Baleful
Pari Nadimi Gallery is pleased to present Baleful a group exhibition curated by Ben Portis.
In response to an invitation from Pari Nadimi, curator Ben Portis recalls one of the first artists and works to deeply impress him upon his arrival in Toronto in 2002 鈥� Jennifer Stillwell鈥檚 Bale. In what Stillwell termed a performance installation at YYZ, she methodically disassembled the modest contents of a living room 鈥� breaking down and un-stuffing a sofa and chairs, collapsing end tables, dismantling lamps. These assorted parts were finally tumbled into an immense roll, wrapped together by the room鈥檚 carpet and under pad. An anti-monument to a vanished life, the residual sculpture suggested submission, sacrifice and dread, a tidy, melancholic and self-inflicted variant of the Destroyed Room.
Stillwell mounts the closely related and little-seen work, Packs, 2002, on generous loan from the collection of Oakville Galleries. Comprised of five armchairs, completely dismantled, their guts crammed into and over-spilling their textile covers, Packs is an even more uncanny work. The anthropomorphic design of the easy chairs turns into phantoms of the departed sitters.
The insidious and unavoidable sepses that possessions can impose are alluded to in three new works being shown alongside Stillwell. Rhonda Weppler + Trevor Mahovsky鈥檚 installation, Don鈥檛 be sad that it is over, be happy that it ever began, 2015, reproduces the detritus of an abandoned dorm room wall. Posters, mementos and a deflated balloon gather dust in the gloom, left behind by a former occupant, not yet pitched out by the next. Works were produced specifically for Baleful by rising artist Jimmy Limit and emerging artist Nikki Woolsey. Limit has earned widespread praise for his portrayals of real-time ossification of contemporary consumer culture. Woolsey is a millennial gleaner and custodian of the ready-obsolescent devises a display locker for the unwanted, unnamed and unnoticed object.
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Pari Nadimi Gallery is pleased to present Baleful a group exhibition curated by Ben Portis.
In response to an invitation from Pari Nadimi, curator Ben Portis recalls one of the first artists and works to deeply impress him upon his arrival in Toronto in 2002 鈥� Jennifer Stillwell鈥檚 Bale. In what Stillwell termed a performance installation at YYZ, she methodically disassembled the modest contents of a living room 鈥� breaking down and un-stuffing a sofa and chairs, collapsing end tables, dismantling lamps. These assorted parts were finally tumbled into an immense roll, wrapped together by the room鈥檚 carpet and under pad. An anti-monument to a vanished life, the residual sculpture suggested submission, sacrifice and dread, a tidy, melancholic and self-inflicted variant of the Destroyed Room.
Stillwell mounts the closely related and little-seen work, Packs, 2002, on generous loan from the collection of Oakville Galleries. Comprised of five armchairs, completely dismantled, their guts crammed into and over-spilling their textile covers, Packs is an even more uncanny work. The anthropomorphic design of the easy chairs turns into phantoms of the departed sitters.
The insidious and unavoidable sepses that possessions can impose are alluded to in three new works being shown alongside Stillwell. Rhonda Weppler + Trevor Mahovsky鈥檚 installation, Don鈥檛 be sad that it is over, be happy that it ever began, 2015, reproduces the detritus of an abandoned dorm room wall. Posters, mementos and a deflated balloon gather dust in the gloom, left behind by a former occupant, not yet pitched out by the next. Works were produced specifically for Baleful by rising artist Jimmy Limit and emerging artist Nikki Woolsey. Limit has earned widespread praise for his portrayals of real-time ossification of contemporary consumer culture. Woolsey is a millennial gleaner and custodian of the ready-obsolescent devises a display locker for the unwanted, unnamed and unnoticed object.
Artists on show
