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Even the title of Aurora Landin's
exhibition is arresting: "exalt", implying
wonder, religiosity, awe, and praise; "fax", possibly a Latin word from the past and,
therefore, distanced from us, but no - it's "fax", the abbreviation for "facsimile", an exact replica of an original, but of
lesser quality - not as valuable or durable; not as
precious. Machine-made, accessible, dispensable. FAX.
Something quick, technological; but then equally as quickly,
from the digitally altered, computer generated print at the
entrance to the exhibition, I infer that a joke is also
implied. A toy store with the name EXALT and which offers
FAX services is on the route that Landin takes to the
University of Manitoba where she teaches printmaking; window
signage has placed the two words in humourously
inappropriate syntactical contiguity.
My puzzling over the title extends
initially to Landin's work as well. This exhibition is
completely visual, sparkling - a strange thing to say, of
course, because there are, as in most exhibitions, objects
at which to look. Here there are beautifully sensitive,
closely observed, and spatially believable drawings of
bodies (I'm immediately drawn into the exhibition space so I
can get a closer look at them, and I know from reading
comments in the guest book that many visitors to the
exhibition have expressed gratitude for these exquisite
drawings as if that kind of aesthetic had long been missing
from their lives), there are gestural and tough depictions
of hands, and finally, an intricate, obsessive and very
decorative maze of silver tape on the floor, laid down to
replicate the patterns of 80 circuit boards. So much hand
labour; so mechanical, so untechnological.
But what is puzzling to me is
how these three elements in the exhibition, visually so
disparate, fit together and make some conceptual sense. In
an exhibition where the hand of the artist is so tangibly
evident both literally and figuratively, in an exhibition
which in itself is not technological in the least but only
makes use of printing technology long in existence or makes
oblique references to technology vis-a-vis the imagery of
the circuit boards or the time-based aspect of the video
camera and computer image-capturing, what exactly is being
exalted?
Just above eye level, down each of the long side
walls of the gallery (one of them over 40 feet, the other
one 60 feet) runs a string of hazy-blue/purple images,
repeating themselves over and over again, with seemingly no
beginning or end. From a distance and at first glance, the
subject matter seems almost classical - Renaissance and
Baroque nymphs and gods in flirtatious, yearning pursuit -
in some vain and always futile attempt at capture; a
seduction ritual endlessly playing itself out. Their arms
and hands outstretched, no-one touching, a handkerchief
modestly cloaks the barest interstices of air between these
cavorting, rollicking bodies. We've all seen these kinds of
gestures before where, in the abandonment of religious
ecstasy, or in the whirlwind of the dance, flesh may be
offered almost in total save for a bit of restraining cloth:
they appear in many of the paintings familiar to us
throughout the long history of art - in Raphael's
Galatea, a wall
fresco decorating the Sala Galatea in
the Villa Farnesina in Rome, in Titian's "Bacchanalian"
paintings and in his Rape of Europa and
in Rubens' Dance
of the Peasants, a painting to
which Landin alluded in one of our conversations.
But Landin's figures, and certainly their faces,
are self-portraits - or, in one case, based on the image of
a friend. These are not the heroic gods and goddesses of
myth but real people; classless people. For her, in
addition, these wall Diazo prints recall Mexican mural
painting - the art of a living culture to which she has
family ties. In real life, also, this distancing cloth
and/or the gesturing arm often make an appearance in
eastern-European and Mediterranean folk-dances: in the
wedding dances of Hassidic Jews, in the veil of the
fundamentally observant Muslim woman - in these cases the
cloth is used as a means of ensuring modesty, of keeping man
from woman, but also becomes a device which both hides as
well as offers tantalizing hints of what might lie
beyond.
Sculpturally solid, Landin's ample, full-bodied
figures twist in sensuous contrapposto,
belying the impermanence of the Diazo blue-print paper upon
which they ephemerally exist. They began as drawings done on
six separate sheets of mylar which were then reproduced in
multiples so that she could create a seamless flow of
figures along the walls. No beginning, no end. During the
few short weeks of the exhibition, under the harshness of
the gallery light, these lusty forms have already begun
their inevitable gradual transformation from the original
mechanized grey-blue to purple and then, potentially, to
nothingness.
But from the awareness of dissolution, of
delicateness and fragility, we're caught up short at the end
wall of the gallery. There is a break: all across that 45
foot wall, in harsh contrast to the lightness of the
cavorting figures is a repeating series of clapping hands,
emerging as ghostly white images out of the black,
silk-screened background of dulled aluminum plates butted up
one to another like the images in a filmstrip. Clapping,
hands opening, closing, hands together and then apart. Again
there is another very strong reference to a familiar
historical image, a 16th century type of blueprint, Duerer's
Hands of an
Apostle (referred to as "The
Praying Hands"), a grey-and-white brush drawing on
blue-grounded paper, the image of which is often
appropriated for use in sentimental religious artifacts,
sometimes accompanied by Biblical quotations or by maudlin
homilies. But these hands are Landin's, first videotaped,
then captured as computer images, and then, in their final
transformation for this exhibition, printed out as screened
images. Are they applauding the dancers of the Diazo prints,
keeping time for them as in Flamenco, or are they
imperiously commanding our attention with their sharp,
silenced claps? Perhaps the applause is for our own
performance as viewers or for that of the artist herself -
or can we interpret this applause as the exaltation of the
fax, of the technology that is only subtly present and only
hinted at in this exhibition?
Delicate blue/purple drawings, black
and silver screen prints, and now the silver adhesive tape
on the floor. All those hours of labour spent kneeling, bent
over as if in obeisance, measuring, cutting - then, visitors
to the exhibition just walk right over it! Landin said that
she thinks of this tape as a type of chapel, that she wanted
to create a shrine that would lead viewers into the space,
and yet over the course of the exhibition this tape has
become dulled, dirtied and scuffed by footsteps; to some
visitors, almost unseen.
Again in conversation, Landin said
that so often technology is touted as a way to make our
lives easier, faster, simpler, but usually that is not the
case; or that technology offers a way to connect people but
in fact helps us do our chores without direct human contact.
To her, technology distances us from one another, and as
metaphorical illustrations, her dancers are kept apart, the
Diazo prints are fugitive, the hands are disembodied and we
are unsure of their relationship to the dancers, and the
silver tape models of circuit boards remain self-contained
and separate from the other two elements in the exhibition.
In an "artist's statement", Landin talks of her "troubled
relationship" with technology, and through the work and in
conversation with her, I sense that. There is an urge to
acknowledge technology, acquiescing to its omnipresence and
its far-reaching social ramifications; and this
acknowledgment can be gleaned through our awareness of the
technology used in producing the work. The work, however,
returns us again and again, like the refrain of a familiar
melody, to the presence of the human hand of the
artist.
For me, Landin's ambivalence towards,
and the stated or unstated allusions to technology are not
in themselves what make this exhibition so compelling and so
visually rich, but also her graphic skill and, what for me
seems to lie closest to the core of the work, her
understated references to time, her introspection, and her
interest in transformation and mutability.
Susan Turner is a multi-media artist doing video and photo/
language-based work. She is currently working on a video
installation project dealing with human consciousness, the
brain, and self-awareness. Her videos have been screened
internationally. In the spring of 1997 she exhibited Not
What We Are: An Archive of Identities at Ace Art.
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