Saturday, December 5, 2009

Two openings last night, both at artist-run centres.

First, the homeless Pitt at the Or: Michael Jones's Tolerance Time, an exploration of the social construction of multicultural policy and practice in Canada. Second, Reece Terris's Western Front Front -- Another False Front at the Western Front, where the artist has added an elaborate parapet and cornice structure to the building's historic boomtown facade.

Looking at the two shows together, one cannot help but see the irony: with their provincial funding cut, the Pitt is forced to exhibit at other galleries, while Terris's 2010 Cultural Olympiad-funded project is an addition to a building in which its exhibition programme is housed.

What is best about Terris's False Front is that it takes the addition beyond the pretensions of the original boomtown conceit, thus generating a further irony, one not lost on Western Front co-founder Eric Metcalfe who, upon seeing Terris's piece, said: The building looks like an overdecorated general.

As for Jones's show, I missed the film portion, where the artist plays a cop investigating a broken window at a multicultural centre. Something I hope to get to today.

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