Some doubt about The Power Plant: Julia Dault’s exhibition
An art institution’s choice criteria for programming its exhibitions are sometimes difficult to understand. We know how much subjectivity can be involved, even in more technical criteria. The fact is that, whatever the case, the public has access to these selected exhibitions – for better or for worse.
The exhibition Color Me Badd, by Canadian artist Julia Dault, at Toronto’s The Power Plant from September 20th, 2014 to January 4th, 2015, leads us to really question the criteria employed by this leading institution. Apart from the low quality of the works, there is the unfortunate association with the exhibition beside it, by Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis. Firstly, although these are different exhibitions, by different artists and displayed in different rooms, it would be sensible for a not very large gallery to hold exhibitions that have at least a slight connection, be it conceptually or pedagogically. This way, the audience would certainly relate better to the set of works on display, thereby engendering creative reflection, transversal questioning or complementary perceptions. When, on the other hand, there are sharp differences between the proposals and especially their artistic quality, I believe it becomes harder for the audience to understand and distinguish the potential of each exhibition.
Julia Dault shows paintings that are almost naive, through amateurish attempts to colour surfaces, produce basic optical effects, shape and texture variations without any apparent meaning. I use the word “apparent” because she certainly has some kind of intention, certainly believes she is talking about something... But this “thing” is not there. We see a painting with more yellow, another with more green, others with this texture or that, without any relevant discourse being produced. There doesn’t seem to be any reflection, just poorly painted colours from a technical perspective, without any understanding of what colour, the painting itself or its support represent today, after centuries and centuries of production and research. There is no visible relation between the works; it’s not possible to understand the reason for the (academic) size of the canvases or even the importance given to such a poor formal vocabulary. This “vocabulary”, by the way, is displayed on a huge wall, occupying two rooms, where each of the shapes is framed by a sort of grid. This wallpaper seems to have been made simply to be able to fill up the gallery’s large space, without allowing the wall itself, other than aesthetically, to have its own voice as art or at least to really maximize the poetics of the pictures on display.
At the centre of the first room there is a Formica laminate “bench”. It imitates marble and, as if there weren’t enough mismatches, it neither relates to any of the works nor has its own autonomy – except perhaps simply as a bench. In the second room, alongside the paintings and the continuation of the wallpaper, there are two sculptures, also made of Formica laminate. So perhaps we might see a relation with the bench from the previous room – could it also be a sculpture? – but the format and texture of the sculptures have nothing in common with the bench. It looks like these sculptures are about colour, surface and space using plane surfaces. There is also an industrial reference in the choice of material and how they are structured. Again, these works don’t dialogue with the others, and their intended discourse is not properly developed. We might accept this type of exhibition from second-year university students but not from a renowned artist, and certainly not inside The Power Plant.
Returning briefly to the issue of the other exhibitions shown at the same time, in the next hallway it there is a work by Shelagh Keeley (which I will not analyze here), followed by the installation by Pedro Cabrita Reis, whose power and intensity completely obliterate Julia Dault’s work. The conceptual discrepancy is such that it is difficult for the public to understand the reasoning behind either one. In the end, it’s as if one exhibition cancels out the other. For instance, to accept Cabrita Reis’ paintings shown on the second floor is to affirm that Dault’s paintings are no more than furniture store décor. On the other hand, to accept Dault’s paintings is to affirm that Cabrita Reis’ paintings communicate nothing, which is certainly not true.
Pedro Cabrita Reis’ works are worth lengthy reflection. Nonetheless, my focus remains on Color Me Badd to bring attention to the fact that the technical and/or subjective choices made by an art institution can result simultaneously in two exhibitions of very different quality. The paths that led Dault to this exhibition were traced long ago, over many years and countless admissions to other institutions. In any case, The Power Plant loses in credibility, and the public loses by being deprived of seeing a much better artist in the same space.
Alexandre Dias Ramos
An art institution’s choice criteria for programming its exhibitions are sometimes difficult to understand. We know how much subjectivity can be involved, even in more technical criteria. The fact is that, whatever the case, the public has access to these selected exhibitions – for better or for worse.
The exhibition Color Me Badd, by Canadian artist Julia Dault, at Toronto’s The Power Plant from September 20th, 2014 to January 4th, 2015, leads us to really question the criteria employed by this leading institution. Apart from the low quality of the works, there is the unfortunate association with the exhibition beside it, by Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis. Firstly, although these are different exhibitions, by different artists and displayed in different rooms, it would be sensible for a not very large gallery to hold exhibitions that have at least a slight connection, be it conceptually or pedagogically. This way, the audience would certainly relate better to the set of works on display, thereby engendering creative reflection, transversal questioning or complementary perceptions. When, on the other hand, there are sharp differences between the proposals and especially their artistic quality, I believe it becomes harder for the audience to understand and distinguish the potential of each exhibition.
Julia Dault shows paintings that are almost naive, through amateurish attempts to colour surfaces, produce basic optical effects, shape and texture variations without any apparent meaning. I use the word “apparent” because she certainly has some kind of intention, certainly believes she is talking about something... But this “thing” is not there. We see a painting with more yellow, another with more green, others with this texture or that, without any relevant discourse being produced. There doesn’t seem to be any reflection, just poorly painted colours from a technical perspective, without any understanding of what colour, the painting itself or its support represent today, after centuries and centuries of production and research. There is no visible relation between the works; it’s not possible to understand the reason for the (academic) size of the canvases or even the importance given to such a poor formal vocabulary. This “vocabulary”, by the way, is displayed on a huge wall, occupying two rooms, where each of the shapes is framed by a sort of grid. This wallpaper seems to have been made simply to be able to fill up the gallery’s large space, without allowing the wall itself, other than aesthetically, to have its own voice as art or at least to really maximize the poetics of the pictures on display.
At the centre of the first room there is a Formica laminate “bench”. It imitates marble and, as if there weren’t enough mismatches, it neither relates to any of the works nor has its own autonomy – except perhaps simply as a bench. In the second room, alongside the paintings and the continuation of the wallpaper, there are two sculptures, also made of Formica laminate. So perhaps we might see a relation with the bench from the previous room – could it also be a sculpture? – but the format and texture of the sculptures have nothing in common with the bench. It looks like these sculptures are about colour, surface and space using plane surfaces. There is also an industrial reference in the choice of material and how they are structured. Again, these works don’t dialogue with the others, and their intended discourse is not properly developed. We might accept this type of exhibition from second-year university students but not from a renowned artist, and certainly not inside The Power Plant.
Returning briefly to the issue of the other exhibitions shown at the same time, in the next hallway it there is a work by Shelagh Keeley (which I will not analyze here), followed by the installation by Pedro Cabrita Reis, whose power and intensity completely obliterate Julia Dault’s work. The conceptual discrepancy is such that it is difficult for the public to understand the reasoning behind either one. In the end, it’s as if one exhibition cancels out the other. For instance, to accept Cabrita Reis’ paintings shown on the second floor is to affirm that Dault’s paintings are no more than furniture store décor. On the other hand, to accept Dault’s paintings is to affirm that Cabrita Reis’ paintings communicate nothing, which is certainly not true.
Pedro Cabrita Reis’ works are worth lengthy reflection. Nonetheless, my focus remains on Color Me Badd to bring attention to the fact that the technical and/or subjective choices made by an art institution can result simultaneously in two exhibitions of very different quality. The paths that led Dault to this exhibition were traced long ago, over many years and countless admissions to other institutions. In any case, The Power Plant loses in credibility, and the public loses by being deprived of seeing a much better artist in the same space.
Alexandre Dias Ramos