Blue Republic. Monochromes. Pekao Gallery. Toronto

In this exhibition, labour, as a repetitive life-force, unites the mundane and the mythic. Planet Handle (2001) is a small plastic readymade attached to the floor that inverts Atlas's monumental task of resting the world on his shoulders, obscuring the heroic origins of labour by inviting us to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian art (Toronto, 1984) 1984), 2001-10, Vol.18 (3), p.111
Main Author: Tuer, Dot
Format: Magazinearticle
Language:English
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Art reviews
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Summary:In this exhibition, labour, as a repetitive life-force, unites the mundane and the mythic. Planet Handle (2001) is a small plastic readymade attached to the floor that inverts Atlas's monumental task of resting the world on his shoulders, obscuring the heroic origins of labour by inviting us to life up the earth beneath us. In Limited Activities (2000-2001), a broom handle protrudes from a slit in a wooden box. Like Sisyphus, in his never-ending labour rolling a massive rock up a hill in Hades, viewers can use the broom to sweep plaster debris back and forth inside the box. Another work, Constellation Auschwitz (2001), suggests a more sinister and political reading. On one of the walls, a sprinkling of tiny blue dots maps the locations of the Nazi labour camps that were scattered throughout Europe during the Second World War. Ephemeral rather than overt markers of a repressive history, these tiny stars allude to the chaining of labour to a coercive system of production.
ISSN:0825-3854