Power Plant Gallery Review
Auto Emotion Explores, Autobiography and Constructions of Self
Toronto's prestigious contemporary art venue, The Power Plant, is presenting works by Yayoi Kusama, Sophie Calle and others in "Auto Emotion," until August 2007.
Toronto's most prestigious contemporary art venue, the Power Plant, is currently presenting Auto Emotion: Autobiography, Emotion and Self-fashioning, featuring multimedia works by Yayoi Kusama, Nikki Lee, Sophie Calle and others. While autobiographical narratives in contemporary art are frequently self-indulgent, the artists in Auto Emotion speak provocatively about relationships, voyeurism and fragmentation.
Nikki Lee's compelling photo series entitled Parts features lonely and tension-filled self-portraits. While Lee poses, taking on a variety of fictional personas, the constant elements are her presence among shabby surroundings and the companionship of an unknown male with parts of his body (and identity) cut off by the edges of the frame. Travelling through a concrete jungle or lounging in a seedy motel, the many Nikkis are never alone yet always isolated.
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay's silly yet strangely compelling Live To Tell (2002) mingles references to video surveillance, pop music and lyric poetry. A projection features sixteen images of Nemerofsky Ramsay singing the Madonna song of the same title a cappella and performing the many harmonious voices of a pseudo-Gregorian choir. Lyric (2004) revolves around that most ubiquitous of modern devices, the iPod. Nemerofsky Ramsay compares the portable memory of the iPod to the oral history of medieval troubadours, and illustrates this with a series of monitors showing him singing fragments from the canon of modern pop music. Lyric is clever, yet lacks the clarity and visceral humour of Live To Tell.
For those unable to attend this year's Venice Biennale, Auto Emotion also includes French Pavilion representative Sophie Calle. Calle's Exquisite Pain (2000) reflects upon a long-distance breakup that took place during her travels through Asia. Photos mingle with text by Calle and others, recalling the most painful of life experiences. As such, it is not only an example of the therapeutic potential of art-making but a reflection on universal experience.
The piece represents an archive of text and photos labeled and catalogued by Calle wherein she imagines her pre-breakup self and tries to find clues pointing to future heartbreak. Letters from the far-flung boyfriend are lined up in chronological order; with the help of hindsight, the viewer can perceive how the correspondence morphs from affectionate to cold. Likewise, through the process of collecting the stories of pain and loss suffered by others, the artist's own expressions of grief transforms, becoming less profound and more manageable with the passage of time.
The piece illustrates the vast divide between "before" and "after," and the process of coming to terms with trauma, particularly through contact and communication with others. In spite of the seemingly self-indulgent catalyst for the project, Calle manages moments of levity: when her partner broke her heart over the telephone, Calle tells the viewer, she knew to take a picture of the phone for posterity.
Speaking about relationships in terms of alienation and fragmentation, the artists in this show pose questions about how self-perception is created and shaped. Auto-Emotion is on until August 19th 2007 at Toronto's Power Plant gallery.
