BGL VS Caroline Lathan-Stiefel

Hello again,
and no that's not the sound of a bad tune by the band
The Cars, but just me showing up again to babble about my wherabouts.


I've seen a couple art shows lately
(missed many others), endlessly getting
back to a normal life.


I was disappointed by the BGL show at Art Mur,
which really looked more like an assemblage of bits
from previous works and performances.

I am sad that it was the first time in 4 years
or more that this group had a solo in Montreal,
because frankly it could give an impression that they "lost it",
when their last show at Mercer Union was one of
the top best exhibits in 2005.

I hope these guys can read me, but..It's really not
worth it to fill air in between other invitations
with a show of pre-baked stuff. And I understand
that Art Mur is a commercial gallery but I am certain
these guys are open to ideas. Did you know you can sell
bits of an installation while it's actually playing?
No need to sell bits of it 3 years later.


Nonetheless, a bad BGL show is still above
many other shows, and the best part was the turnstyle made with a taxidermised moose (that came as a surprised
once you turned around a vertically half-cutted wall that was hiding it).

The hidden-wall installation must have surprised some anew
to their art but was only a re-hash of bits seen previously.
Reinstigating a theatrical contrast between the lightning of a fireplace
switching with the ambiance of a dry office room that was left empty
but a series of chair folded against the walls, as if they had
been previously used for a discussion group (the subtlety was in all the ashes
spread around the corners of the room).


This group of artists have often surprised by the way it
linked a sheer humor with otherwise serious socio-political
outcries, when not simply daring to engage the sublime (usually in over-the-top
immersive installations).

But this time I got to say this mess of
sculptural bits, mixed with a couple photos,
canvas, and one video residual of earlier
performances, look more like scusez-moi
plain quebecois slapstick. Art for the sake of laughing.
Or twitting, to use a term from my previous blog.
Hmm...Interestingly I was recently
praising the healing qualities of humor art,
in fact just one post ago, but I guess I just didn't find the
BGL proposition to be "that" funny.


A very good show was
Caroline Lathan-Stiefel's installation
at Articule, which I don't have the name
next to me, but which consisted of a
complex inter-weaving of tiny constructions
and nets made with colored "fiber-wires"
(I forgot the name of those too, but you
can find them in any dollaramas).


Have you heard of any "sprawling aesthetic" lately?


Have you heard of Sarah Sze, Thomas Hirschorn, or even the coming
back of Jessica Stockholder ?

Well this was it, merely. Sort of a soft, crafty, childhood-sy, dollhouse-oozy version of that, on a smaller scale, but less confusing because mostly made
from a couple singled-out materials, and featuring many recogniseable forms
(beds, octopus, houses) among a generally abstract expression.


I think that is where art is going. Really a name to follow.



What else?

Nah... The best part about the last show at Optica was indeed that the walls
were painted black, but that is all I wish to say about it.


Tomorrow is Nuit Banche in this city, a full night of open events,
so I might as well visit a couple shows then.


I am considering, quite lazy-ly, a trip to New York in March,
but hoolah, maybe just a couple days, to visit the
Andrea Zittel retro.


I never wrote any damn review of 2005, maybe I should
try think about that too.


Cheers,

Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com


PS: I should be doing art of my own
if all goes well, soon.


PS2: I need a digital camera badly,
to enhance this blog with some snapshots.


PS3: I just realized something REALLY DUMB.
This blog was only accepting comments from people
with passwords. HAH. Corrected.