The success of distaste

One woman's look of distaste said it all. While most people responded to the newest installation in the Werkstatt series with relative inertness, it was the expression on this woman's face that I was left with as I descended the steps of the UNB Art Centre into the cold air of Friday night.

Her lips slightly turned down in a half frown, her tightened nose that made her eyes squint behind her glasses, and her furrowed brow that made creases in her forehead. This look was near repulsion, maybe disgust. What it was not, however, was lethargic.

And while the rest of the audience meandered between the East and West Galleries I watched this woman from the corner of my eye while she looked at each piece of work with the same look on her face.

I enjoyed watching her more than I did the art. I just felt like another patron at another art show hosted by another couple of artists.

My face along with many others throughout the gallery remained unaffected. And many people's reactions to the exhibition seemed as trite as Pierre-Luc Arseneau's series of relief plaster cast sculptures mounted on wood frames and foam-core.

What was likely intended to be a critical analysis addressing the confines of modern technology has turned out to be an installation that is nothing more than banal and repetitive.

Accompanying Arseneau's exhibit is an eerie mixture of white noise, electric surges, and random electronic beats emerging from the ceiling. Each of his pieces is wired to another through a series of electrical boxes. Suspended from the ceiling is a gutted television with the words "empty box" scrawled on it. The problem, however, is that there's no electricity running through Arseneau's work. The West Gallery is in effect an empty box. And maybe that's what he is getting at.

After crossing the candlelit foyer and passing through the sounds of InkShedBlood's dark, mellow, bass filled funk, I stepped into the East Gallery. It was then I realized the only warmth in the building was in the lobby.

I'm certain some would consider Troy Stanley's work disturbing. Some might call it perverse. And surely others would call it heresy.

Stanley's installation resembles an empty chapel and is nothing but cold and sterile. His black and white prints, titled Stations of the Bios, mimic the 14 Stations of the Cross. And while the story remains true to the Christian interpretation of Christ's death, Stanley's version occurs in the midst of what looks like nuclear fallout. Of course, Stanley's Christ is none other than Stanley himself, crucified to a telephone pole in Station 12.

His stations are accompanied by an altar-like sculpture _ its centre piece a keyboard painted black with the letters C-H-R-I-S-T and the "escape" button left white.

One man noticed me taking notes and whispered the word "disgusting" in my ear. "Call it what you want," I said to him. "I call it monotonous."

Despite my cynicism I do have to credit Stanley for his presentation. The silk banners suspended from the ceiling made for something interesting to look at. What, in fact, I found most remarkable were the shadows cast on the wall by the gallery's track lighting.

And maybe the monotony of it all, the repetitive situations we find ourselves in, is what the artists are getting at. The monotony of technology, of religion, and of these sterile environments we often find ourselves in. Maybe not.

Sitting in my cold car, though, parked outside the Art Centre I considered the look on that woman's face and couldn't help but realize Stanley and Arseneau had succeeded.

Although I felt unfulfilled I could tell this woman had been affected. And what she was looking at had evoked emotion in her. It was enough emotion to make all those muscles in her face twist in such a way as to communicate a feeling of distaste.

By J.G. Sadler
The Brunswickan

Note: Monkey Electric accepts the fact that J.G. Sadler is not much of an art critic or a writer. "...shadows cast on the wall..." WTF? Smoke another joint, buddy.

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