MINDY YAN MILLER: "Feed," Art Gallery of Swift Current, Jan. 10 to March 1, 2015

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MINDY YAN MILLER: Feed

Art Gallery of Swift Current

Jan. 10, to March 1, 2015

By Jeffrey Spalding

Feed by Mindy Yan Miller is one of the most ambitious and impressive installations I have encountered in many years. Kudos to the curators, Heather Smith, of the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery, and Kim Houghtaling, of the Art Gallery of Swift Current, two members of SCAM, an informal association of small city art museums in Western Canada. They plan to circulate the show to their associates, including the Saskatoon branch of the Western Development Museum from May to July. To my mind, it would play well most anywhere, large or small, throughout Canada or internationally. The topics raised are ubiquitous and the experience of an encounter with impressive objects of great physical beauty is universally transferable.

We are presented with five imposing bales of clothing, amassed from thrift stores, encased by bale netting, each five feet in height. Their sheer scale and apparent colossal weight align them with post-minimal sculpture rather than textile art: homespun modernism. Dramatically and sensitively lit, they repose like hay bales under a prairie sunset. The landscape punctuated by these forms is an ever-present visual touchstone for Western Canada, and all agrarian societies. Artists continue to be compelled by them and grapple to incorporate them into their art. Yan Miller has made something special.

You are struck immediately by the grandness of the gesture, her manic labour and obsessive accumulation. Given the work’s Saskatchewan roots, you want to think with reverence for the hand-built folk traditions of patchwork crazy quilts. Instead, you are propelled elsewhere – to the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, the woven-trash wall works of Ghana’s El Anatsui, the found-material sculptures of Robert Rauschenberg, or the forays into flayed fabric by Calgary artist Mary Scott in the 1980s.

Yan Miller’s component garments are left intact, not cut into decorative squares. The vast majority of the material is buried, invisible to the eye, only available to be contemplated: cue Marcel Duchamp’s With Hidden Noise (1916). These works wish to comport themselves as nonchalant, casual and constructed in a matter-of-fact way without premeditation. Their final outside layer tells another tale. They are relational ‘paintings’ sporting considered pairings of colours and textures in the spirit of abstract collage, whilst logos and printed words send us in the direction of American painter Stuart Davis and the legacy of Pop.

These are clothes absent bodies. Thereby, some may think they signal lament for time’s passing, obsolescence or loss. Sorry, they are just too beautiful; take Christian Boltanski out of the equation.

The articulate, well-reasoned and helpful catalogue essay by Lisa Baldissera dresses the work in an entirely different suit. Her essay weaves a bulletproof vest to safeguard the art from any intended assault upon its integrity. We are reassured to relax: this is not merely good art, it is art that is good for you. It is fortunate the exhibition is showcased in an art gallery conjoined with a library since the essay’s references send us scurrying off to contemplate Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Tommy Douglas’ socialism, Soviet realism and communal co-ops. Although it’s perfect grant-writing fodder with an impeccable pedigree, perhaps we can place in a lock box for the next decade phrases and references to late capitalism, anti-consumerism, diaspora and the émigré experience.

At Swift Current, there are two options – turn into the library stacks and pull out Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, or head directly into the gallery to have an unmediated encounter with marvelous, curious objects. It’s evident through Yan Miller’s career quest that she wishes to be viewed as ethical and socially conscientious; this is, of course, commendable and to be lauded. My preference is for visitors to be left to marvel and discern for themselves the artistic decisions. What do these fascinating objects and their specific physical characteristics permit us to legitimately reflect upon? To me, that is more than enough to bind into a work of art. But, what the heck, some prefer their Arte Povera served up with hefty dollops of whipping cream, ice cream plus Devon cream.

Ed Note: Recent (June 2016) shot of Mindy tending to her flock.

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Art Gallery of Swift Current

411 Herbert Street E, Swift Current, Saskatchewan S9H 1M5

306-778-2736

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