Visual Arts Students' Association

Upon entering the main gallery space at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the visitor is confronted with a room filled with six large-scale “Letter” paintings by Michael Morris. As the viewer walks through them, taking in their carefully hand-painted lines and use of color, fragments of the individual are captured in the v-shaped concave mirror insets embedded within the paintings. This reflective aspect is also apparent in the strips of Plexiglas that line either side of the mirror insets. The use of these reflective materials within the paintings facilitates a sort of performativity to exist, creating a peripheral effect as the individual catches glimpses of herself throughout. The use of hand-painted acrylic to create the lines provides a sense of light and gradation, suggesting that of a photographic test strip. The photography reference is especially apparent in the black and white painting on the farthest wall of the gallery space that also suggests the use of film at the time it was created.

Morris’ work appears to transcend multiple spaces including painting, photography, sculpture, performance, architecture, and poetry. It is interesting to reflect on how these paintings fit within the exhibition’s overall theme of Concrete Poetry and how they relate to the number of text pieces displayed, and in doing so, consider the relationship between the paintings and poetry. Perhaps the practice of creating Concrete Poetry exists somewhere between poetry and painting and Michael Morris’ paintings are an exploration of an intertwined relationship. Visual language seems to be of particular importance while analyzing these works as a whole. The concept of visual language is very apparent in the interpretation of Concrete Poetry because it provides an answer to the question of how it is to be read. Should the viewer not read the words the same way she would read a painting, taking in the compositional elements of line, shape, color, form, pattern, direction, orientation, scale, space and proportion? Or maybe the difficulty in reading the work lies in attempting to challenge the conventions of the written word, paragraph, or text, with which the viewer is constantly confronted in today’s society. Morris’ paintings present yet another challenge in how they should be considered alongside Concrete Poetry. One connection that can be made between the works is the “Letter” paintings and the examples of Concrete Poetry that attempt to occupy multiple spaces. As suggested, concrete poetry lies somewhere in the space between that of poetry and painting whereas Morris’ paintings attempt to do the same but reference other elements including photography, sculpture, performance, and architecture. There is an historical sense of time captured in the use of colour from the influence of photography and film. The colours of each individual painting reference the city they are titled after: Rome, Paris, New York, Madrid, Beijing, and Los Angeles. The softer use of line and colour counters the hard-edge painting style of the time.

The aspect of performativity appears to be a key element in the paintings. Morris has constructed these works to almost exist as mini-environments within themselves, in front of which, the viewer could imagine the influence of dance and movement. Morris has created a platform in which the movement of the body through the space is central. In viewing these works and considering the use of material, the visitor must also be aware of how her body functions within the space created. In doing so, the relationship between Concrete Poetry and the paintings can be seen as they both function as an intertwined relationship within multiple spaces.

By Paige Armstrong

This project was done in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Visual Arts Student’s Association.

Introducing the new VASA executives for the upcoming year:

President: Christina Dixon

Vice President: Dustin Brons

Treasurer: Alex Lange

Exhibition Coordinator: Megan Miller

Event Coordinator: Woojae Kim

Co-Event Coordinator: Joanna Pang

Secretary: Andrew Powe

Reporter: Harrison Vause

Graphic Designer: Camila Ramos Bravo

Editor: Ted Wilson

Congratulations and good luck.

On Fenster

Between the massive scale of Michael Morris’ Letter paintings, and the visually arresting display of concrete poetry, visitors to the Belkin this Spring may miss a more subtle, recent addition to the gallery space. Fenster, an unassuming installation situated at the end of the Belkin’s central corridor, is a remnant of Luis Camnitzer’s winter exhibition, which preceded Letters. It consists simply of a series of books, cemented together horizontally with mortar, integrated into the wall of the gallery space.

In and of itself, Fenster is a conceptually-based meditation on literature, knowledge, and the gallery environment. Firstly, it lends itself easily to an analogy of how human knowledge is structured. The books, presumably found by the artist and arranged in no particular order, span a generalized corpus of literary genres. Classic children’s stories, dictionaries, poems, and pulp fiction, from a variety of authors both well-known and anonymous, all coalesce with one another, presenting an amalgamated codex of narratives, historical accounts, and theories (though, inextricably, this particular rendition of Fenster – which Camnitzer creates anew for every different space in which it is displayed – has no less than three Mark Twain novels). Some of the bindings face outward, allowing the reader to peruse their title; others are placed upside down, or face inward, limiting or preventing the viewer from engaging with the text. Collectively, the books constitute a superficial microcosm of a library – superficial, for it is a library that can only be accessed visually, rather than textually. Fenster is representative of the ever-increasing array of epistemologies available to the citizen of the 21^st century, some of which are tangible and salient, others of which we are wary but remain incorrigibly shrouded within the realms of socio-cultural discourse.

Furthermore, Fenster is arguably an allegory of knowledge in virtue of its non-objecthood, i.e., much like a freely accessible idea, the work does not exist in any consistent format that can be materially commodified. In this sense, the neat label next to the piece, that indicates it is the property of the Daros Latinamerica Collection, is somewhat redundant, farcical even. Perhaps Daros has the right to institutionally qualify each permutation of Fenster; but the works themselves cannot be transported (if indeed they are transported at all) without first disassembling them, thereby negating the possibility of any material permanence. Such dissolution reflects the fluidity of human thought and memory.

Of course, Fenster is not an autonomous object anyway; it is irreparably situated within the gallery context, literally cemented to its structure. Gallery and work cannot subsist without each other – indeed, one of the reasons it was decided that Fenster would remain at the Belkin is due to the threat of structural damage that might be incurred as a result of its removal. Thus Fenster speaks not only of human knowledge, but the gallery institution in particular – it mediates the gallery as a progenitor, or arbiter, of aesthetic and conceptual values. The books are no longer books; they are really bricks. They contribute to the physical structure of the building, much like certain art historical and academic discourses, which are usually embodied in texts, contribute to the cultural structures of the gallery. Perhaps Camnitzer did not actually install anything at the Belkin; he simply pulled away the drywall concealing the gallery’s foundations.

The decision to leave Fenster at the Belkin also has significant aesthetic ramifications for the Belkin. For one thing, it is an act of assertion – for the foreseeable future, Fenster will ‘occupy’ the particular locale in which it is situated, thereby preventing or limiting the display of any other works within that space. It embodies the memory of a particular exhibition, and of the particular artist, long after its originary context has subsided. Thus, the Belkin’s distinct permutation of Fenster has an evaluative function. Given its permanence within the gallery space, and its pre-emptive imposition on any other piece that might have taken its space, Fenster propones a distinct aesthetic-conceptual value. Much like Myfanway Macleod’s piece situated at the entrance to the Belkin, Wood for the People, Fenster further associates the Belkin with the ongoing discourse about the construction and perception culture, a discourse informed by the development of conceptual thinking in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Of course, Fernster now also has a particularly discursive function within the space of the gallery itself. Given that it is, and will continue to be, situated within and among the display of a variety of other works, Fenster’s lexicon of knowledge will both influence and reverberate with the epistemologies that these other works elicit. For instance, Fenster corresponds significantly with the Belkin’s current Letters exhibition; as the letters in concrete poetry provide structure to a visual form, so do the books in Fenster provide structure to an architectural form. Arguably, each aesthetic entity serves as an analogy for the other, becoming common signifiers within the broader conceptual system of the gallery institution itself. The prospect of surprising new meanings, to be discovered within the interposition of Fenster and its counterparts, represents a novel, interactionally-oriented disposition on the part of the Belkin; while Fenster, quietly brooding in its corner, mediates the knowledge imparted to us within the gallery space.

By Rhys Edwards

This project was done in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Visual Arts Student’s Association

Luis Camnitzer

Fenster, 2001-02/2011

Installation view at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery

books and concrete

Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich

Please join us for MESH this Wednesday, January 18th at 5pm in the Frederic Lassere Building Lobby. There will be a reception with food and a display of Visual Art Student’s work followed by a film screening from Art History starting at 6pm in Room 105 (Realms of the Unreal, 2004).

The Visual Art Student Association and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery invite you to attend the third Behind-the-Scenes Tour of selected galleries in Vancouver.

The Belkin is currently installing the exhibition, “Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry” which opens on Friday, January 13. Naomi Sawada, Manager of Public Programs will give a special, sneak peak and Behind-the-Scenes tour of the gallery.  She’ll also talk about gallery operations, programming and exhibitions, and the inner workings of the Belkin. This is an opportunity to ask questions about one of Canada’s leading contemporary art galleries. The tour is specially organized for UBC art history, studio, and curatorial students.

Here’s a link to the exhibition
<http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/current/letters-michael-morris-and-concrete-poetry>

The tour will take place on Tuesday, January 10th from 4:30-6pm. There is limited space available and last time all the spots were filled very quickly. If you are interested in joining us, please contact Paige Armstrong at paigefour@gmail.com to reserve your spot as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
VASA

Thank you to all those that participated in, came to see, and helped make this year’s Wall to Wall Sale happen! We had a great time, sold some art and look forward to doing it again next year.

Call for Bloggers
Deadline: Friday, January 12, 2012.

Attention Bloggers and Internet Socialites!

The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in collaboration with the Undergraduate Journal of Art History (UJAH), the Visual Arts Student Association (VASA) and the Art History Student Association (AHSA) is looking for blog contributors on a one-off or periodical basis for the second half of the winter semester.

The Belkin Art Gallery is interested in connecting students with our exhibitions, collections, archives, and publications. This is a great opportunity for students to gain experience and visibility for their writing and contribute to fine arts community here at UBC.

We are looking for short blog-format pieces of 250-500 words that can be published on the AHVA, VASA or UJAH online pages. A total of 4 to 16 openings will be available and distributed through the Belkin’s network.

If you are an undergraduate student in the faculty of fine arts and you like to blog, please send us a few sentences detailing your ideas and we will get back to you by mid January.

Submissions for the second half of the winter semester will be open until Friday, January 13 2012.

Sincerely,

Louis A. Douesnard-Malo

Louis-Alexandre Douesnard-Malo
Public Programs and Exhibitions Assistant
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
belkin2@interchange.ubc.ca

AHSA: http://blogs.ubc.ca/ahsa/
VASA: http://blogs.ubc.ca/vasa/
UJAH: http://www.ubcujah.com/
BELKIN: http://belkin.ubc.ca/

Behind the Scenes Tours

A big thank you to Naomi Sawada of the Belkin Art Gallery for helping organizing such a great tour. Also, thank you to Director/Curator Jonathan Middleton of the Or Gallery and Curator Makiko Hara of Centre A for taking the time to talk with us. We hope to do this again in the future!