GM: How would you characterize this exhibition of contemporary art in public compared to festivals like Nuit Blanche and Luminato?
ML: I think this exhibition is more nuanced than some of those festivals. They tend to be more “blockbustery”—to try and do something big in a small amount of time. This exhibition is much smaller and rolls out over a longer period of time. When you have one video in a storefront window for a month, it’s okay if you don’t notice it right away; you can come back to it slowly over a longer period. We’re not trying to necessarily grab you right away, but to build an experience over time.
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Kim Moodie Mirror 2008 |
GM: Many of your previous projects as an artist have brought contemporary art projects to public and non-gallery venues—I’m thinking of your installation in the Sheppard and Leslie subway station, or the large-scale sculpture that was commissioned for Calgary’s Victoria Park in particular. What are some of the challenges and benefits of creating or commissioning works for public spaces?
ML: Well, the benefits include that if you carefully select things according to what you think people wouldn’t expect to see and bring it to them, then it might interest them in a way that might not work in a gallery setting. I try to select work that, if people gave it a chance and took a look at it, they would enjoy. Having the positive reinforcement of even working with a store owner who becomes interested in the project they’re hosting is a big benefit in and of itself.
GM: Which projects in “Here Now or Nowhere” are you most excited about?
ML: The newspaper project that Michael Dumontier, Kim Moodie and Erica Van Horn are creating, but maybe because it’s the project I would most like to be involved with as an artist. Each artist has a full page in the newspaper to use and you’ll open a newspaper and there will be this really great, graphic black and white project. So for me, conceptually and graphically the newspaper is the most interesting. This is the project viewers have asked for the least because they’ll open the paper and it will be there, so in that way it will have the greatest viewership. It’s the project that is the most surprising and is something I’d like to continue afterwards. I think the audience will be really excited when they open it up and see, for instance, a project by Kim Moodie made specifically for the exhibition that is a really dense, graphic drawing.
Other installation projects, like Germaine Koh’s telephone piece Call, (which randomly calls a project participant who is willing to have a conversation with the viewer when the handset is lifted) is already a real hit. Some of the projects, like Kelly Mark’s Glow House, are new versions of older projects, but three of the projects in the exhibition are world premieres, which is really exciting: along with Kim Moodie’s newspaper drawing, Jan Peacock is creating a new video installation called Bystander in a storefront vitrine and Adad Hannah is debuting two new vertically oriented videos depicting figures holding large mirrors in the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec and those are brand new in his practice.
Online versions of “Here Now or Nowhere” installations can be seen at www.herenowornowhere.com.
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Jan Peacock Bystander 2008 Performance still |
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