Yesterday I went to the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal - an amazing building on gorgeous grounds with a bookstore to die for (although I have a special thing for bookstores generally - a bit of a book fetish, really). Since it's the end of the summer, there was only one exhibit on - the rest of the building was closed off in preparation for the new fall shows. The show I was able to see was called "Speed Limits", about our culture's increasing obsession with speed. Upon walking into the first room of the exhibit, I saw a video of moving vehicles (rockets, cars in traffic, planes taking off, etc) projected into a large square on the floor. It took me a minute or two to look up and see a projection of a different video on the ceiling - of snails moving across a white, wet surface in real time. Fast. Slow. I get it. I can't say this is really my kind of thing. But an artist friend of mine, Steve Shaddick, has work that addresses a lot of the ideas that were explored in the exhibit, and I quickly started to see the exhibit through his eyes. I have to say, it became a lot more fascinating. I was charmed by things I don't think I would have taken notice of without having been familiar with (and a fan of) Steve's work. People must have thought I was crazy, because I think I had a smile on my face the whole time thinking about the fact that some integrated media artist had actually entered my brain enough to make me think this stuff was actually interesting!
The experience reminded me of my trip to New York with Nitasha - an artist friend who has a serious dark side and a fascination with things much more grotesque and disturbing than I can normally stomach. But having gained an understanding of her perspective of the world through her art, I found myself looking at artworks that were slightly gruesome or nightmarish in a very different, more curious, even more patient way than I ever have before. I looked harder, with a much broader set of intentions, with a much broader perspective.
And isn't that what art should do? To help us see poetry and potential in things from which we might have otherwise turned away?
The experience reminded me of my trip to New York with Nitasha - an artist friend who has a serious dark side and a fascination with things much more grotesque and disturbing than I can normally stomach. But having gained an understanding of her perspective of the world through her art, I found myself looking at artworks that were slightly gruesome or nightmarish in a very different, more curious, even more patient way than I ever have before. I looked harder, with a much broader set of intentions, with a much broader perspective.
And isn't that what art should do? To help us see poetry and potential in things from which we might have otherwise turned away?