Excerpts from an article that I wrote in the current issue of Border Crossings Magazine:

“Hyper-real installations confront the viewer with an illusion of which we are aware. Or are we? The historic, ages old idea that the world as we experience it is an illusion reaches back to a branch of ancient Hindu philosophy called Advaita Vedanta, which teaches that Brahman (consciousness) represents the Infinite Reality, and the world (Maya) is merely an illusion; likewise, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which prisoners, deep inside a cave, face shadows that they perceive to be “reality”. As in Plato’s story, hyper-real installations destabilize the viewers’ perception of truth, by presenting one reality beside another.

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Just steps from the tram stop that takes you from the train station to Friedrichsplatz in the city of Kassel, Germany, is a square from which several pathways radiate toward a number of severe looking buildings. If it wasn’t for the family of Thomas Schutte’s brightly glazed ceramics perched on the roof of one, or the symphony of metal and glass emerging from the corner of another, you would never know that these buildings – from June 16 until September 23 – house Documenta XII, widely considered to be the world’s most important contemporary art exhibition.

Stangers, by Thomas Schutte. Made for Documenta 9. Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Documenta has taken place in Kassel more or less every five years since 1955, when the painter and professor Arnold Bode, together with historian Werner Haftmann presented a retrospective of classical Modernism that had been defamed by the Nazis as ‘degenerate’ art, alongside younger artworks. 130,000 visitors attended that year and by the 1960s, the show had become well established as the “Museum of one hundred days”.

Every five years, the city’s hotels book up months in advance of the opening preview, forcing some unlucky foreign journalists, VIP collectors, European art intellectuals, curators and museum directors to stay in surrounding towns. They wander around, maps in hand, while this year, curiously, a large contingent of Chinese citizens have been brought over from China for one month as guests of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han dynasty urn (detail), 1995. Image: visualarts.qld.gov.au

His ‘experimental study’, entitled A Fairy Tale is a reference to the Brothers Grimm who wrote many of their stories in Kassel. The idea is to produce a non-violent, highly visible encounter between two cultures in a specific place.

An image from Snow White and Rose Red, by the Brothers Grimm. Image: snowwhiteandrosered.com

Why go to Documenta? If, as Marshall McLuhan said, art can be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it, then the Documenta team who, along with their International Committee and advisory board of forty local experts, have spent three and a half years scouring the globe for today’s most relevant artists, should offer up some intriguing food for thought.

As indeed they have. After the last Documenta, which was criticized for Nigerian-born curator Okwui Enwezor’s heavy-handed approach, this year’s show is considerably lighter and more colourful.

Okwui Enwezor. Image: universes-in-universe.de

Artistic director Roger M. Buergel and curator Ruth Noack have created an intentionally open-ended exhibition. Artworks from Bucharest to New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro to Beijing, from the 14th century to today – including textile, installation works, painting, drawing, video and sculpture – are set against vibrant walls of burnt orange, blue and deep green. There is much to engage the viewer, whether expert or neophyte.

Documenta XII artistic director Roger M. Buergel and curator Ruth Noack. Image: artnet.de

With no definitive beginning or end, the show began (for me) on the top floor of the main building, the Museum Fridericianum. Toronto artist Luis Jacob’s installation Album III (2004) consists of laminated plaques of disparate images – dancers in motion, textiles, architecture, social actions and sculptural forms – lining the walls. At the centre, a video installation paired contemporary dance with sign language.

Toronto artist Luis Jacob. Image: torontohispano.com

It was a piece about interpretation, and it was a fitting start, echoing a series of similarly categorized photographs entitled Analogue 1998-2007 by New Yorker Zoë Leonard that ended the show in the Aue Pavilion, a temporary structure set in a meadow near a spectacular 18th century Orangerie.

An image from Zoe Leonard’s series Analogue. Image: wexarts.org

In between, much of the work explored perspectives of cultural experience through art. Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook, who won Canada’s 2006 Sobey Art Prize, showed a number of her drawings depicting modern daily life in the Arctic. As the catalogue text notes, “Pootoogook is among the first artists in her community to have been raised in two different worlds.”

Annie Pootoogook, Domestic Scene. Image: drawingsociety.com

One work that seemed to encapsulate the show’s central idea of drawing links between varying social and cultural perspectives, was the documentaion of the project For Every Dog a Different Master (2007), by the Czech artist Katerina Seda.

Seda, who grew up in one of several grey concrete tower blocks in the Czech city of Brno-Lisen, was familiar with residents there not acknowledging one another. Then in 2002, nearby towers were re-painted in bright colours. In an effort to introduce a sense of community, and inspired by the refurbished buildings, she designed a fabric and crafted shirts, which she arranged to have delivered to residents in one building, ostensibly from residents in another. She then stepped away from the plan, allowing the transfer of the shirts to facilitate communication between residents in the town.

Katerina Seda, There’s Nothing There, (Video) 2003. Image: cogcollective.co.uk

With Documenta XII, the curators have likewise presented possibilities for introductions between the artworks, the viewer and vice versa, and have stepped aside, as the catalogue states of Seda, “so as not to hamper residents from coming together as intended.”

VoCA has seen an exhibition that blew the entire Venice Biennale away.

Gregor Schneider’s Weisse Folter (White Torture) at the K21 in Dusseldorf shook us to our very core. More a haunted house than traditional art exhibition, the installation is a must-see, though we wouldn’t really wish it on our enemies.

We were told by the gallery guard that people were allowed in only by ones or twos. Also, that once inside, we were to continue through to the exit, which came out at the museum’s garden.

Down a set of stairs, we were confronted with a door with a perplexing handle. The guard gestured to enter. We couldn’t figure out how the door opened. We slid, we pushed and pulled the door. Finally one last try. It clicked and we were inside.

NB: If the images don’t show up for you, please click HERE.

(Entrance exhibition) Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

A stark white sealed hallway lined with more odd doors, each with a small frosted pane . These ones slid open, or at least some of them did, leading to tiny, clinical rooms with stainless steel toilets (as you might find in a prison) and arrows pointing in odd directions. Other doors in the hallway wouldn’t budge, though some were lit from inside.

PASSAGEWAY No. 1, 2005-2007 (1500×200x230cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

HIGH SECURITY AND ISOLATION CELL No. 2, 2005 (338×220x230cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

One door opened to a vestibule with another door. No signs, but we presumed we were to continue. Sure enough, the door led to an identical hallway, with identical sliding doors. We tried a few, none opened. Then, one opened into a small hallway, where we saw a green metal mesh door, and a closed white room beyond. We just couldn’t go in there, it looked too spooky.

X-RAY, 2007 (382×299x414cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Another door. This one opened to a white vestibule, again. A second door led to an empty, metal-lined room with another door at the back. It was dark, save for a dim light in one corner, and it was cold. We left the hall door open (just in case) and proceeded to the first metal door. This door was slightly weighted and would slam shut if we let go.

PASSAGEWAY No. 4, 2005-2007 (entrance WASHING ROOM).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

We were shocked to see that this door had no inner handle. If we were to let it go, we would surely be locked inside the cold, dark metal room. But would the second metal door be open? Was this the correct room to be in?

Extreme claustrophobia struck – we were moments away from sheer panic. Our heart was beating fast, there were no signs, no people, no assistance. There was no way we could go on, yet there seemed no way out, either.

WASHING ROOM, 2007 (418×310x263cm) (LxBxH)
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

We quickly retraced our steps and exited by the entrance. The guards didn’t look surprised, they had obviously seen this reaction before.

A life-changing experience, definitely not for the faint of heart.

To see where the hallways led, click HERE.

Upon reflection, it was like being inside a Thomas Demand photograph.

(Demand takes media images and meticulously re-creates them in paper, void of any identifying factors, before photographing them.)

Thomas Demand, Flur, 1995. Image: nmwb.de

By doing away with any kind of reassuring signifier - or any signifier at all, Schneider has created a nightmarish non-world, one that would never exist in reality.

Except that it sort of does.

The size and set up of the rooms, doors and hallways were taken from internet images of Guantanamo Bay.

A typical “noncompliant detainee” cell at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Image: z.about.com/US Department of Defence

Yikes.

VoCA has seen an exhibition that blew the entire Venice Biennale away.

Gregor Schneider’s Weisse Folter at the K21 in Dusseldorf shook us to our very core. More a haunted house than traditional art exhibition, the installation is a must-see, though we wouldn’t really wish it on our enemies.

We were told by the gallery guard that people were allowed in only by ones or twos. Also, that once inside, we were to continue through to the exit, which came out at the museum’s garden.

Down a set of stairs, we were confronted with a door with a perplexing handle. The guard gestured to enter. We couldn’t figure out how the door opened. We slid, we pushed and pulled the door. Finally one last try. We were inside.

(Entrance exhibition) Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

A stark white sealed hallway lined with more funny doors, each with a small frosted pane . These ones slid open, or at least some of them did, leading to tiny, clinical rooms with stainless steel toilets (as you might find in a prison) and arrows pointing in odd directions. Other doors in the hallway wouldn’t budge, though some were lit from inside.

PASSAGEWAY No. 1, 2005-2007 (1500×200x230cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

HIGH SECURITY AND ISOLATION CELL No. 2, 2005 (338×220x230cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

One door opened to a vestibule with another door. No signs, but we presumed we were to continue. Sure enough, the door led to an identical hallway, with identical sliding doors. We tried a few, none opened. Then, one opened into a small hallway, where we saw a green metal mesh door, and a closed white room beyond. We just couldn’t go in there, it looked too spooky.

X-RAY, 2007 (382×299x414cm) (LxBxH).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Another door. This one opened to a white vestibule, again. A second door led to an empty, metal-lined room with another door at the back. It was dark, save for a dim light in one corner, and it was cold. We left the hall door open (just in case) and proceeded to the first metal door. This door was slightly weighted and would slam shut if we let go.

PASSAGEWAY No. 4, 2005-2007 (entrance WASHING ROOM).
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

We were shocked to see that this door had no inner handle. If we were to let it go, we would surely be locked inside the cold, dark metal room. But would the second metal door be open? Was this the correct room to be in?

Extreme claustrophobia struck – we were moments away from sheer panic. Our heart was beating fast, there were no signs, no people, no assistance. There was no way we could go on, yet there seemed no way out, either.

WASHING ROOM, 2007 (418×310x263cm) (LxBxH)
Image: © Gregor Schneider / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

We quickly retraced our steps and exited by the entrance. The guards didn’t look surprised, they had obviously seen this reaction before.

A life-changing experience, definitely not for the faint of heart.

To see where the hallways led, click HERE.

GREAT BRITIAN – BORROWED LIGHT, TRACEY EMIN

THE CURATORS SAY:

“Tracey’s work goes from strength to strength. She’s a storyteller with an extraordinary ability to scratch away the surfaces to what lies below. This is a great moment to see her work in the context of the Venice Biennale, where her work will be shown in an international context and at a distance from the YBA generation with which she came to prominence.”

Tracey Emin, Trust Me, 2000. Image: ubs.com

VoCA SAYS:

Ugh. We like Tracey Emin’s work, but this was a commercial gallery exhibition in the British pavilion. (Some have complained that commercial dealers’ power dominates the choice of UK artists showing at Venice) Where was the pathos, the grit, the madness that we expect from Emin? This was an oxymoronic exercise in well-practiced anger. Emin’s work depends on it being borne of raw emotion, and here she became a name brand.

Jay Jopling, Emin’s dealer, must have been pleased. But what about Emin herself?

Tracey Emin, Bath 6, 2005. Image: ucl.ac.uk

Next to Sophie Calle (see below), it seemed as if the post-feminist Brit had stopped trying. It was beautiful work, almost too beautiful. The power was gone. A shame.

FRANCE – TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, SOPHIE CALLE

THE CURATORS SAY:

“The installation consists of a series of video and photo-portraits. The starting point for this project was an episode from her personal life – a relationship broken up by email. Calle asked 107 women, whom she had chosen according to their line of work - some famous, some not - to interpret the letter in their professional capacity.”

VoCA SAYS:

Everyone VoCA spoke with loved the French pavilion. Can Sophie Calle do no wrong? The installation was a vast rumination on one piece – an email ending a relationship, received by Ms. Calle.

She then copied the letter to a diverse group of women – including Peaches, Jeanne Moreau and others – for their reactions.

Jeanne Moreau. Image: bbc.co.uk

The installation showed the letter itself, then each woman’s photograph with the letter and their written (or acted, or sung) reaction. In one room, a video was divided into sections, each one showing a woman’s reaction. The centre screen played each reaction, one after another. Peaches’ lonesome and slightly sarcastic ballad exemplified one possible response.

The Canadian artist Geoffrey Farmer - whom VoCA saw at Venice - was disappointed with the installation. He would have preferred it to be more spare, with just the letter and perhaps fewer reactions. It’s true that the curating was perhaps overemphatic, but we saw it as an echo of the idea, reverberating throughout the space.

THE ARSENALE – Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense. Director: Robert Storr

CURATORS SAY:

“The analytical dichotomies between the perceptive and the conceptual…obscure or negate the complex presence of all these factors in our experience of the world. All together, the correspondences between the works…will draw the attention of the public…towards the diversity of emotions…themes which characterizes works of art.”

VoCA SAYS:

What can one say? It was a very engaging group exhibition. Lots of new discoveries alongside some fantastic established names. The highlight was Francesco Vezzoli’s piece Democrazy which came as light relief at the end of the long show, and was thankfully much better than Caligula, which premiered at the last Venice Biennale. Democrazy stars Sharon Stone on one side, and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy on the other as The Next President of the United States. Hilarious.

Francesco Vezzoli, Democrazy, 2007. Image: c. F. Vezzoli

VoCA recommends some artists from the curated Arsenale show that caught our eye:

Leon Ferrari
Felix Gmelin
Marine Huggonier
Oscar Munoz

Oscar Munoz, Proyecto de memorial, 2004-05. Image: sicardi.com

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov
Tatiana Trouve

Tatiana Trouve, Polder Leather, 2006. Image: michaelsteinbergfineart.com

Melik Ohanian
Margaret Salmon
Sophie Whettnall

Sophie Whettnall, Shadow Boxing, 2004. Image: arcoenglish.artmediacompany.com

OFF SITE: NORTHERN IRELAND - WILLIE DOHERTY

Willie Doherty, Non-Specific Threat, 2004. Image: replica21.com

THE CURATORS SAY:

“These video works are set against the backdrop of a changing Northern Ireland but they engage with a wider international discussion that reflects the apprehension and uncertainty we all live with.”

VoCA SAYS:

We LOVED these works, both Passage (2006) and Ghost Story (2007).

Passage showed two men in separate tightly framed head shots, presumably walking toward each other, still at quite a distance. They walk quickly on a dark street, alone at night. They each convey a suppressed anger, evidenced by the suppressed emotion in their faces, their taught bodies and determined gait. The viewer sits in anxious suspense. You just know something terrible will happen. But it never does…at least not as long as we were able to stay.

Leaving the video (not resolving the story) stayed with us all day long. An excellent show.

OFF SITE: THOMAS DEMAND FOR FONDAZIONE PRADA

THE CURATORS SAY:

Thomas Demand, Grotto, 2006. Image: regenprojects.com

“In Processo grottesco, the artist presents the source material he collected for the work for the first time. Postcards, books, tourist guides, photographs, catalogue illustrations, and other paraphernalia are exhibited alongside the 36-ton grey cardboard object, shaped and measured by computers and divided into 900,000 different layers, together with the final photograph of the sculpture. In this way, the visitor is invited to follow the different stages of Demand’s creative process, going backstage of the stunning photographic image known as Grotto.

The grotto is a subject encountered throughout the history of art and architecture. From the Sixteenth century onwards, the imitation of nature was the basis for the Tuscan and Rustic orders which derived their motifs from grottoes and caves, trees and boughs in an attempt to endow buildings with functionality and a spare, primitive adornment. At the same time, these architectural concerns are linked to the very naturalness of the materials, which are humble and simple.”

VoCA SAYS:

We had a nightmare trying to get to the opening party on a nearby island – well, us and about 20 other bejeweled would-be guests. We finally caught a water taxi and made in into the show at the last minute. It was well worth it, because although we had seen the photograph Grotto (2006) at Thomas Demand’s show at London’s Serpentine Gallery last year, for the Prada show they had imported the artist’s paper set.

Grotto of Lourdes, Rio Grande City, Texas. Image: rootsweb.com

The elaborate, delicate set for the work Grotto (2006), the photographs and accompanying research and paraphenalia including colour coded postcards of grottoes around the world, was displayed in one half of the exhibition. It was a fascinating insight into Demand’s rigorous working process.

The Grotto Azzura, Capri. Image: snowdomer.com

David Altmejd, The Index, 2007. Image: VoCA

CANADA – THE INDEX, DAVID ALTMEJD

THE CURATORS SAY:

“The work re-imagines the pavilion as an aviary, where birds can nest and feed. It becomes an architectural space, a habitat. The figure (The Giant 2) is at once a body and an environment…Both works are a pertinent look into the inescapable unity of all life.

An organized system whose material components have a logical structural function, The Index functions as an architectural space…a habitat that…exhibits its cavities and protuberances, solids and voids, mysteries and truths.

The Giant 2 personifies the survival of the solitary hero but gives no conclusive indication of any…stamp. (The viewer) attends the passage from a heroic treatment of the individual to the allegorical representation of nature.”

VoCA SAYS:

The use of fragments of mirror throughout the space was successful because it placed the viewer in an unexpected place and enhanced the fairytale feeling in the work. The piece was less formal than his earlier work, for instance the sculpture Altmejd presented at the 2004 Whitney Biennale in New York.

David Altmejd, The Builders, 2005. Image: flashartonline.com

(VoCA has predicted the return of mirror in art since the beginning of the year.) Some evidence of this was evident at New York’s Armory Show in March.

The tree, the birds and the giant as symbols evoked Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Tinderbox, where the soldier enters the hollow trunk of an old tree, or Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where Alice descends into an otherworldly environment.

Alice in Wonderland. Image: allposters.com

The relationship between the fantastical environment and the outside world may relate to Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, and Christof Buchel’s uncannily hyper-real installations, and even Rirkrit Tiravanija’s art-as-life-as-art performances.

More obviously, the installation bears a resemblance to Matthew Barney’s mythological environments, but in Altmejd’s installation, the viewer’s place has been emphatically positioned. This is important.

Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau. Image: junktown.co.kr

UNITED STATES – AMERICA, FELIX GONZALES-TORRES

THE CURATORS SAY:

“His work treads a fine line between social commentary and personal disclosure, equivocating between the two realms and obscuring the culturally-determined distinctions that separate them.

Gonzalez-Torres used the aesthetic allure of his art to stage a subtle critique of social injustice and intolerance. By creating open-ended, participatory artworks, he entrusted his viewers to engage with and ultimately activate their meaning.”

VoCA SAYS:

There was much debate (among the artists and curators that we were with) regarding the relevance of having Gonzales-Torres, who passed away from Aids in 1996, represent the United States.

Was he relevant? Shouldn’t the Biennale pavilions be reserved for living artists?

VoCA knows Gonzales-Torres’ work well, and almost missed the pavilion altogether. In one room, two stacks of posters Untitled (Republican Years) a blank page with black border, and Untitled, an image of a black ocean, were available for the audience to take away with them.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1991. Image: artnexus.com

In another room, a precise, rectangular pile of black cellophane-wrapped candies Untitled (Public Opinion) filled the room, also to be taken by visitors. As we took the candy, we were struck by what it means to participate in such a work. The act of physically taking something away is bound to an intellectual taking away – if the candy represents a deceased person, then the act represents a kind of personal memorial, not only for the specific person, but for all people.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Public Opinion) 1991. Image: guggenheim.org

This idea of participation relates directly to Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work and others who use participatory actions. It was profound and incredibly relevant to today. A good choice.

Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled, 2002. Image: columbia.edu

POLAND – 1:1, MONIKA SOSNOWSKA

THE CURATORS SAY:

“The main reference point for Sosnowska are the experiences of post-war modernisation – the all-too-familiar to the inhabitants of Eastern Europe landscape of housing blocks and service pavilions…

The installation 1:1, like Sosnowska’s other works from the last couple of years, can be viewed as a reference to the practices of the artists of the 1970s (Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Smithson and others) and a continuation of the reflection on decay and destruction, but also as a criticism of the art institution via a radical intervention in its architectural tissue. After all, the project serves to ‘exhibit’ the Polish Pavilion itself – a building representative of the 1930s, which, as one of the work’s elements, ‘wrestles’ with another construction growing out from inside it.”

Monika Sosnowska, 1:1, 2007. Image: c. Monika Sosnowska

VoCA SAYS:

The spindly iron structure looked as if some kind of old architectural framework, perhaps what was left of a burned building, had been squeezed into the confines of the stark, rectangular white pavilion. It was about two architectures competing, about how art is not meant to fit within the gallery space. This work seemed to express frustration with the hegemony of art systems.

Art, it seemed to be saying, is part of life, part of history and of urban culture. We should thus be encouraged to see art outside of what fits in a gallery, where it can literally be squashed by particular context. A strong, somber work.

Jasper Johns, Target with Four Faces, 1955. Image: ruf.rice.edu

VoCA was in Basel this week, the week before the famous art fair, Art Basel 38, which runs from 13 - 17 June, 2007. We were glad to see the museum exhibitions in relative quiet, allowing us to make some intriguing discoveries including:

1. Why American painter Jasper Johns is considered such a great artist
2. The Situationists: Who were they and what they were all about
3. Glimpses of sheer brilliance with Robert Gober

1. Admittedly, VoCA has always wondered, ‘What’s with all the targets?’ We thought they were neat, but what made Johns so famous? He is the artist to whom Leo Castelli famously offered a show in 1958, while visiting the New York studio of Johns’ friend Robert Rauschenberg. And we can certainly see the brilliance of Rauschenberg’s Combines.

The Johns retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel was all we needed. Several wonderful studies for targets evoked an eye. The all-seeing eye. The artist’s eye. Art’s eye.

Not only do the primary colours (red, yellow and blue) ricochet off one another – Johns works wonders with the colours, spelling them out and painting them black with the tiniest bit of the corresponding colour peeking through, or sometimes denying us colour altogether, making such works an experiment in language.

Jasper Johns, Hart Crane (Periscope) Image: usc.edu

The targets themselves are a symphony of brushstrokes within a rigorous template. It is as if the paint, added overtop barely visible newsprint, has been held hostage to the paintings’ structure.

Jasper Johns, Souvenir, 1970. Image: americanart.si

In other works he swipes a ruler from a single point into a perfect circle, or half-circle. This brings to mind Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The idea of the eye (and the target) as being made of mathematical measurements also evokes the idea that humankind is limited by our knowledge - Descartes’ cogito ergo sum.

Leonardo da Vinci, Vetruvian Man, c. 1492. Image: lclark.edu

2. Over at the Jean Tinguely museum, a comprehensive survey of the Situationist movement was on view. The Situationists began as a rebellious group in 1950s Paris with Guy Debord, Asger Jorn and others and expanded across the world, eventually splitting into various factions like the Lettrists.

Guy Debord and the Situationist International. Image: mitpress.mit.edu

Most noteworthy in this exhibition were Constant’s architectural models, and Guiseppe Pinot Gallizio, whose rolls of paintings meant to be cut off at the behest of the buyer (presumably to fit above his or her sofa) were spectacularly suspended from the ceiling.

Constant Nieuwenhuys, New Babylon 1956-1972, maquette. Image: 8weekly.nl

3. Robert Gober. We had only seen an occasional piece of Gober’s here and there in group exhibitions – a pair of hairy wax legs protruding from a wall, for instance.

Robert Gober, Untitled, 1991. Image: acrstudio.com

What a discovery awaited at Basel’s Schaulager (an architectural masterwork by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron – and one of VoCA’s favorite museums.)

An interior view of Herzog and de Meuron’s Schaulager. Image: aml.si

The best piece in the exhibition was an untitled permanent installation with a large concrete Virgin Mary, her welcoming arms open, a huge drainpipe bisecting her torso. On either side were two large suitcases lying on the ground, and at the back was a life-sized lit staircase set into the wall. The sound of rushing water filled the space. Upon close inspection we noticed that each of the three central pieces sat on what appeared to be an everyday city street sewer, under which ran a brightly-lit burbling brook complete with (fake) algae, oysters and mussels. Under the Virgin, oversized coins had been added to the water. The staircase was beautifully lit from above, with droplets of water sparkling as they struck each step. It was a stunning evocation of heaven, the descent, our earthly moment (the viewer – that’s you) and the underworld. The passage of time seemed to fill in for the lack of running water in the present moment.

Robert Gober, Untitled, 1995 – 1997. Image: schaulager.org

MoCCA director David Liss, who had already seen the piece, told VoCA that “it was the best installation I had ever seen” and VoCA can see why. Certainly worth the trip to Basel.

Gober’s sculptures were displayed thoughout the space, some more effectively than others. In one room, an installation selected from a show that he had curated in collaboration with Matthew Drutt from Houston’s de Menil Collection in 2005 was another revelation that brought together Abe Lincoln’s head, a woman’s black satin coat with a cut of blood-red lining and a fireplace of severed limbs.

Robert Gober, Untitled, 1994-5. Image: menil.org

According to the literature, the show-within-a-show sought to demonstrate the artist’s interest in life and death.

Head of Abe Lincoln, 19th-20th century. Image: menil.org

NOTE:
Please SCROLL DOWN for VoCA’s interview with RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER and a preview of DAVID ALTMEJD at the Venice Biennale.

A national curatorial panel has selected five finalists for the $50,000 2007 Sobey Art Award, Canada’s answer to the UK’s Turner Prize.

The Sobey Art Award is given to an artist who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

The five finalists, one from each of five regions, were chosen from a list of 25 Canadian artists. They are:

West Coast: Ron Terada
Prairies and the North: Rachelle Viader Knowles
Ontario: Shary Boyle
Québec: Michel de Broin
Atlantic Canada: Jean-Denis Boudreau

RON TERADA is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver. See more HERE.

Ron Terada, Palm Tree, 2004. Image: preview-art.com

RACHELLE VIADER KNOWLES is represented by Peak Gallery, Toronto. See more HERE.

Rachelle Viader Knowles, lou’s eyes, 2004. Image: peakgallery.com

SHARY BOYLE is represented by Jessica Bradley Art & Projects, Toronto. See more HERE.

Shary Boyle, Snowball, 2006. Image: sharyboyle.com

MICHEL DE BROIN is represented by Pierre Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain. See more HERE.

Michel de Broin, Red Monochrome, video installation, 2002. Image: pfoac.com

JEAN-DENIS BOURDREAU’s work can be seen on his blog HERE.

Jean Denis Boudreau, Fort 2. Image: jboud.blogspot.com