Ian Pedigo: Totemic Architectures, Shifting Grounds
Ian Pedigo At Least One Person Was Killed 2009 / photo Christina Cuthbertson
New York artist Ian Pedigo reveals the transformative potential hidden in the abandoned remnants of everyday life in “Those That Float Because They Are Light,” an exhibition of sculptural constructions at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Much has been written about Pedigo’s work, which has previously shown in London, Paris, Chicago and New York. Notes on its material relationship to “unmonumental” art practices, commentary on its entropic accumulation to a “geometric cacophony” and remarks on its subversion of architectural and institutional structures all hold true to the works Pedigo has assembled at the SAAG. There’s also a certain mystical and totemic quality to his sculptures reminiscent of the elemental, shamanic strategies of Joseph Beuys.
Ian Pedigo In A Shaded Corner Of The Room 2009 / photo Christina Cuthbertson
Take Pedigo’s At Least One Person Was Killed, in which various rocks cut across a grey carpet towards a rising metal frame, or In A Shaded Corner of the Room, where a broken tree branch lies mysteriously across the circular base of another metal framework. In this shifting ground between unexpected combinations of material form and universal meaning, Pedigo’s work finds its resonance. (601 3 Ave S, Lethbridge AB)
Ian Pedigo Forced Delays 2009 / photo Christina Cuthbertson
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