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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007 12:02 am by M. in ,    No comments
We present an exhibition by Douglas Coupland in Toronto with some Brontë connections:
Douglas Coupland -
The Penguins July 26th to September 16th,

The Monte Clark Gallery Toronto is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Douglas Coupland.

Matt Alexander on BlogTO Arts provides more information:
His new exhibition of work, called The Penguins, opened yesterday at the Monte Clark Gallery in the Distillery District and once again he has glued his interest in graphic design to his art practice.

Each piece in The Penguins consists of a cover from a Penguin edition novel glued onto a canvas with words spelled in various sized letters. Duct tape, flower stickers or masking tape also sometimes accompany the letters. All of it is encased in a clear varnish that covers the entire front of the canvas and gives each piece a nice gloss (and, I imagine, holds everything down securely). Each canvas is framed in a white shadow box frame. Each piece is the same size but they have been hung so that the whole collection works as an installation piece. (...)

Individual pieces like "Clash" (Wuthering Heights) or "Solitude" (Self) remind me of Harmony Korine's attempt to write a novel in one word (the result was a page in his book "A Crack-Up at the Race Riots" with just the word "Hepburn" on it). It's as though Coupland is attempting to summarize an entire novel, and a classic novel at that, with a single dismissive utterance. You don't have to read it, "Clash" says it all. But I don't think that's what he's going for.

But there are other pieces in The Penguins that are a little more puzzling. Song titles from New Wave bands pop up within the collection. "Remain in Light", "Life During Wartime", "Love Will Tear Us Apart" ("Apart" appearing over another copy of Wuthering Heights).
Picture:
Clash, 2007
mixed media collage, 11 x 14 inches
COPYRIGHT MONTE CLARK GALLERY 2005

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