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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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excerpt from Harold Meyerson, LA Weekly (thanks SB)
If John Kerry is elected next Tuesday, the tsunami of volunteer activity within the independent groups will be in large part responsible. Whether this tsunami can be bottled — whether this coalition will take on a permanent life of its own, become an enduring progressive presence in American politics — is a question of resources, opportunity, Zeitgeist and even law (the legal status of the 527s may be under attack if Bush wins). But the leaders of progressive organizations, Democratic elected officials, and the hundreds of thousands of phone bankers and precinct walkers, each for their own reasons, want the outpouring of 2004 to become a fixture of American politics. “Progressives have been waiting for decades for a citizen-based movement to happen,” says Ed Cyr. “One that’s independent of the party, that’s integrated, that’s effective.”
“This is it,” says Cyr. “It’s happened.”
These kiosks are from Lorna Mills' recent show at Robert McLaughlin Gallery. The texts running across the bottom of the screens are streams of race horse names, chosen for their punning, allusive qualities. For instance the kiosk on the right, titled "Greeter" contains about 250 names including:
Hello Duck Entoria Percipient Twisted Wit Hello Loneliness Beau Manners Sure Blade Meinberg Omi Par de Deux Devaluation Azazel Hassenack Ack Ack Haiati Muted Triple Fax Lillian Gish Marienbard Trupon On Chiecaworld Emblitterate Bullistic Slam the Door
 | The kiosks (seven in all), are accompanied by much earlier work, that also probes at colour, broadcast, and lateral meaning. I am particularly interested in a series of cibachrome prints (image on the left is a detail, re-shot from the catalogue by me), crappy screen shots of sports on TV, enlarged so that the image, already crunchy, dissassembles further into globs of RGB. There is horse racing, swimming, curling, golf... Sports are so specific, a particular type of cultural narrative that is delivered to us within a particular lexicon of words and pictures. Mills judders this broadcast and sends it back, adding information about the physiology of perception and the resonance of association. You could call this culture jamming, and you could call it abstraction at the same time. The show really got my gears turning but I am writing about it for a print magazine, so will not go on too much more about it here and now. |
Last night Luis Jacob, John Marriott, Michelle Jacques and myself did a talk at the AGO in conjunction with the show by Mark Lombardi. The evening was interesting, particularly the discussion afterwards. People seem generally to be concerned with truth, and where to find it. Michelle Jacques introduced Lombardi and his work. John Marriott spoke eloquently about the term "conspiracy theory" as a means of dismissal, and made a call that we alert ourselves to our ever increasing loss of privacy. Luis Jacob was inspirational in his thesis that "the truth will out." A copy of my talk, with dorky illustrations, is here.
There have been some good points on this event raised here, in an earlier thread.
Home (phew) to a misty Toronto, viewed here from the infamous Gardiner Expressway. The bottom image is of Fastwurms' welcoming big sculpture, "Woodpecker Column," at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The roadtrip continues with London Ontario, my home town. The top two rows represent typical local scenery. The bottom row represents the hot spots of my misspent youth: the patio (if you can call it that) at the Brunswick Tavern, the New Yorker rep cinema (no longer in operation), and Richmond St. (the main drag) where I used to buy "vintage" clothing and second-hand copies of Rolling Stone magazine.
On Wednesday evening I will be making a fool of myself in the Mark Lombardi show at the AGO, in company much better equipped than I to address Canadian art, politics and foreign affairs. I will, however, be armed with cue cards and small diagrams. If you are in Toronto come on by and heckle.
Global Theory Slam
Wednesday, October 20, 7 to 8:30 pm
Mark Lombardi’s extensive research into the relationships that define contemporary cultures, economies and geopolitics, is often dismissed as ‘conspiracy’. Join Toronto personalities in the exhibition space as they share their theories on the relationships that underpin Canadian art, politics and foreign affairs.
Free admission