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id Magazine, 1996 Gasping for Air AIDS Benefit, Hook in regional Artist’s Show Noisy Breathing: An Exhibition by Fiona Kinsella The Gallery of the Upper Canada Brewing Company., Toronto Reviewed by Paul Molotov Image: Fiona Kinsella’s collage for Bob Wiseman’s latest CD cover Nosiy Breathing is not an ehibition about AIDS, but AIDS can act as a point of access to this complex body of work. This is not happy art, dealing as it does with vunerability and our precarious morality, but the seriousness of the subject matter is relieved by Duchampian humour; the art works hang on the walls like wounds, gently sutured with threads of laughter. Artist Fiona Kinsella has been a fixture at the Hamilton Artist Inc. for many years and has shown at many other regional venues including the Carnegie Gallery in Dundas, Burlington Arts Centre, and London Regional Art Gallery. This is her first solo exhibition in Toronto. In addition to being a graduate of the University of Guelph’s Fine Arts Program, she is a produt of the artist-run centre environment and the dynamic flux of words, images and music such centres can be home to. Kinsella has also been involved with using the arts toraise funds and awareness in the fight against AIDS; 30% of the sales of art works from Noisy Breathing will go to an AIDS charity. It is no secret that the arts have been hard hit by AIDS, dance and theatre being prime targets, with the effect being felt not just by performers, but also designers, scenic painters, and administrators at every level. Dance and theatre have lead the way in engendering compassion toward a astigmatized illness. In the fine arts, the death of Robert Mapplethorpe certianly focused attention on the disease and on using art to bring the issue out of an information ghetto and raise funds. On another level, raising money for AIDS research is well suited to the skills of artist groups. Some charities can be characterized as rigid and institutionalized, whereas groups fighting AIDS have drawn most of their personnel from a culture which has many sympathetic links within subcultures within the arts. AIDS charities are not institutions and are generally open to whatever efforts the arts community wishes to make; there is no process of approval, no limits or standards imposed. But for Kinsella, the motivation behind the exhibition was not to put on a charity event, but to further her career as an artist. Mounting an exhibiton takes a lot of work, time and money. Once that investment has been made, there is an opportunity to for any artist to add a social element. It may be a small step, but the cumulative effect can be significant. In the past, Kinsella has collected food at openings, but the thematic concerns within her most recent exhibition lends itself to a n association with AIDS charity. There are other, specific reasons for this emphasis. The city of Hamilton has a small, but vibrant artistic community. There is much camradarie, familiarity, and crossover between visual arts, music and literature and this was evident at the the recent Big Paintings exhibition which matched poems and pots with paintings and painters. In such a community, the death of Gord White had a significant impact. Since the founding of the Hamilton Artists Inc., a small number of people have acted as administrator, and Gord White was one of them. He was also the curator at the Petteplace Gallery. When his ashes were scattered at Cootes Paradise after he died of AIDS, the disease had clearly become a part of the Hamilton Arts Community. While AIDS is associated with Noisy Breathng, the disease is not an overt reference. Through a combination of appropriated and invented images and text, there emereges a sense of breakdown of the human machine. Transience and stasis, vitality and illness, poverty and affluence, a jumble of juxtapositions leave the viewer unbalanced and out of sorts. There are 16 framed pieces in the exhibition, the enclosed images appropriated, collaged, heat pressed, and worked with a photocopier. The colours are garish, sickly, almost overpowering – tamed only by their diminutive size. In a show where keeping up appearances is clearly a dominant reference, the frames act as a domestic touch, a bit of expected or required decoration. Napkins and soilies enforce a sense of familial security as well as alienation: home is where you would most like to be when a catastpophe, job loss, or illness strikes, but the purity of those household artifacts will not accept being soiled, stained or embarassed. The images come from medical text books, first-aid manuals and a host of common places. You can alsmost hear the noisy breathing, the gasping wheezing, desparate sucking for air. The viewer is both challenged and powerless, presented with a crisis and incomplete instructions on how to deal with it. The text reads "If there is no pulse, see page 7." But there is no page 7. Souvenir sppos, boxed and wrapped in plastic, are the final artifacts in this archive of ordinary life viewed through Kinsella’s combination of kaleidoscope and microscope. The "poor man’s travelling trophy" grabs you by the lapel and engages you in a noisy rambling hard luck story that is irresistible and repulsive at the same time. Noisy Breathing is an ambitous exhibition, but it can be easliy misunderstood. The use of colour is bold, but overwhelming and the amount of text and imagery is almost beyond assimilation. There is need here for some refinement and clarity, though it is clear that the artist wants the viewer to share the panic and sense of powerlessness that anyone might fear with the loss of health. The materials used also show a lack of refinement; they look like they come out of the artist-run culture, and a very tight budget. Finally, thereis no catharsis in this show, no sense of relief, no direction or path for the viewer to follow. There is no way for us to vent our frustration and panic. This is just the way it is. |
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No. 56 Number Magazine-06 J. Hamilton Nashville Scene-06 D. Maddox Latcham Gallery-06 M.Broadhurst Nashville Scene-06 D. Maddox J. Marx Cambridge Galleries-06 I. Jurakic Hamilton Spectator-05 R. Haggo Nashville Scene - 05 D. Maddox Hamilton Spectator-04 E. Hujer Artichoke, Kohli & Brace VIEW Magazine J. Deal Women's Post K. Somers Sieved.com Peter@sieved.com Paper Wait - Ace Art D. Lemieux The Latcham Gallery M.Broadhurst Hamilton Spectator J.Mahoney Sister ~ Family ~ Home R. C. Yates ID Magazine P. Molotov Scene S. Curtis-Norcross Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney VIEW Magazine C. J. Klaassen The Silhouette H. Ormerod Galerie Sans Nom G. Leblanc Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney Hamilton Spectator J. Mahoney |