{"id":62574,"date":"2020-09-04T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=62574"},"modified":"2020-09-09T17:13:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T21:13:37","slug":"out-of-this-world-sculptures-land-in-midtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2020\/09\/04\/out-of-this-world-sculptures-land-in-midtown\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Out of this world’ sculptures land in midtown"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Toronto, there are a number of public artworks that re-imagine the human subject. I\u2019m thinking, for example, of Hadley+ Maxwell\u2019s<\/a> Garden of Future Follies<\/em>, an installation located at Front and Bayview consisting of \u201ccollaged fragments\u201d<\/a> replicated from monuments and statues around Toronto. These bronze copies, combined to create new sculptural figures with multiple heads and a protrusion of bodies, reveal a playfully irreverent disfiguration of famous historical figures.<\/p>\n

For another example, take Shary Boyle\u2019s<\/a> Cracked Wheat<\/a>, a ceramic sculpture with human legs and a vase body that strikes an eerily animate posture. Or think of Douglas Coupland\u2019s<\/a> Monument to the War of 1812<\/a>, a work that renders American and Canadian soldiers as toy figures, transforming the human from subject to object, stripping the individual of agency and self-governance.<\/p>\n

The Toronto- and Krakow-based artist group Blue Republic<\/a> has continued this theme of human reconfiguration with their new installation STARGATE<\/a>, located on Redpath Avenue near Yonge and Eglinton. Commissioned by Capital Developments and Freed Developments, the installation consists of a colony of alien creatures that populate the entrances to both condos. At 150 Redpath stands a massive yellow figure, equal parts alien and giant spider, looming over passersby. Facing off across the street is the \u201cBlue Trumpeter,\u201d a creature that is both man and machine, animal and alien, sporting what could either be a hoof or shoe on one leg and a mechanism resembling a wheel on the other.<\/p>\n

Surrounding the blue and yellow sculptures are smaller space aliens made out of aluminum plate. Formed in the shape of human-animal hybrids, these cut-outs act as vessels for smaller and smaller entities, with every angle of the work revealing different miniaturized critters. Framing all of these disparate beings are massive stained-glass murals that act as portals or cosmic entryways, providing an inter-galactic backdrop to the theatrical display.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In keeping with Coupland, Boyle and Hadley+Maxwell\u2019s works, these creatures are confluences of different entities, presenting a reconfiguration of the human form. While these beings possess human faces and profiles, there is an unmistakable zoological quality to their depiction.<\/p>\n

Amanda Milborne-Ireland, vice-president of sales and marketing for Capital Developments, took me through the process of commissioning STARGATE. \u201cThe original commissioning for this work went out in 2015, when the building was still in the planning phase of development\u201d, said Milborne-Ireland. After conversing with the city planning staff, the local councillor, and putting out a public RFP (request for proposal), Blue Republic\u2019s submission was unanimously accepted by the jury overseeing proposals.<\/p>\n

When seeking inspiration for the work, Blue Republic artists Anna Passakas and Radoslaw Kudlisnski thought about the people who would be moving into the new condominiums on Redpath Ave. They sought to capture the sensation of \u201ccoming home\u201d for the first time, whether that experience was coming to a new home in a familiar city, or landing in a new environment and country. This theme of homecoming is in keeping with conventional condo developer rhetoric, suggesting a possible inflection of condo marketing in the work\u2019s proposed meaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to think of a universal narrative that would reflect the experiences of all these people,\u201d said Kudlinski. \u201cWe started searching in this vast region of mainstream culture, and the obvious choice was science fiction. When I came here 20 years ago as an immigrant, I felt like one of these characters, looking strange, not fitting in, standing out. But these characters will also be embraced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The notion that the foreign or estranged \u2018other\u2019 will be embraced with open arms by Torontonians is a somewhat clich\u00e9d and decidedly debunked trope, especially in light of the recent rallies<\/a> aimed against the presence of homeless shelters in the Yonge and Eglinton area. Depicting the condition of newcomers from abroad in terms of actual aliens is also questionable, considering that migrants and refugees are often described as \u2018illegal aliens\u2019 for the purposes of dehumanization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Passakas and Kudlinski\u2019s piece is still imbued with a great deal of care, ingenuity and vibrant creativity. The use of space and the interactions among the works allows for a stimulating and beautifully confounding experience. Since STARGATE is an installation\u2014a collection of different multimedia works\u2014it is able to create a novel environment and foster a distinct sense of place. STARGATE feels more like a discontinuous landscape than a single work of art.<\/p>\n

This alternative use of space was important for Blue Republic. \u201cIn a city like Toronto, we are constantly surrounded with straight lines,\u201d said Passakas. \u201cIn some other cities, you almost never see that, but here everything is so straight, all the buildings and streets are just horizontal and vertical lines. That\u2019s why we chose to do a work that was kind of anthropomorphic but also like characters or creatures. We did this to break down the presence of straight lines that are so prevalent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book Opening Gambits<\/em><\/a>, University of Toronto philosopher Mark Kingwell reflects on Blue Republic\u2019s artwork Measuring the Meter<\/em>, prompting him to argue that the grid structure of modern cities \u201ccuts the natural site into hard right angles and regular rectangular lots.\u201d This carving up of space turns the map into \u201cthe ultimate form of panopticon technology, making everyone and everything localizable and subject to spatial determination.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Kingwell\u2019s characterization in mind, we can view the zoological element of STARGATE, and Blue Republic\u2019s reconfiguration of space, as interconnected activities. Considering that public artworks of this kind are usually limited to the entryways of condominiums, Blue Republic\u2019s expansive installation performatively rejects the restrictions of modern urban planning as dictated by the city grid. (Performatively, because such rejections are limited. By virtue of its being commissioned by condo developments, STARGATE is necessarily participating in the rationale of the grid structure of modern cities, regardless of the extent to which it formally problematizes such logic.)<\/p>\n

In a vein similar to the ostensible restructuring of the Toronto grid, STARGATE\u2019s fusion of animal and human, alien<\/em> and familiar, allows for a more fluid (less demarcated) understanding of the connections and distinctions between ourselves and others. If the urban grid dictates the subject, then loosening this grid may allow for a new kind of human, a different kind of city-dweller. The lines of categorization and demarcation become both literally and figuratively blurred. In an area like Yonge and Eglinton, this is probably a much-needed intervention.<\/p>\n

\n

Sarah Ratzlaff is Spacing\u2019s public art columnist. Follow her on Twitter <\/em>@ratzlaff_sarah<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Toronto, there are a number of public artworks that re-imagine the human subject. I\u2019m thinking, for example, of Hadley+ Maxwell\u2019s Garden of Future Follies, an installation located at Front and Bayview consisting of \u201ccollaged fragments\u201d replicated from monuments and statues around Toronto. These bronze copies, combined to create new sculptural figures with multiple headsContinue reading “‘Out of this world’ sculptures land in midtown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8376,"featured_media":62578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n'Out of this world' sculptures land in midtown - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2020\/09\/04\/out-of-this-world-sculptures-land-in-midtown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Out of this world' sculptures land in midtown - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Toronto, there are a number of public artworks that re-imagine the human subject. 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