Public Artwork
Save Me
Artwork creator(s):
Wonnacott, Justin
Text author(s):
Wonnacott, Justin
Installation year:
1993
Remarks on location:
Ciné-terrasse (a movie screen is mounted on the wall adjacent to the terrace, projections are presented every summer from June.)
Description:
Projected images outdoors
Text of the artwork:
Save me
Text theme:
Call for help
Artwork theme:
Interpretation of moving images (exploration)
History:
Exhibition Ex site, New Line 7 = Outside Gallery 101, Ottawa, ON / Hull, QC, from July 9 to August 31, 1993. (Artists: Pierre Dalpé, Diane Génier, André Martin, Richard Nigro, Michael Robinson, Justin Wonnacott, Anne-Marie Zeppetelli. Curator: Richard Gagnier. Curator: Cindy Deachman. Eleven artists have been invited to invest 6 city sites to create works in situ. The screenings were held during the intermission, once a week throughout the summer.)
Note(s):
"The viewer could take it or leave it. The static nature of the image allowed people to study the image and assign meaning to it in ways that are different from how they would approach the moving images they usually saw presented there. The picture suggests that some action is desired of the reader, i.e.: save me but the "product" is ambiguous and open to many interpretations. The photographs are nineteenth century cartes de visite. The image held in the woman's hand shows a long dead quadriplegic civil war veteran in a studio. The man's hand holds a picture of a black man with what appears to be sugar cane on his shoulder. The red stripes are positioned as if they were a "comp" that would later be the place where the explanatory text would be placed. The image is an extended set of puns intended to connote diverse readings. The overall shape is like a flag, the predominant colours are red and black, the woman's hand is the "distaff" side, the action is in the present but the images proferred refer to memory and the past but their meaning is determined by the present use of them as historical documents. This was the first digital work I produced for exhibition."
Justin Wonnacott (2008). Justin Wonnacott posts
<http://www.aregeebee.net/pages/justinp.html>
Artist's biography:
Justin Wonnacott Document(s):
Syndicate
