Shelley Miller: Refining History
Shelley Miller “Refining History” 2010 Installation view Courtesy the artist and FOFA Gallery / photo Guy L’Heureux
Ephemeral or temporary phenomena are often provided with an extended life through history’s frame—perhaps never more so than when the public is doing the framing. Shelley Miller’s summer exhibition, “Refining Histories,” seems to historicize the impermanence of her often-disappearing, often-fragile sugar-based works while simultaneously preventing same. With the help of viewers (and, more recently, certain technological media) Miller has directed her carefully produced sugar murals, which mimic Portugese colonial tiles and tend to melt, drip and become prey to bees, towards questions of a more formal forgetting. For instance, viewers at FOFA Gallery can consider the modern-day vanitas of Miller’s sugar installation The Wealth of Some and the Ruin of Others through a series of photographic prints documenting its disappearance. Or they can enjoy a more active role in the process of history-making with Cargo, a multimedia installation that invites viewers to overlay images of intact sugar tiles with those of tiles that have been wasted and decayed. In today's era, memory is preserved or rejected at the click of a shutter or the movement of a mouse. In Miller’s case, these elements push the work from questions of decay and decadence to larger issues of maintenance and significance. It’s all in how you frame the story. (1515 rue Ste-Catherine O, Montreal QC)
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Shelley Miller The Wealth of Some and the Ruin of Others 2009 Detail Courtesy the artist |
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Shelley Miller The Wealth of Some and the Ruin of Others 2009 Detail Courtesy the artist |
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