Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse is Audiophile's Dream

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A visitor dons headphones for binaural sound to accompany cinema in “Picture from the Poetry Maker,” one of the installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller on view at Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse (photo by Roslyne Buchanan)

The Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse’s stark entry sets a tone of uncertainty. What can one expect? Chairs, a table and bookcases reminiscent of an old school library sit to your right. Glass cases display colourful caricatures whose significance soon becomes apparent.

Artists’ shipping crates comprise the check-in counter, a reminder that CMAW is a warehouse and a contemporary art museum, located in a former Ashley Furniture store in Enderby, British Columbia.

From the moment you enter, you are guided in how to engage with the immersive large-scale installations, some of which have never been on view in Canada before. Artist’s proofs, collated and framed, adorn a wall with paintings depicting BC scenes. Walk past the washroom, and you’ll see an intriguing collection of sketchbooks from the artists’ travels. Your sensory journey intensifies.

Sight and sound intertwine with trickery to fool you in a fun, if at times, macabre way in the interactive works. The quality of sound, how it is separated into different speakers, and combined in composition is powerful. Hearing is believing — or is it? Similarly, the imagery and kinetic exhibits toy with you.

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Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller (photo courtesy of the artists)

Lauded for pioneering sound-based art, Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller — the couple behind the gallery — have garnered international recognition for their complex work.

They represented Canada at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, showing their work The Paradise Institute for which they received the International Prize and the Benesse Prize. In 2011, Berlin's Akademie der Kunste awarded them the Kathe Kollwitz Prize.

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Cardiff Miller, “The Forty Part Motet” (photo courtesy of the artists)

Recently they have had solo shows at The Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland in 2023; and The Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Germany in 2021, which awarded them the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Prize (2020) to honour their life’s work, “which has opened up new perspectives for sculpture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” 

Other solo shows include exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, Mexico in 2019; The Oude Kerk in Amsterdam in 2018; The Tate Modern in 2017; The 21st Century Museum, Kanazawa, Japan, 2017; ARoS Peina Sofia, Madrid, 2015; The Menil Collection, Houston in 2015; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2013.

Selected group exhibitions include Helsinki Biennial in 2023; Museum of Modern Art New York 2020; Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2014; the 19th Biennale of Sydney in 2014; and Documenta 13, Kassel in 2012. Permanent installations include Storm Room at ARoS, Denmark; Forest at Glenstone, Maryland; and The 40 Part Motet at INHOTIM, Brazil and at The National Gallery of Canada. 

For now, the Enderby gallery is a permanent display of their own sound-based art, which previously was only available in international venues. They are committed to working with local schools to enable students to experience their work, and the couple has not ruled out one day showcasing work from other internationally recognized artists.

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Cardiff Miller, “The Marionette Maker,” detail (photo courtesy of the artists)

Cardiff, who was born in Ontario, and Miller in Vegreville, Alberta, met at art school at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “What started out as helping each other with solo projects grew into romance and collaboration,” Miller notes. 

Working together, individual talents are leveraged. They build consensus to create complexity. “Through our intuitive process, a piece is adapted and becomes more interesting than our original concept,” Cardiff says. 

Now they split their time between the Okanagan Valley in Canada and Berlin, Germany. 

A little town in Central British Columbia may seem like an unusual place for two artists of this calibre to settle down, but the couple explains that they returned to Canada to raise their daughter. Miller has family in the Okanagan; Cardiff has fond vacation memories with cousins in Vernon, BC.

So, their realtor looked regionally and found an idyllic Grindrod acreage. They bought it, creating their home and a working gallery. “We really love this region and it’s a great place to be a child,” Miller says. “Our property is a retreat to work through our creative process.”

Known as an agricultural area and outdoor playground, Enderby (population 3,028) has long had a vibrant arts community. “Visual and performance artists are naturally drawn here, inspired by the Enderby Cliffs and the Shuswap River and an artistic community bent on bringing creativity to life. Spend some time cruising around town and you’ll see it too — on the walls of galleries and local businesses, on stages, in parks and by the river.”

And the Cardiff and Miller Warehouse now, too. ■

Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse features permanent installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

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