Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta
November 1998 through January 1999
Stride Gallery
September 1998
A previously undiscovered sequence
of paintings from a number of domestic settings is brought together
by Vera Gartley and installed with her own text-based works at
the Edmonton Art Gallery. The story began when Carolyne Gartley
watched a visual busker painting a landscape at a small town
sports day early in the century and it found a home in her grandmother's
parlor. Half a century later the family had multiple copies made
for nostalgic reasons. The Gap is an ongoing collection of copies
of the original and conversations about it--accessible through
audio, print, and digital media. The texts are excerpts from
personal, popular and specialized viewpoints recorded over time.
Some issues that have emerged from these collected texts include
hierarchies of judgment; notions of the original; the value of
copying; the gap between "amateur" and "professional";
and the meaning of "improvement" in the realm of landscape.
The installation itself will be comprised
of commercial signs derived from the copied landscape; the original
painting with multiple painted copies; and a number of different
stations. The formal appearance of the gallery is important because
the viewer/participant needs an overall vision of a defined format
before they plunge into disparate components. Through the profusion
of these components and the invitation to participate the work
expands to become something rather than being about
something.
The gallery space symbolizes a gap
- a sort of laboratory for experimental and spontaneous transmissions
of language and images - in which responses to the landscape
installation are welcome and will be collected from web browsers
and gallery goers before and during the exhibition. Some thoughts
submerge, others emerge and are captured at the moment or are
saved and stored with analog or digital technology. The gap serves
as an undefined or immaterial space from which the next thought
may arise.
Follow this link
for information about participation in the project.