National Post // Sincerely sublime at three Queen West galleries
As CAMH's construction cranes loom over West Queen West, old also meets new--to pleasing effect--in three area exhibitions.
1. Morley Shayuk at Paul Petro Special Projects Space
962 Queen St. W. To Aug. 31.
William Blake sought "the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower," but Morley Shayuk has been looking for transcendence at the mall and Tim Hortons. Scarborough Town Centre and the Dufferin Mall are just a couple of places where Shayuk videotaped design elements -- think food court porticos and fake-rock wall treatments -- that reminded him of the spirituality-symbolizing shapes and colours often used in 20th-century abstract art. The resulting short film isn't as good as its premise, but it's luckily just one part of this show. The exhibition's true highlight (and tone-setter) is a massive, rectangular beige-stucco monolith that dominates the small gallery space. Etched with more of those (once high-minded) abstract shapes, this monolith would be at home next to a Boston Cream or Brancusi's Kiss. It's both grand and silly, sincere and sarcastic--impressively so. A small abstract painting with a similarly neutral palette completes the show. Together, these works reminded me of the power of context -- that what's penetrating in one time and space can be pedestrian in another. This is a common contemporary-art theme, but it's freshened by Shayuk's quirks, like his crush on Group of Seven misfit Lionel Lemoine Fitzgerald. Overall, a good closing exhibition for 962 Queen West, which has been home to left-field art shows since 1996.
2. Gilbert Garcin at Stephen Bulger Gallery
1026 Queen St. W. To Sept. 25.
Fans of Hitchcock's films and Mad Men's title sequence should visit French artist Gilbert Garcin's first Canadian solo show. The graphic-design quality of Garcin's black-and-white self-portraits evokes these cultural touchstones, and it's rare to see contemporary works with such a witty, direct 1960s feel. Then again, Garcin is no ordinary contemporary artist; now in his eighties, the former manufacturing company executive started his art career at the age of 65. Appropriately, the wisdom of age pervades his montages -- rather than being concerned with obscure, arty trends, Garcin addresses the big themes of power, narcissism, fear, love, creativity, history, loneliness and (of course) death with clear, unabashed succinctness. (The worst thing that can be said is a few works seem IKEAposter simple rather than Elliott-Erwitt elegant.) Most touching are the prints that include Garcin's wife -- the only other individual, it seems, who's trusted enough to enter the magic circle of his creations. Posed together on a clay globe, looking out into an existential sunset, this unyouthful, unglamorous couple suggests the oft-overlooked richness of years both past and yet to come.
3. Winnie Truong at Katharine Mulherin
1082 Queen St. W. To Sept. 5.
It's always a bit apprehensiveness-inducing to see strong work from someone barely out of their teens; after all, A+ report cards don't always translate into a stable, self-sustaining adult art practice. Nonetheless, the prospects for recent OCAD grad Winnie Truong do seem promising. Born in 1988, Truong creates remarkable large-scale drawings where portrait-sitters' hair -- that shiny, typically inanimate add-on -- becomes an active character, growing into nooses, cysts, balloons, teeth (!) and more. It's nightmarish, Freudian-flavoured fun, with Truong's terrifically drafted pencil-crayon lines becoming much like the strands of hair they depict -- winding around, fixing and trapping their subjects. While some of Truong's drawings (like the one with hair growing out of a model-beautiful boy's mouth) are moderately gag-inducing, the overall effect is surprisingly seductive, a mash-up of gorgeousness and revulsion. I'll never watch a Clairol commercial quite the same way again.
