Take Me, I'm Yours

Take Me, I'm Yours

MOCCA
Novemeber 14 to December 15, 2002

Curated by:
Jan Allen

Featuring works by:
Laurel Woodcock

Laurel Woodcock's Lured I (front) and Lured II (back)

Laurel Woodcock is an artist, writer and teacher in Montreal so I haven't ever met her before in my life but I think Laurel and I must have a psychic thing going on.

The shoes that appear in her cinematic-sized video projection Lured I are in my closet. And since I actually have a few fly pictures of my own, it's good to know that I'm not the only one who thinks flies can be made into an art form as Laurel has done in her operetta piece.

Overall, I thought that Laurel Woodcock: take me, I'm yours, a selection of her works since 1997, was a great show. I was worried when I read that her works were 'ambiguous juxtapositions' because I thought it would end up to be one of those bizarre art shows where nothing makes sense while a curator prances around proclaiming how "marvelous!" everything was but Laurel's art pieces were definitley down to earth.

There seemed to have been an overall theme of taking little things and blowing them out of prorportion. For example, Woodcock's Advisory Warning seemed to have been examining the futileness of trying to predict our future. Next to a magnify glass examining a 'business card horoscope', a tiny LCD screen was showing a tornado. Much like how weather is based on chaos theory, trying to understand our future using the occult pokes fun at those who obsess over their daily horoscope. The use of a magnify glass was quite amusing since it was hard to read the horoscope without twisting my head this way and that. It also seems to play on the idea of those who examine parapsychology phenomenon and how they are fighting to have their field taken seriously as a true science.

A whirlwind tour of the rest of the exhibit:

• Extreme Sport was quite amusing. It reminded me of sitting in the nose bleed section of a sporting arena, staring at dots of people, wondering what the heck is going on down in the playing field or basketball court.
• Lured I seems to capture the human psyche very well. As I wondered why I was watching this woman lose her keys in the sewer drain over and over again (a different angle each time), I thought about how we replay are most stupid moments again and again in our heads as if we could somehow change the past.
• Lured II (a pile of silver candy and a video of a pre-teen girl examining how our personality is projected in the way we eat candy) caused an interesting effect on me. I had a candy before listening to the video so when the girl started talking, I immediately felt self-conscious. Turn that around and it made me remember how it felt to be her age again with everyone scrutinizing me (or at least feeling like everyone was scrutinizing me).
• A series of framed, stark white photos of a sole fly were in one corner. Definetley a play on the idea of a "fly on the wall". It's interesting how we have an ability to pay attention to only what other people tell us to pay attention to.
• Operetta was talked a lot about during my visit so I'll only compliment Laurel here. (Good job, Laurel.)
• 
  

TrackBack (0)