Sublime Embrace: Experiencing Consciousness in Contemporary Art
Shirley Madill
Consciousness has long been a subject of Western art, shifting artists' goals from direct representation of seen reality to the expression of felt experience. This publication documents a unique exhibition where artists of international renown explore consciousness with an astonishing variety of works. Through video, photography, performance and installation they work to engender visceral responses ranging from wonder and seduction to anxiety and fear. The artists include Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller (Canada), Miroslaw Balka (Poland), Tania Bruguera (Cuba/USA), Anish Kapoor (United Kingdom), Annika Larsson (Sweden), Katarina Matiasek (Austria), Ernesto Neto (Brazil) and Bill Viola (USA). An introductory essay is supplemented by individual essays on each of the fifteen works. Due to its oversized presentation and multitude of full page colour plates, this striking publication admirably conveys the experience.
Art Gallery of Hamilton (02/2007) 80 pp 44 col. ill. 10 x 10 in softcover 978-0-919153-88-2 $35.00 Can./U.S. (28 euros)
Janet Cardiff : A Large Slow River (Out of print)
Marnie Fleming.
To the delight of museum-goers around the world the internationally acclaimed audio-artist creates "sound fictions", carefully orchestrated experiences combining music, ambient sounds and narrative. Donning headphones and following a pre-ordained path, the listener becomes a participant in a shared exploration of sensory perceptions. For the current project, her site is a large garden on Lake Ontario. Conversations and events are strung together in such a way as to suggest a mystery. The gentle park becomes a place with the potential for tragedy. An organ grinder, opera singers, buzzing bullets and helicopters punctuate our reactions. The experience is all-encompassing due to a 32-track recording of binaural sound with omni-directional microphones, thereby producing a three-dimensional sound that simulates human hearing. In her essay, Fleming talks about Cardiff's desire to go beyond the traditional barriers imposed by art. By developing a dramatic relationship between sound and vision, she is able to communicate more directly with an audience than other mediums allow. Janet Cardiff recently received the Millennium Prize, one of the highest awards ever granted to a living Canadian artist. Since that time she has exhibited around the world, most notably at the Carnegie International (Pittsburgh 1999). Janet Cardiff was selected to represent Canada at the 2001 edition of the Venice Biennial.
Oakville Galleries (2001) 52 pages 17 col. ill. 5x5 in. case-bound softcover with CD 0921027974 $35.00 Can. / $27.00 U.S
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