into a negotiation with Cam to facilitate a better relationship between the two works - and to convey her good sense of sportsmanship!


A compromise was reached, but not without Cam getting in the last jab! (the measuring tape never lies - Cam)




Darryn helps Lisa hang her selection.

Day 2 - Tony Tascona, Quarter Cycle, 1968

Being the First to draw from a rack, there were, both paintings and framed prints to choose from, while Cam hesitated to choose the first work that engaged him, upon research it seemed to fit best. This was a painting by Tony Tascona entitled Quarter Cycle, 1968.

Tony Tascona was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba in 1926, and later studied at the Winnipeg School of Art as well as the University of Manitoba School of Fine Arts. His style, like that of Hugh Mackenzie, was informed by technique. Tascona worked as a metal processing technician for Air Canada, which began his attraction to industrial materials and process. Similarly Mackenzie worked as a technical artist working on the Avro Arrow, which informed his style on the side of his practice of depicting industrial themes. For both, technique is of the utmost importance, as their practice is heavily involved with the investigations of process.

Tascona's work developed into what we see in Quarter Cycle, only after his short stay in Montreal where he discovered an affinity to Neo-Plasticien artists such as Guido Molinari. Upon his return to Winnipeg, Tascona's work gradually surprised the textural, and like Darryn's first choice by Don Harvey entitled Off Centre,1966, started to deal with surface. It was not important to Tascona to represent anything, nor to inspire anything specific in the viewer; he wished his images to be seen as an "absolute shape". "With my paintings, I take a thought and make it into a physical reality. And if you want to add the metaphysical, that's your business. But I really feel this type of art doesn't have to be explained. It just has to be looked at and discovered." (Quoted by Patrick Flynn, "To Live Off Art is Not Easy," Winnipeg Tribrune, 4 October 1975)

There seems to be a lot of ties to the Up Close and Personal exhibits the Gallery has been doing over the past year. The influence of Molinari, who's Quantificateur, is showing now in Up Close and Personal III, but also that of the influence, of one's instructor, as Tascona studied under Joe Plaskett, whose Table at night was shown in the Up Close and Personal II Exhibition. Though, neither of these examples truly illustrates these influences as Plaskett's would have informed Tascona's earlier work, and Molinari's was created decades after his work would have influenced Tascona.

The curators discussed how these works related to each other within the collection, and whether there had been some intension in building a collection this way. It was considered that these coincidences might emerge out of Canadian art history because of its relatively small scope, and that rather than a tactical collecting mandate; our past has, luckily, been fortunate. It seems more likely that, similar to our acquisitions of group of seven works, we have been lucky enough in the past to purchase some contemporary work, affordably, in small steps, gaining examples of these artists. By no means is the collection developed enough to celebrate one artist's whole practice, but in their selected works from specific periods, the relations to each other could offer an exciting exhibition of the sentiment in different Canadian art movements.

Day 2 - Conversation & Rationale

Cam introducing his choice and defending it's placement and rationale for inclusion.

Darryn presenting the Oonark.

Careful consideration of the Oonark

Cam sharing insightful comments on how the impact of Darryn's first choice is changing in relation to the Bozak that was installed beside it.

More consideration of the Bozak wall in relation to the works on either side.

Lisa wonders what would happen if the Harvey was moved across the gallery and hung on the wall next to the Oonark, the Boyle and the Tascona. While Cam & Lisa feel the move supports the Harvey and pulls the wall together both aesthetically and conceptually, Darryn is not so sure. Too early to pull a switch. We'll wait and see what develops on Day 3.

By the end of Day 3 the room should begin to present one or two possible directions. There should be some evidence of an 'exhibition' forming. If not...Round 2 will be a grind!

Day 2 - Visual Re-Cap

Oonark, Jessie

Inuk Catching A Bird, 1981

Stencil, 44/50

41 5/16 x 29 5/8"

Gallery Lambton: Purchased, 1987

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tascona, Tony

Quarter Cycle, 1968

Lacquer on Masonite

39 5/8" x 33 5/8"

Purchased with private funds and donations from the industries of Sarnia, 1968

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bozak, Robert (Bob)

Study fo Paul Henderson for Firestone, 1972
Graphite on Paper
36 7/16" x 32 1/2"

Gift of Dawn Johnson, London, Ontario, 1992

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

End of Day 2 and there a bit more of a realtionship between the works is developing...although, they are definitely two different walls. Almost like the curators are working on two separate exhibitions. It is still early in the bout, but there is no question that the curators have there work cut out for them.

Day 3: Karmic Coffee Tin Returns Some Love...

Today we all met in the gallery first thing in the morning to do our selections from the karmic coffee tin. Lisa drew yet another map drawer, Cam another solander case, and I got my wish to peruse the sculpture 1 storage area. It looks like another day of selecting works that have rarely (if ever) been in display at Gallery Lambton.

I am particularly interested to make this selection today. With a personal interest in sculpture, it is very exciting to be able to bring out a piece of art that many of us in the community have never seen before. To break into three dimensions will also be a good compliment with many of the other works chosen thus far that deal with different surface qualities and depth illusions.

It is good to remember that Gallery Lambton only has so much storage space at our current location! Sculpture takes up a lot of space, and because of that (and collecting directives of past curators) there is relatively few in the collection. As we gear up for our move up the street, it is interesting to think about what place sculpture has in our collection, how the mandate is defined with regards to future acquisitions of sculpture, and what role these pieces can play for/with the community. I would love to see a heightened energy toward the collection of more sculptural works, though practical space concerns alone might discourage that. (Besides, who am I to try and fight for more sculpture?!)

Darryn

Day 3-The Curse Continues

Day 3 and another Map drawer! By now I have resigned myself to my curatorial smackdown fate. Map drawer #5 is a drawer with about six John Boyle prints. My first choice in the first SmackDown was Boyle because I didn't like his work. Now I can't get away from him. So there was no other option but to face my fate head on and choose a Boyle. I thought it would also be an interesting opportunity to consider more than one work from the same artist in the show. We'll see.

Boyle is largely a self-taught artist. He is a painter, sculptor, film maker, teacher, lacrosse player and a member of the Nihilist Spasm Band. He was associated early on with Gret Curnoe and Jack Chambers as they initiated an artistic movement in London during the 1960s & 70s associated with one of Canada's first Artist Run Centres and the founding of CARFAC.


The print I chose was Shaganappi Point seen here in a mat and frame that are too small. Shelly will re-mat and re-frame it for me before I hang it. Shaganappi Point is referencing the Indians at the treaty signing at Shaganappi Point in Alberta, which is now located in downtown Calgary. Boyle commented to Gallery Lambton's previous curator, David Taylor that "I had done a series of works about Gabriel Dumont and the Riel Rebellion. In my research I found a pattern of the Black foot Indian's tepee. The fan shape is the pattern for the Blackfoot tepee. You can actually cut it out and fold it in to a tepee"

Shaganappi Point easily carried the Canadian identity and Aboriginal thread along (at least on the surface), as well as the aesthetic cohesiveness that was emerging in that end of the gallery. But now I'm inspired to do more research on Boyle and this particular time period and these specific prints. I will blog that research in as I am able.

It will be intersting to see the final layout of this wall and have the opportunity to really consider these works in relation to one another and within the context of the Gallery Lambton permanent collection.

Lisa

Day 3: Ronald Kustyniuk

Ronald Kostyniuk

Relief Structure, 1974

Paint on mixed substrate

50 ½ x 50 ½ x 8 in.

Gift of the Artist, 2006

Sculpture 1! It was great to see that location come my way from the karmic coffee tin. I have always seen these, a handful of three-dimensional works, waiting on the top shelf of the sculpture storage for their first exhibition. They were wrapped in plastic with bright, colorful, industrial looking forms growing out a solid square base. Even interesting in its bag on the shelf, it is great to now see one hanging on the wall.

The shapes remind me of crystalline growth in a cave: roughly rectangular volumes protruding at different angles from a stable base. The difference is that these shapes are colorful, immaculately painted, and animated through their placement on the base and their relationships to other colours around them. The impression of organic growth is suitable given the artists interest in the natural world. As Kostyniuk explains, “Color-form, as an extension into the real space of the viewer becomes a tangible entity – one which parallels, albeit crudely, the complexity and harmony of the colors and iridescences of nature’s infinitely beautiful world.” [University of Calgary exhibition catalogue, Feb. 24-Mar. 10, 1978]

This idea about the Color-form came up in an interesting way as we discussed each of our selections for the day. There is definitely a connection between the work of Kostyniuk and the more abstract canvasses that Lawren Harris was painting within the Group of Seven. The forms that Kostyniuk produced are directly influenced by natural forms, and informed by the colours and iridescences of that natural world. Harris was painting to relay a sense of place from these Canadian landscapes. The abstract forms that began to inhabit Harris’ later canvasses function in much the same way of Kostyniuks’ protruding shapes. The fact that Kostyniuk also holds a Masters degree in biology helps explain this deep connection with the natural world.

While at the University of Calgary, Kostyniuk came under the influence of Eli Bornstein, the main Canadian proponent of a new art movement known as Structuralism. Roughly, Structuralism was interested in systems of interrelated parts and believed that structures are the ‘real things’ that lie beneath the surface or appearance of meaning. In this mode of production, surfaces were highly polished and there was no sign of the artists’ hand to distract from the raw experiences of looking at the forms and being affected by the structure. Many of these considerations are similar to the print by Donald Harvey that I chose on Day 1. He too was influenced by the natural world around him, and had a very keen appreciation for the perceptual shifts of solid ‘Color-forms’ interacting with one another on the surface of the print.

This is a very strong work to include at this point of the exhibition, largely dominated by small to medium sized paper-based works thus far. I decided to try the work in the middle of the longest wall in the gallery space. On top of that, I made the decision to hang the work 6" higher than the 'standard' hanging height. There were a few reasons for this. One reason is that after day two, there were clearly two dominant themes emerging. The investigation into nationality was starting to take shape with a nice relationship developing amongst those works. These were starting to outweigh the abstract, color-dominated works, which I would like to see play-out further. By hanging this choice higher on the wall, it was a clear focal point. This work will hopefully rejuvenate the abstract portions of the exhibition while maintaining a tie to the organic, nationalistic works too.

Ronald Kostyniuk was born in Wakaw, Saskatchewan in 1941. He graduated in 1970 with a Master of Science in biology and in 1971 with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin. He has exhibited internationally and his work can be found in the collections of Gallery Lambton, Canada Council Art Bank, MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon), numerous universities, and many corporate collections throughout North America. He was a faculty member at the University of Calgary for many years.

Darryn

Day 3 - The Match Heats Up!

Placing the works become more difficult for a number of reasons: the wall color is really strong and can either severely weaken or strengthen a piece; the spaces between the work are becoming more limited and awkward; and one contender (we won't mention names) places their incredibly strong selection smack dab in the middle of the largest wall, restricting everyones options moving forward.

Lisa looks for a spot for Shaganappi Point.

Cam decides his work by Kathleen Pepper, Old Eskimo, needs to squeeze right in between the Boyle and the Oonark.

Clearly, the discussion is becoming more intense as the stakes are rising and the options tightening.

Darryn and Lisa listen to Cam.

Maybe time to consider a new game plan? Everyone to their corners and let's take stock of where things are and what we have to do to bring the first Round to

a place where we feel we can move forward after the long weekend.

Maybe we consider a shuffle! At the end of the day the Curatorial SmackDown is more of a sparring match than a fight. Our ultimate goal is to support each other in some of the practical, hands on considerations of curating, learn about the collection and end up with an exhibition that has some sort of logic to it.

Happy again!

As long as we can all agree and can make our case, we decide to 'shuffle' until we feel good about the placement of the Round 1 works in relation to one another and within the space.

So at the end of Day 3, we reach a place where we can accept that some of our original ideas need to be scrapped for the good of the whole. We'll see what shapes up next week.

Day 3 - Kathleen Daly Pepper's Old Eskimo

Luck would have it that I pulled Solander Box #9, consisting of 10 or so more Hugh Mackenzie etchings, and 4 other works on paper. It's interesting to be given another chance to strengthen my first selection and expand upon Mackenzie's work, by providing examples of the industrial etchings I referred to in relation to my second selection. But at some point you have to come out of the locker room and face your opponents.

I chose Kathleen Daly Pepper's Old Eskimo, 1955. Daly attended Ontario Collage of Art and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris. Daly married George Pepper in 1929, and the two practiced together in the Studio Building in Toronto.

Old Eskimo is a Sketch of an Inuit man, much like our only work by her husband George, Half Breed, which shares the same composition but with differing styles. I chose it for its obvious entrance into the conversation between Jessie Oonark's Inuk Catching a Bird, and Boyle's Northern Landscape.

In yesterdays discussion, we spoke about our collection having some gaps that restrict a comprehensive evaluation of our artists range of practice. So what our collection does do is offer a range of perspectives on certain themes, and issues, from the historical to the contemporary.
Here my selection is one that has a personal relationship to our neighbouring Up Close and Personal III exhibit, where some of here instructors and contemporaries are hung. But on the Smack Down side its period is absent.

As Up Close and Personal aims to represent a progression of art history in our collection, I felt Old Eskimo added the frame work for Boyle to make his comment. As Lisa put it on Day One, “The fact that the title is Northern Landscape, and the image is a portrait of a white male Cowboy and an Aboriginal male, sets up a number of questions and challenges for the viewer, particularly within the context of Canada's social and cultural histories, national identity, and the grip of the Group.”

With my third selection I had a chance to include another viewpoint. One from a white female artist who, with her husband, traveled to the Arctic to paint and draw the Inuit people, their daily life and their landscape. Often painting with members of the group of seven, and trained at OCA under Lismer and Macdonald, Daly represent a close tie to the group, accused for their grip. While also standing alone as a charming document of a person.

In the way Jessie Oonark's Inuk Catching a Bird, represents her peoples everyday, Daly's work documents this from the learned knowledge and training of her own culture. Darryn doubted a work would turn up that shared a common history with Oonark and in this I believe he refers to culture, and he will probably be right. But what he wasn't concerned with would be the other perspectives available. With Old Eskimo; on one hand, we have a bridge for the other works to relate in a different way, entering in to a negotiations about the role of the artist and their work as it preserves, celebrates and critiques culture; on the other, I have brought out the work that is being attacked by the argument happening between the other two, about who has license over the representation of culture. Now instead of being “in stark contrast” as Darryn aimed, they are starting to portray a Canadian narrative about the relationships of its peoples.

I took a risk with this work and didn't like it any where around the gallery, and since I was creating a disruption and the work is relatively small I placed it in between Inuk Catching a Bird and Northern Landscape, filling a gap we hadn't noticed.

Day 3 - Visual Re-cap

Kostyniuk, Ronald
Relief Structure (Oblique Series), 1974
Painted mixed substrate
50 1/2" x 50 1/2" x 8"
Gift of the Artist, 2006
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Boyle, John
Shaganappi Point, 1976
Serigraph
18" x 25"
Gift from the collection of Jeffery and Beverly Lipson, 2005

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Pepper, Kathleen Daly
Old Eskimo, Nain, Labrador, c.1955
Drawing on paper
14 7/16" x 11 9/16"
Gift of Dr. and Mrs O.S. Pokorny, Sarnia, Ontario, 1980

Day 4 - Round 2 - Back from the Beach!

After a glorious long weekend, Lisa and Darryn are well rested and ready to head straight to the karmic coffee tin to select their location to start Round 2. With Cam missing in action (perhaps a bit too much R&R Cam?) Darryn and Lisa take advantage of his mis-step and force Cam up against the ropes.

Both Lisa and Darryn pull a rack which means we have access to larger work and the possibility to begin activating the space in a new way. Round 2 is off to a great start! At least for Darryn & Lisa...where is Cam?

Day 4: Frances Ferdinands

Cam admiring a thoughtful selection...

Frances Ferdinands
The Space Between, 1986
52 1/8" x 78 1/4"
Acrylic on canvas with xerography
Purchased from the artist

Rack 8. Coming off of the long weekend, a nice three day breather, it was time to step into the second half of the Smackdown. I drew a rack from the karmic coffee tin, which has been something of a rarity thus far in the competition. The racks are almost always exciting, with each one usually having quite a range in work by ways of content, scale, and age. However, with all of these possibilities, I ended up having a hard time making this decision.

The first problem is that Rack 8 is also home to two Louis de Niverville paintings; two of my favorite in collection. With this in mind, upon pulling out the rack to survey the possibilities, I had to continually put the de Niverville's back in check. I did not want to make a decision based mostly on the fact that I like the work. Liking something, and including something that you like because it makes sense in the exhibition are definitely two different things. Of course, before I made my final decision I had to bring the de Niverville out and see how it felt within the exhibition, only to have my initial feelings confirmed. These paintings will be staying on Rack 8 for now...

The next painting that I brought out was a nice, energetic, airy watercolour by Denise Ireland. It still had some of the sketch lines visible on the paper, and dealt with colour in a very similar way to some of these abstract works that have been coming out. I thought that it would challenge me to pick something that I wouldn't normally be attracted to, and try to give it a fair chance. So I brought the painting out and started doing some reading about the artist, but it just didn't feel right. I don't know if the pencil marks showing through the paint, or the way the paper sat in the frame, or even the way the work reacted on the green wall, but something just didn't feel right. So away it went...

Ultimately, there were a few more decisions that followed along a similar pattern, with each work eventually working itself back onto Rack 8. It is interesting though, that each of the works on the rack could have possibly fit within some dimension of this exhibition. Whether that is a strength of the works or an ambiguity within the exhibition is interesting to consider.

So, with that, I eventually settled on a large canvas by Frances Ferdinands. Born in Sri Lanka, Ferdinands is now based in Toronto. She received her degree in Visual Art from York University and in Education from University of Toronto. As a young art student she was already a recognized Toronto author. In 1973 she co-edited the book Eclectic Eve, a collection of over 50 interviews with 'Toronto Women artists' that was met with much praise.

This work seems to pick up a number of different threads, even if it is somewhat inconclusive on any particular view. The idea of nationalism and its representation is starting to expand and take on more of an international consideration. This is provoked by the strong national symbol of the American flag stuck to the arm of the astronaut floating in space. While I don't think (personally), that the artist intended a nationalist reading of this work, it can't help but develop that theme in the context of this Smackdown.

Ferdinands work is often highly symbolic. Everything seems to represent something, even if it takes some time to get past the compositional elements. For example, cows make a frequent appearance in her work as a stand-in for nature and the natural. Placed on this strict one-point perspective grid, the geometric and technological are all of a sudden underpinning the natural. This collision of the natural with the technological, digital, geometric (read: man made) world is made very clear.

The xerography that Ferdinands included was the image of God giving life to the tip of Adams finger, the iconic image from the cieling of the Sistine Chapel originally painted by Michelangelo. Represented here though, the two fingers never meet. A sharp red arrow seems to keep Gods finger from going any further, while Adam seems to be reaching desparately for the telephone. Regardless of any one view on these decisions, the allusion to the interjection of the technological into our natural, or even spiritual, worlds is obvious. This relationship has been developed to some extent in the rest of the exhibition, with a couple of selections now referencing the interplay between the natural and technological, man-made world.

In the end, I found the chance to interact with a work that I never had that initial attachment to. I found a suitable spot in an exhibition that allows closer consideration of works, and while the work still may not be my own personal favorite in the collection, I can certainly now appreciate how a work of art can function so differently within a context. This context includes the other art around the walls, but also the wall colour, lighting, and everything else! I'm looking forward to Day 5 of this Smackdown, things are getting tight, themes are getting developed, and the show is starting to pull together. Pressure's on!

Darryn

The Return of Cam

After the long drive back to Toronto from Tobermory, a short rest, an early morning Grey Hound into London and a speedy ride back to Sarnia, I arrived at the gallery around noon. This late start to Round 2 provided me with an unfair advantage as Darryn and Lisa had already displayed their choices before I had made my own. Though the structure is supposed to prevent this foresight, it's impossible to see these new additions, and not consider how they are changing the exhibition. Since, I made my arrival time known in advance to my two opponents, and they made the choice to have their new selections displayed, I don’t feel responsible for the advantage they have provided me. So I'm back to the Karmic coffee tin...

Low and behold, I Pull Rack 13, which holds some goopy painted landscapes, Bozak's Paul Henderson for Firestone, which Lisa has hung the sketch for, and 2 Bozak paintings, I chose Firstness, 1980/81. This painting depicts a neon sing that reads "Firstness" is the same font as the Firestone logo seen on the tire in Paul Henderson for Firestone. When placed in the Exhibition this work conjures the already present debate about our First Nations and Colonialism, while also continuing the comment on our relationship with technology that has been more firmly introduced by Frances Ferdinands' The Space Between.

Hung side by side, The Space Between and Firstness, are both overpowered by a dark, night sky, and relate to the theme of industrialisation and the colonialization of the America's. Firstness begins to allude to the collaged images used in The Space Between. As Darryn has discussed, Michaelangelo's iconic portrayal of God and Adam's reaching hands from the Sistine Chapel are separated, as the image of God falls away and Adam's image is now reaching toward the handset of a telephone. The inclusion of the American Astronaut, also conjures our history of the first man on the moon, which in our American culture, greatly trumps Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut, who was the first man in space. In this way my choice, points to the Imperial culture of 'firstness', whether it be the first man, or first man on the moon, there is a system of cultural imposition, that over shadows the history of other cultures. A sifting of origins, selecting only that which supports current politics, becomes a censoring of cultural histories. This practise of one sided selection, if one isn’t careful, can be a lot like curating.

With a feisty start to our round two blogging, I am reminded of our goal in sparring, being one of investigation and exercise in curatorial practice. While my opponents gloat in a sense of competition and victory, I am becoming more and more aware of the missing link between the two emerging streams of thought. What is our national identity and how has it been formed into the culture in which we live today? And how, through abstraction, can we investigate the cultural implications of the relationship between our creations and the natural world? I have hope that there will be a selection that ties these close yet unfocused threads together, but I fear that my opponents may be too concerned with their own success to really consider the strength of our final exhibition. If in the end the show is staggered and lacks unity we all lose.