>>PREVIEW
DOMINIQUE BLAIN
Runs until April 4
Nickle Arts Museum (University of Calgary)
Art and politics share an uncomfortable relationship. In the 20th century, this relationship was hotly debated within the visual arts as many artists turned their emphasis away from formal concerns to expand the political sphere of their own practice. This was fundamentally an effort to democratize the ivory tower of art elitism and create awareness of the artistic community's ineluctable connection to world events, politics and, by and large, its complicity in systematic discrimination and inequality.
It is through this context that Dominique Blain's work must be seen. Blain came to prominence in the 1980s with her politically charged installation practice. Every piece in her exhibition at the Nickle Arts Museum (a mid-career touring show organized by the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal) is overtly political in its rigorous and unrelenting execution. In other words, there is little secrecy as to the nature of this show. What was strange to discover was an overriding concern for the formal qualities of the work. From multiples to sculptures and large-scale installations, all are seductive and beautiful, precise studies of technique, proportion and display. Unequivocally, they are consumable as art objects.
This union of slick production and political focus creates an uncomfortable ambiguity throughout the exhibition. Many of the works are technically proficient, but conceptually heavy-handed (stock listings superimposed onto the picture of an African child in the piece Lela comes to mind). Pieces like this seem more comfortable in an ideological context than in an art gallery. Then again, what is the distinction? Where should we draw the line between art, propaganda or advertising?
With Blain, this relationship is difficult to determine. In the didactic panel at the front of the exhibition, curator Real Lussier writes, "it must be emphasized that Blain's works do not fall under the heading of propaganda and serve no ideology, but are first and foremost the locus of an artistic investigation of the political." While perhaps an overly sympathetic discussion of the artist's work, this does bring up a key suggestion. Blain's work forces us to confront certain social and political issues in an artistic context whether we like it or not. We are free to decide anything we want about the art, but it is undeniable that the focus lies in the introduction of political content rather than if we "like" or "do not like" it.
With this in mind, it is interesting to note that Blain has often situated her work as art for the masses. She dismisses critics and dealers’ opinions in favour of a populist stance. The argument will be made (and it is valid to an extent) that a museum show like this does not really speak to "the masses," but rather to the interests of curators and museums. This argument, however, is tediously repetitive, insinuating that if Blain really wanted to "do something" she should not be making art. The point is not whether Blain should or should not be making art (or for that matter whether her work can elicit social change). Rather, a show like this gives us the opportunity to debate the role of politics in art and ask fundamental questions about the way we receive and understand information about world events and relationships of power.
Perhaps what makes this exhibition most exciting is this very debate. There are many questions here that remain unresolved. Are the issues presented reducible to Blain's simplified categories? Does the production of the work suit the conceptual content? What are the differences between overt political art and ideological posturing? The sheer difficulty of ascertaining answers to these queries complicates Blain's work. What we are left with is an exhibition of an artist who repeatedly confronts us with dramatic political content that at first seems easy to dismiss, then reveals that even though we didn't want to talk politics, we ended up discussing it nonetheless. |
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