Review
THE LANGUAGE OF THE ROPE
Louise Noguchi
Runs until April 16
The New Gallery (516D Ninth Ave. S.W.)
We’ve all seen cowboy shows – Calgary has an idée fixe for the cowboy. So how could we possibly need another exhibition that explores an identity many residents have grown tired of and associate with Stampede – a ritual in which oil executives don 10-gallons and white pants, and take license with administrative assistants?
The Language of the Rope at The New Gallery stands out as an exception. Think artist Richard Prince. Think pistol-twirling, haggard actors – the B-line for A Fistful of Dollars.
The exhibition documents Louise Noguchi’s continued research into a tourist industry: theme parks that re-enact the spectacle of the Wild Wild West for the benefit of rubberneckers, amateur hacks and eight-year-olds with trust funds. Noguchi’s sharp photographs and videos are bright, punchy and bombastic. They are full of the same sort of Marlboro bravado that’s justified generations of men to wear sausage-tight blue jeans and inspired Jack Palance to croak out the words "confidence is very sexy."
Delicate blossoms bite the dust at the mercy of a ruthless bullwhip in the video Crack, exacting revenge of the sort that soon-to-be jailbird Martha Stewart might feel inclined to indulge in. The tight camera work around a billowing jacket is the high point of this concise and elegant soba western, where an off-camera cowboy snaps off the heads of lilies and other flowers held by Noguchi. At some moments it reads as a pure, formalist moving picture. Tinny sound from an overhead speaker seems odd next to the significant, understated beauty of this work, but it’s the piece that serves to clearly separate this exhibition from herds of ironic bandit commentaries in a one-trick-pony town.
What Noguchi points out is the charm of violence and inherent eroticism in these filmic western performances. If there is a checklist of cowboy clichés, Noguchi recounts them like a sure shot; not just to develop a parody, but to develop her own familiarity with the world of bandits and highwaymen.
Look for one rogue lighting dynamite with a pistol shot, another falling without conviction from a bullet wound, and some with half-hearted sneers. The strongest images among the photographs, however, are those that are cowboy-less: these simply illustrate the plume of smoke residue from a gunfight or explosion.
None of this imagery is based on history, but comes instead from cinema, as writer Jennifer Rudder points out in her accompanying text. The contemporary vision of the cowboy wouldn’t exist, after all, if it weren’t for the work of such directors as Sergio Leone and John Ford.
There is a certain quiet humour here, yet what saves the work is that Noguchi doesn’t ridicule or mock these men, but admires and even salutes their posturing. Brave work, this. |
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