Stuffing

Curated by Cindy Baker
artspace
Peterborough, Ontario
November – December 2003

Click on names above for artists’ statements.

Ironically or not, we live in a society where we have the luxury to discuss luxury. As artists and cultural workers, we have the luxury to describe art and artmaking as essential. As political creatures, we live in a society that has the luxury to debate that notion and the luxury to make a decision one way or the other.

We have the luxury to ponder our faults and problems; the luxury to flog ourselves in public and look all the better for it.

In this age of abundance, guilt is redundant.

The artists in this exhibition use rich, sensual media to make frivolous, self-indulgent objects. Their topics of meditation are confined to sex, food, toys and games, fashion, grooming, artmaking. Without a hint of irony, these are their necessary activities.

Beyond this, they use media that have traditionally been rejected for the purposes of classification as “art,” to comment on subject matter that is often considered less-than-serious; narcissistic, playful, self-indulgent.

Frivolous does not necessarily mean hopeless or pointless, however. Perhaps because their materials are so pliant and their subjects so malleable, this art is manipulated to a broader end product. Somehow, they manage to focus on common, even global ideas. These artists do not apologize but attempt to define an ethics of abundance by living and talking honestly through the art about their concerns; surprisingly contemporary ideas.

Winnie Fung, for example, through a clever combination of quilting, (“women’s media,”) and commercially manufactured products, comments on sweatshop labour ­ a quintessential example of one fully aware of her own complicity in social perversion, as well as her own lack of answers.

“The tensions between public and private, between collective and individual,
evolved in what seems quite a ragged fashion…ragged because of the uneven
development of those spheres – civic, commercial and social – that each
came to have a stake in displaying art.” (1)

Each artist in Stuffing seems to recognize these 3 modes of display and tailor their art to respond to the concerns of all 3.

“Welcome to the exciting world of REALDOLL! Since 1996, we have been
using Hollywood special effects technology to produce the most realistic
love doll in the world. Our dolls feature completely articulated skeletons
which allow for anatomically correct positioning, an exclusive blend of
the most expensive silicone rubbers for an ultra-flesh like feel, and are
each custom made to order, to our customer’s specifications. We offer an
extensive list of options, from body type and face type all the way down
to fingernail color. If you’ve ever dreamed of creating your ideal woman,
then you have come to the right place. Please feel free to browse our site,
but email us with your serious inquiries only.” (2)

RealDoll is the ultimate contemporary toy, offering joy, comfort, reality; but it’s deeply disturbing ­ it’s not just a surrogate, but a better-than-the real-thing replacement. Some of the work in Stuffing is reminiscent of the RealDoll masterplan. Are these pieces surrogates? If so, then for what?

Megan Dickie’s creature comforts are overtly disturbing AND comforting; the supple leather caressing units reference exploitation carried out to the end of placating our concerns about that very exploitation, in a display that is simultaneously over-the-top contextually but subtle in its realization.

Heather Beauchesne’s dolls, in reality, are merely mannequins for her uniforms; uniforms for likeminded comerades. They belie her ongoing struggle to find (or, finally, make for herself) some rare peers, conceding her admission of a conscious but luxurious lifestyle.

In his anthropomorphic cyborg animals, anthropologist-cum-artist Kevin Greisch demonstrates a Frankenstein-like fascination with the limits of what is possible. This is a hallmark not of an advanced society but one of abundance; one with time on its’ hands. This kind of creation does not claim to be a noble pursuit; it is self-aware of its frivolous nature and the potential for danger through its idle hands.

“Meanings are always just about to be undermined…and only their vulnerability
is universal.” (3)

Tamara Bond creates beautifully simple drawings. Part self-portrait, part doll, part absent-minded or even innocent doodle, they bring to mind images of play, dreams, beauty, self-reflection ­ as well as all the darkness embodied within those same things. Her impulse to work directly onto the gallery walls makes the imagery of immediacy and vulnerability that much more tangible.

“The historical avant-garde died a death of acceptance, not rejection,
after all.” (4)

What does this mean for artists? The inevitability of acceptance puts us in a place of even greater complacency and luxury than when artists could at least assure themselves that what they were doing was unacceptable and that was why it was inaccessible.

Monika Napier’s extension cord sculptures are the embodiment of utility made frivolous; a physical demonstration of abundance, concerned entirely with the aesthetic and an almost complete discarding of function. Art for art’s sake; or, more to the point, art for the curator’s (name) sake, Baker’s dozen plays with the idea in a tongue-in-cheek way so as to wryly comment on that ‘avant-garde’ art which does this earnestly.

“Public presentations of private intentions, like court cases or religious
services, (exhibitions) raise the stakes of individual expression to the
level of the social.” (5)

In the most irreverent work in Stuffing, Paul Atkins uses the most violent video game on the market to reject that same violence through a wit that is both intelligent, yet evocative of the humour one would expect the target market of this game to revel in. Thus, he creates a critique that fans of the game can relate to.

Each artist in this exhibition comes from a different place, has different interests and makes different points; their similarity rests primarily in the facility with which they negotiate art and life, form and content. They may not agree in their values – representative of a broad culture (another hallmark of an abundant culture; free thought, freedom of choice, focus on individuality) – they share a sense of awareness about the world around them. Excesses have become necessities; curiosities have become philosophical pursuits.

Some work is meticulous, craft and science-oriented, while some is simple, homemade, crude, intuitive; they all stem form the same place of self-aware luxury. What is the intention of the artist? The art? Facility, or finding the time to perfect an unnecessary craft? Laziness, or admitting that there is no need to perfect any craft?

They are not either dazzled by their own beauty nor smug within their intellect. Fully aware of their own complicity in this social structure, they work from within.

These artists do not feign to reject or deny their reality, but work through it to create works that bespeak a contemporary condition. Instead of reveling in their ‘privileged’ position, these artists work hard to (successfully) navigate the line between work that is visually enchanting and work that is intellectually dense.

Because they are aware of their position within the artworld and perhaps a broader world, these 7 struggle to decide what is important, rather than just blindly create, as has always been the prerogative of artists. Most contemporary artists continue to live within this state of blind luxury, even the fabled starving ones. Unaware that their imperative is a symptom of a society of abundance, their earnest creations are in danger of appearing flat.

The artists in this exhibition stuff their art with at least a fluffy awareness, rounding out the work and giving it not a weighty seriousness, but three dimensions.

It’s what’s inside that counts.

(1) Ward, Martha ; What’s Important about the History of Modern Art Exhibitions?, Thinking About Exhibitions, Greenberg, Ferguson and Nairne, Routledge, 1996

(2) realdoll.com

(3) Ferguson, Bruce W; Exhibition Rhetorics ­ Material speech and utter sense, Thinking About Exhibitions, Greenberg, Ferguson and Nairne, Routledge, 1996

(4) Ferguson, IBID

(5) Ferguson, IBID