"Is there a there there?" in Oakville
"Is there a there there?" in Oakville
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Stephen Shore, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 16th of August, 1974, 2000, © National Gallery of Canada |
Gertrude Stein once said upon returning to her hometown of Oakland, California that, “There is no there, there.” It’s an observation that cuts to the very essence of a nondescript modern environment that is at once anywhere and nowhere. Inverting this famous statement into the question “Is there a there there?” curator Marnie Fleming presents a themed exhibition of works by fifteen artists that offer a Canadian perspective on the idea of suburbia. From Molly Lamb Bobak’s abstracted painting of a post-war, “cookie cutter” housing development to Robin Collyer’s stark colour photographs of strip malls, the exhibition contrasts the idealism of suburban communities with the banal reality of big box retailers and commuter gridlock. Depending on your point of view, the places pictured in these images could represent a failed modernist dream or the logical progression of a compartmentalized convenience culture. It is this ambiguous nature of the suburban landscape that has come to define contemporary Canadian life. To January 27. (Oakville Galleries, 1306 Lakeshore Rd E./120 Navy St., Oakville, ON)
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Molly Lamb Bobak, New Housing Project, 1956, courtesy National Gallery of Canada |
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