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Gordon Lebredt: 2 colossi for YYZ (from the one to the other)

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Gordon Lebredt: 2 colossi for YYZ (from the one to the other)

October 31, 2009 @ 11:00 am - February 20, 2010 @ 5:00 pm

Free

Gordon Lebredt: 2 colossi for YYZ (from the one to the other), Installation view

What is asserted to be a fixed Law that is in itself constant can only be a moment of the unity of which is reflected into itself, can only appear as a vanishing magnitude.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Typically, to intervene means to enter, to come in as an extraneous or foreign feature in the course of some action. But what if the feature in question is in fact intrinsic to the scene or setup, a structural necessity whose presence is considered more often than not a liability, given that its function cannot be easily accommodated or incorporated as a positive addition to the scene concerned? Now YYZ’s principal exhibition space (but the smaller Z gallery and the lounge area could just as well stand as examples) sports not one but two such features in the form of a pair of structural columns that, due to their location, mark off an intermediate zone that is often difficult to negotiate in terms of its serviceability to the exhibition area as a whole. Aside from the interference that the physical presence of the columns incurs, the space between them tends to hold the overall space of display apart. It is in this sense of an inherent coming between, the effects of the aforementioned spatio-temporal pocket that works to divide the space from itselfa kind of auto-divarication if you like, that is of interest to me. My intervention consists, therefore, of simply cladding these two so-called divaricators with mirror, an operation that, to a certain extent, makes them disappear. Thus each column, insofar as it renders itself invisible, makes itself into a picture. In other words, each of these problematic elements inscribes itself in the picture, the very picture or scene that comprises its surround; thus each becomes surround to the extent that it reflects the available light qua surround.

So, even as each figure determines itself in its contour, lifting and separating its measure off/from the general surround, each, in becoming surround, in turn transgress itself towards the other, its double, the one in the otheren abyme.* Suffice it to say that such an intervention (if it is one) in each case, from the one to the other, the one in the other, takes place only along the line of the cut, the cutting edge that seams the sum total of the scene as nothing other than surround.

*Once mirrored, the columns reflect one another, encrypt or incorporate one another in a play of images (each image the image of an image), of cuttings that above all show the line of the cut that sutures:separates the one to/from the other.

PS: I’ve decided to give theses two things names: Boaz and Jachin after the names of the two freestanding columns that stood in the porch of the First Temple, Jerusalem (960586 BCE). Recall also that the left tablet of the Decalogue represented in part Boaz, the shadowy pillar of darkness, while the right tablet stood for Jachin, the white pillar of light.

– Gordon Lebredt

GORDON LEBREDT is an artist and writer living in Toronto. Recently, he exhibited at Diaz Contemporary (Toronto), YYZ Artists’ Outlet for YYZ Time Warp: a Thirtieth Anniversary Fundraiser (Toronto), Simone Interiors for Nuit Blanche (Toronto) and Convenience Gallery (Toronto). Recent publications include Afterthoughts: a monologue [to R.S.], published by YYZBOOKS (2007), “Notes from the Parergon: A few off-centre remarks concerning the artist-run facility as medium”, Lebredt’s contribution to Decentre: concerning artist-run culture/ propos de centres d’artistes, also from YYZBOOKS (2008), “Some Bad Timing: stance, stasis, and movement in the work of Tom Dean and Murray Favro,” in Espace Sculpture, Montral (2008), A few opening remarks, an exhibition text for Robin Collyer (2009), and “Into the bargaina parable in two parts: David Armstrong Six at goodwater,” in Espace Sculpture, Montral (2009).

2 Colossi for YYZ ( from the one to the other) was exhibited alongside KOKI TANAKA‘S Random Hours, Several Locations, as well as SARAH JANE GORLITZ & WOJCIECH OLEJNIK‘ S Everything Next to Each Other.

Details

Start:
October 31, 2009 @ 11:00 am
End:
February 20, 2010 @ 5:00 pm
Cost:
Free
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Venue

YYZ
140-401 Richmond Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8 Canada
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Phone:
416-598-4546