Preview
HEAVYWEIGHT PRODUCTION HOUSE
Thursday, July 17
Cube Gallery and Night Gallery
They’ve had their work featured in heady music magazines like Straight No Chaser, "performed" with the likes of Amon Tobin and Joe Claussell and toured with the Herbaliser – certainly not a bad achievement for five short years. And now they are known as one of the music world’s cutting-edge design/art collectives.
Originating in Montreal in 1998, the Heavyweight Production House has certainly seen its profile rise since its inception. Considering that they do live art installations (something that usually takes years to gain any sort of recognition), it’s a remarkable achievement to say the least – especially for a kid from Calgary and his friends from art school in Montreal. What Heavyweight does during any given event is paint – they create their artwork live and spontaneously.
"Collectively, we’re more like a band. On any given piece we have this basic structure that we work within and then each of us helps to develop that idea and the piece as an event progresses," says Tyler Gibney, formerly a member of Calgary’s High Rollers and now a third of the Heavyweight Production House, which also includes Gene Starship and Dan Buller.
"There’s a lot of room for freedom and individuality within the piece, but the end product is a collective idea or concept."
The idea of live installations is not new, but the particular spin that the Heavyweight team puts on their work is unique, especially considering how little value the pop culture industry places on anything but logos. Their work is populated with images from recent pop culture and faces from jazz through to hip hop that are reflective of underground music and its contemporary culture, all depending on the collective inspiration of a given night.
Music isn’t an accompaniment to Heavyweight’s art – it’s inspiration for both their subject and style. Their end product may be visual, but they draw from and mix so many sources that their work is often compared to that of a DJ.
"It takes the experience of DJ music to another level – because of the activity and the dialogue between everyone, something happens that doesn’t happen just with a DJ up onstage," says Gibney. "I suppose it becomes a visual event."
It is the collective’s passion for the combination of the different disciplines that spurs them to delve deeper into the form. Crossing genres and disciplines is just a small part of their achievement. Their most significant contribution, aside from the work itself, is introducing art and its process to people by placing it in a situation where art wouldn’t normally appear. They take the form out of the gallery and its traditional context and put in people’s everyday experience.
"Well, yeah, I think one of the most important things we do is sort of demystify the process of art, bringing people into the medium, connecting images and experiences. That’s where a lot of the energy comes from – people participate without having to, simply by us creating something in front of them," says Gibney.
Getting global exposure is one of the reasons Gibney has relocated to Los Angeles from Montreal, trying to tap into a different market and expand on their success in order to make a living.
"The idea is to make a living making art – what artist wouldn’t want to do that.... Los Angeles is in a bit of a renaissance so what better place to get this stuff out there?"
Despite the quest for larger audiences, Heavyweight aren’t going to be redoing corporate logos anytime soon. Part of what keeps them on the tongues of those who know is their dedication to quality and their affiliation with things just under the radar. Besides, it’d be a challenge to put David Suzuki’s face in an oil company’s ad.
As for the small-town artist hitting the big time, Gibney is modest about Heavyweight’s significant success. Despite having landed a contract for Gravis, having their work on display in many major art markets in North America and being published in a few books, Heavyweight’s success underscores Gibney’s understanding of how small this part of the globe actually is.
"I mean, when you’re in Calgary you assume that everything is so big, but when you get out of Calgary, you understand that there are people in Puerto Rico or in London that have been doing the same things as you, reading the same magazines, listening to the same records – this scene is really quite small, despite the fact that it exists on a global level," he says. |
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