Artists Offer Ideas for Alternative Walls
Richard Wilson, "Proposed United States Border with Mexico," 2017
photo courtesy Illingworth Kerr Gallery
Walls: Topical in contemporary times, of course, but also historically important, whether for protection, conquest or peaceful delineation between good neighbours. Tourists flock to them (think of China’s Great Wall or Hadrian’s Wall in Britain) and artists appropriate them (think Banksy and Swoon). But the ante is upped when it comes to political barriers such as the Berlin Wall, Israel’s “apartheid wall” in the West Bank, or Trump’s proposed barrier with Mexico. It’s this latest controversy, courtesy of the U.S. president, that’s the focus of the Illingworth Kerr Gallery’s threefold exhibition – a gallery show featuring international artists as well as public art and an online project.
Curated by Lorenzo Fusi, and on view in Calgary until Sept. 16, the gallery exhibition, #ideasforawall, comprises artistic proposals for alternative walls between Mexico and the United States. Invited participants include art world luminaries Richard Wilson, Tania Bruguera, Lucy and Jorge Orta, plus Canadians Mark Clintberg, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens. Projects bridge a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, text and lens-based work. Clearly, many approaches are helpful when contemplating how to overcome cultural divisiveness.
Wilson’s Proposed United States Border with Mexico features a 20-foot-high concrete wall, almost like Trump’s “beautiful” vision. But instead of rising vertically, this superstructure plunges earthward, save the top 20 inches: a witty and playful trip.
Such participatory architectures are a recurrent, idiomatic theme, allowing the conceptual value of participation to shape the show’s overall content. For without embracing relational approaches to solving cultural differences, we might all become consigned to separation, isolation and political fear mongering.
Lucy and Jorge Orta, "70 x 7 The Meal," 2017
photo by Dick Averns
Lucy and Jorge Orta address these challenges through a proposed extension of their ongoing Meal project, an amassing of community around a lengthy dinner table, in this instance one that spans the length of the fabled wall. What intrigued me in scrutinizing their montaged maquette is that one panel was heavily pixelated. It could have been a production error or a deliberate move, for fragmentation is inherent with any utopic societal vision.
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Lukas Wassmann and Rupert Smyth, "International Billboard Project (a good neighbor), as part of the 15th Istanbul Biennial curated by Elmgreen & Dragset," 2017
photo by Dick Averns
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Lukas Wassmann and Rupert Smyth, "International Billboard Project (a good neighbor), as part of the 15th Istanbul Biennial curated by Elmgreen & Dragset," 2017
photo courtesy Illingworth Kerr Gallery
Turning to the public sphere, Fusi wisely incorporates adjunct elements, ensuring #ideasforawall doesn’t run afoul of addressing social change by only presenting art in the rarefied confines of the white cube. First, there’s collaboration with the Istanbul Biennial curated by the artist duo of Elmgreen and Dragset, who confront the problem of neighbourliness. Featuring photos by Lukas Wassmann, A Good Neighbour entails five billboards (another form of wall) around Calgary. Replete with design work by Rupert Smyth, these spaces become engaging sites for promoting civility.
The final component is an open call, #undoingwalls, where anyone can submit a prototype image and description to remediate Trump’s barricade, or similar impedimenta. This art appears on a dedicated website, undoingwalls.net, alongside the gallery projects: a worthy form of crossover and integration. Perplexingly, the masthead page commences with a run-on sentence and lengthy backgrounder to the gallery exhibition, manifesting something of a syntactic firewall to the ultimate content. Similarly, the “about” page, confusingly, is not about the online project, but tells of the gallery, its host institution, the Alberta College of Art and Design, and the gallery exhibition. Optimally, the website could be edited once the gallery exhibition loses its walls.
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Luis Camnitzer, "Commission Christo with an orange running fence that separates the U.S. from Mexico," 2017
photo by Dick Averns
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Felipe Arturo, "A line in the sand," 2017
photo by Dick Averns
Nevertheless, the work in the gallery is craftily installed and merits a visit. Luis Camnitzer’s wall-mounted change.org petition asking Trump to commission a Christo Running Fence along the Mexican border, and Felipe Arturo’s video, A Line In The Sand, shot at a Mexican beach, are two examples that consolidate walls in ways a website cannot. Collectively, the scope, concept and content combine towards overcoming prejudice. Who can argue with that?
Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Alberta University of the Arts
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