Heat: Marvelous Meltdowns
Adam David Brown Constellation 2010
MKG127 acknowledges this season’s above-average Toronto temperatures with “Heat,” an exhibition that ironically offers some cool respite. The air-conditioned gallery hums with works from Adam David Brown, Dean Drever, Dave Dyment, Sky Glabush and Ken Nicol. Skimping on literal allusions to all things “hot,” the works nevertheless fricassee with a certain electricity. Drever’s black enamelled flags tower over the gallery, their crossed poles forming waving scythes. If you lean in close, you can see their auto-body paint rippled and streaked to mimic the American and Canadian flags. Allies and allegiances are unlikely here, with the slick wall sculpture looming like a harbinger of war. Sky Glabush’s Untitled (Guitar Player) similarly stands tall, this time with a lanky musician from a sun-faded decade. Meanwhile, Brown’s Constellation (with “holes” listed amongst its media) pops like bubbling tar beside Dyment’s cut vinyl and Nicol’s Numbers Not Counting, a diptych patterning an existential crisis numerically. MKG127 has positioned this show to match meltdown, but strangely, little has felt or looked so cool in some time. (127 Ossington Ave, Toronto ON)
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Dean Drever No Title (Black) 2010 |
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Sky Glabush Untitled (Guitar Player) 2010 |
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