creative forces

Blog# 78…February 2018

Figures of Sleep, on now at the U of T Art Gallery, caught my attention recently.  Hidden away just to the east of Hart House, the space is a little jewel -  always presenting something interesting, in a range of media.  Shows are small, vary in theme and span eras, sometimes featuring Canadian artists, but with an international focus. A coup about a year ago was to host the opening of  Shame and Prejudice, Kent Monkman’s show that was beginning a cross- Canada tour to celebrate our 150th birthday. 

I don’t know about you, but there’s not much I long for more than a good sleep.  It’s a frequent topic of endless books and pieces in newspapers, magazines and on TV and, since I’m a pretty regular insomniac, I was curious to see what artists would make of it. “Is sleep in crisis?” was the opening line of the show’s catalogue, setting the tone for the notion that sleep has evolved into less a peaceful repose than an evasive and erratic state.  

Contemporary art takes some work on the viewers’ part (something to fill those fitful nights) and I wasn’t disappointed. The artists have "adopted the motif of sleep as a cipher for...urgent cultural concerns." This show is as elusive as sleep itself, ragged and harsh rather than dreamy and soft .

Right in front of me as I walked in was a large image of a woman lying in a leaf-littered park. Titled Meet to Sleep, it represents women in India who met and slept in parks to protest the violence that made them unsafe in public. At the other end of the gallery, with a similar image and theme, Dream Catcher,  Rebecca Belmore’s unsettling tapestry shows an unconscious indigenous woman wrapped in a blanket stretched out on a sidewalk - a traditional medium startles us with a contemporary subject. 

Ron Muek, a German artist, has modeled a tiny and very realistic old woman curled up asleep in bed. It's from our National Gallery collection and she looks so cozy and relaxed, we can almost see her breathing and feel her comfort. She reminds us of  a baby....
or is she dead?




In Time Clock Piece, Taiwanese performance artist Tehching Hsieh took pictures of himself every hour for a year, starting with a  shaved head and finishing with a long bob.   The photos are speeded up to create the frenetic sleeplessness that he must have endured to create the work.                     


From the Vancouver Art Gallery,  Rodney Graham's Halcion Sleep is a compelling continuing video of a man stretched out across the back seat of a moving car. Asleep after a dose of halcion, he was moved to the car, then to his apartment where he slept for a further 8 hours. 

The show runs til March 4^th.   If you’re in the mood and the vicinity, you might want to see it, but don't expect it to give you sweet dreams.