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.