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“Buildup”: Between Monumentality and Disintegration

Ottawa Art Gallery Feb 15 to May 11
Dan Kennedy <i>Shack of Deals</i> 2001 Detail / photo Rémi Thériault Dan Kennedy Shack of Deals 2001 Detail / photo Rémi Thériault

Dan Kennedy <i>Shack of Deals</i> 2001 Detail / photo Rémi Thériault

Dan Kennedy <i>Shack of Deals</i> 2001 Detail /

Dan Kennedy Shack of Deals 2001 Detail / photo Rémi Thériault

While many of us are trying to pare down and reorganize in the name of spring cleaning, a group exhibition at the Ottawa Art Gallery thwarts these Martha Stewart aspirations by examining the accumulative impulse in kitsch, pop culture and capitalism. Featuring six contemporary artists who use appropriation and collage to both “elevate and violate the products of mass marketing,” “Buildup” brings high art, advertising and mass culture together through their common practices of assemblage and display.

Wendy Walgate <i>Red is Desire</i> 2004 Installation view /

Wendy Walgate Red is Desire 2004 Installation view / photo David Barbour

The word “buildup” connotes an end: a critical point at which the layering will culminate in something monumental, or collapse under its own weight. Instead, the works in this show—from Dan Kennedy’s painted mash-ups of logos and catchphrases to Michèle Provost’s tile mosaics of pop-music lyrics—occupy a place on the cusp between monumentality and disintegration that revels in aesthetic overstimulation. (2 Daly Ave, Ottawa ON)

Michèle Provost <i>The Music Box</i> 2007/8 Installation view /

Michèle Provost The Music Box 2007/8 Installation view / photo David Barbour
This article was first published online on March 27, 2008.

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