Présences du littéraire dans l’espace public canadien - Mecanism

Password

Marie-Claude Langevin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:54:08 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Storey, Alan

Artwork creator(s):

Storey, Alan

Text author(s):

Storey, Alan

Text author(s):

Storey, Alan

Installation year:

1994

Remarks on location:

Between Homer and Drake Streets; installed on 3 exhaust vents from the underground parkade, adjacent to sidewalk

Artwork description

Source: Photo provided by Marc André Brouillettete

Source: Photo provided by Marc André Brouillette

Description:

Four sets of four letters rotate to form random words. The stainless letters are installed on the three exhaust vents from the underground parkade and spin with the air flow coming out of the exhaust fans of an underground residential parkade. The letters randomly spell out words, and with the title, imply the possibility of a password that will break the separation between public and private space.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

[activity: group of words # 1]

work
rest
play

[architecture: combining words # 2]

post
beam
door
wall

[public space: group of words # 3]

city
park
yard

[time: group of words # 4]

wind
rain

Text theme:

Activity, architecture, public space; weather

Artwork theme:

Boundary between public space and private space

History

History:

Model prepared in 1992. Artwork completed in 1994.

Dimensions

Height:

0.5m

Width:

2.33m

Other information

Note(s):

Sponsoring Organization: Concord Pacific Group Inc. Private development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnbw8lTzzjg&feature=player_embedded

Artist's biography:

Alan Storey

Owner(s):

City of Vancouver

Source:

Forty Functions Ltd , Vancouver, C-B Tél : 604-685-2557 Email : fortyfunctions@shaw.ca 2. Office of Cultural Affairs Community Services Group City of Vancouver 453 West 12th Avenue Vancouver, BC, Canada V5Y 1V4 Tel: 604-871-6434 Fax: 604-871-6005 E-mail: oca@vancouver.ca Web: www.vancouver.ca/culture

Document(s):

City of Vancouver Public Art Walk : Downtown Shoreline

SOS

Marie-Claude Langevin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:00:06 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Dickson, John

Artwork creator(s):

Dickson, John

Text author(s):

Dickson, John

Text author(s):

Dickson, John

Installation year:

2001

Artwork description

Source: Drobnick, Jim; Jennifer Fisher (2002). Museopathy, Kingston: Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Description:

A device installed on the bottom of the harbour water shoots air bubbles to the surface every 22 seconds. The bubbles spell the acronym SOS.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

SOS

Text theme:

Cry of help

Artwork theme:

Water, pollution, ecological crisis in situ (Lake Ontario), nautical history of shipwrecks in Kingston

History

History:

Art Exhibition to Museopathy, Kingston, June 23-September 9, 2001. (Organized by the Agnes Etherington Art Center. Commissioners: Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher.)

Event date(s):

2001

Dimensions

Height:

2.7m

Width:

Other information

Note(s):

An anchored apparatus of copper tubes and solenoid valves was rigged to a compressor and timed to release air.

Museopathy explored the implications of museological affect – how museums feel and subtly influence visitors. The auratic features of museums – their particular moods, presences and ambiences – were highlighted, intensified or counteracted in order to examine meanings that may have been lost due to the exigencies of conveying persuasive, singular narratives. Our impetus was to foreground the great diversity of relational experiences within a civic exhibitionary complex rather than a pure aesthetic gaze upon discrete, autonomous objects. This emphasis on immersed beholding requires the apprehension of the overall reality of the display context, one that goes beyond reading an exhibition as if it were a linear text. Museopathy thus focused on the types of affective interactions that take place in museums, such as between audiences and objects, between objects and collections, and among the varied exhibition contexts of the city of Kingston as a whole.

Source: Drobnick, Jim; Jennifer Fisher (2002). Museopathy. Kingston: Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Artist's biography:

Dickson, John

Document(s):

Museopathy

Spotlight: John Dickson: the fluidity of art and life

Une odeur de désordre

Marie-Claude Langevin — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:43:38 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Lewis, Mark

Artwork creator(s):

Lewis, Mark

Text author(s):

Lewis, Mark

Text author(s):

Lewis, Mark

Installation year:

1992

Remarks on location:

The work was installed in four bookstores: Champigny, Flammarion (Laurier branch), Gallimard and Lexis.

Artwork description

Source:Lamoureux, Johanne & Andrew Payne (1995). Mark Lewis. Public Art: Photographs and Projects. Vancouver: Fine arts Gallery.

Description:

The artist installed ten metallic boxes throughout the city of Montreal. Each of these "temporary monuments" featured a drawing or a black and white photograph of an earlier public manifestation of disorder. Each location was chosen in relation to each event. Text appears under each image, relating a fictitious testimony. An automatic sprayer sprays an essential oil fragrance that evoke the chosen public event. In four Montreal public bookstores, the artist also set up areas with displays of books about the sense of smell.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

Testimony

Text theme:

Fiction

Artwork theme:

History, public disorder

History

History:

The work was also presented at Kettles Yard in Cambridge, England, in 1991.

Exhibition: Pour la suite du monde, Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992

Dimensions

Height:

0.76m

Width:

0.38m

Depth:

0.3 m

Other information

Artist's biography:

Mark Lewis

Document(s):

Contemporary-art museum a knockout; Inaugural exhibitions pack a powerful, promising one-two punch

Mark Lewis : Public Art, Photographs and Projects

Une odeur de luxe

Marie-Claude Langevin — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:36:50 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Lewis, Mark

Artwork creator(s):

Lewis, Mark

Text author(s):

Lewis, Mark

Text author(s):

Lewis, Mark

Installation year:

1990

Artwork description

Source: Lamoureux, Johanne & Andrew Payne (1995). Mark Lewis. Public Art: Photographs and Projects. Vancouver: Fine arts Gallery

Description:

"Odour-spraying" devices were installed in the airport toilets. In the men's room, the devices offered fragrances for women; in the women's room, fragrances for men. Text written in vinyl letters had been glued to the walls and other surfaces. Drawn from the fields of literature, science, psychoanalysis and art, these texts evoked the relationship between the sense of smell and memory, sex, history, gender, etc.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Text of the artwork:

Men's Room:

Breathe into me your perfume and your heat so that my sex will rise clearly out of yours. Your pearl teeth crashed against his with the sound of cymbals and your warm fragrant breath blew around hum like an Italian gale. It was an odor you knew well, exciting, simulating, restlessly sweet ___?___ the odor of a fashionable dance. Des lèvres se posaient sur sa joue sur ses tempes, au coin des lèvres et Hélène fut enveloppée d’une pale vapeur sucrée; elle ferma les yeux. As you lean forward a wait of exertion comes off you sour with use, and also too sweet as if you had borrowed some one else's skin. Tu as l’odeur de luxe: ta peau a le parfum fruité de tussor, le parfum de l’or, tu es désirable.

Woman's Room:

Aspire l’odeur sulfureuse et l’odeur de sein nu de la Voie Lactée la pureté de tes reins ouvrira tes rêves à la chute dans l’espace inconcevable. Together we will wage a perfunctory battle against the outrageous behavior of this place; against turned over slop jar, smacks on the behind, and gusts of sour air. Je me taisais et peu à peu je pressentais la vérité: il respirait voluptueusement comme un encens, l’odeur corrompue du monde. Vous le gueux les immondes les puants paysannes qui descendez nos mornes avec un gosse dans le ventre… Vous tous de la plèbe debout!

Text theme:

Sense of smell

Artwork theme:

Related to the sense of smell

Dimensions

Other information

Artist's biography:

Mark Lewis