“Measures of a Woman”
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| The Most She Weighed/The Least She Weighed, installation view. Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery. |
In the most recent show organized by Jen Hutton at Susan Hobbs Gallery, various measures of representation are exhibited that allude to a more complicated biography of a woman. Occupying the first floor of Hobbs’ commercial gallery, the space still possesses the quirks and charms of its former use as an industrial garage, as evident with its enormous sliding garage door, cracked cement flooring and ceiling trap door. Susan Hobbs Gallery is internationally renowned for exhibiting innovative contemporary and conceptual artworks by some of Canada’s most prominent artists, many of whom she represents, and this exhibition is no different in its impressive inclusion of both historic and recent works. In The Most She Weighed/The Least She Weighed, ten works are exhibited by seven Canadian artists (both emerging and senior), including Brian Groombridge, Tiziana La Melia, Arnaud Maggs, Liz Magor, Sandra Meigs, Sasha Pierce and Michael Snow.
Titled after the influential series of work by Canadian artist Liz Magor in the 1980s, Hutton’s group exhibition echoes the artist’s early sculptures and bookworks based on the personal anecdote of her friend, Dorothy. Dorothy monitored and recorded her weight throughout her lifetime and most identified with the weight 98 pounds. Using cast lead objects of everyday items such as fruit, light bulbs and books weighted on two metal shelves, Magor’s objects communicate a narrative of Dorothy’s life that includes fluctuating measures in weight. In Hutton’s curatorial statement, she describes a sense of curiosity in the employment of tangible objects as “a qualifier for someone’s lifetime.[1]” It is with this context that The Most She Weighed/The Least She Weighed frames both the presence and absence of a portrait of a woman to its viewers that is still incomplete.
Interesting enough, the piece included by Magor in the show is not the work inspired by Dorothy, but rather, is a more recent work, Pearlwhite (2000). A creamy, wrinkled raincoat is overlapped with a cast polymerized wicker purse that hangs on the gallery wall and shows evidence of a wallet inside the purse. The presentation of these hung articles suggest an identity of a woman, while at the same time also point to her absence. This work, like Snow’s rough figural drawings Blue Skirt (1962) and Pencil (1962), allude to the form and presence of a woman articulated through the materiality of objects, while simultaneously positing incomplete biographies of a life lived. Snow’s ink and graphite sketches on paper outline the existence of a woman, yet only offer fragments of a possible identity.
The two gouache-on-paper works by Meigs from the early 90s, Desert Tree (1990) and Skull Rock (1991), juxtaposed with Pierce’s small yet dynamic oil painting, Mostly Love (2011), present the viewer with more ambiguous connections to Hutton’s curatorial investigation. Upon the careful and attentive looking of the viewer, it becomes apparent in Meigs’ delicate saturation of red, pink and brown hues and Pierce’s meticulous linear intersections of the same colours that a feeling or presence of a woman does exist. Within the works, the gentle tactility that we associate with femininity appears as thoughtfully rendered brushstrokes that are ‘gendered’ in their representation. In unpacking these fragmented biographies, the overlapping of photographic objects and female bodies found in La Melia’s three collage works reflect the viewer’s constant negotiation of the visibility and invisibility of a female identity. Furthermore, Maggs’ piece, Downwind Photograph (1981-83), successfully echoes this ‘distance’ as it posits an image of a woman who is turned towards the right, her face out of view. We, the viewers, can clearly identify this person as a woman, as brunette, as stylishly dressed, as young – yet, our attempts of identification end there. Like with this image, Hutton’s thoughtfully chosen inclusions invite our biographical discernment, while remaining challenging through complex, fragmented modes of representation. The objects that comprise these works create an incomplete portrait of a woman who might exist, or, who might have.
Groombridge’s piece, the distance between the body and the shadow it casts (1995) frames these collective works within a space for dialogue. His aluminum sculpture is presented at floor-level and interjects the gallery space in its linear explorations of space, both vertical and horizontal. As a representation of the space between the body and its shadow, Groombridge generates a measure of a woman that is static, yet ambiguous. His sculpture interposes the space inbetween – the space inbetween the three perpendicular gallery walls of work – the space inbetween a person and what measure defines them. Groombridge’s long directional beams materialize both a connection to the other works, as well as a distance between their collective narrative.
Furthermore, Hutton has compiled an accompanying reader for the exhibition that includes previously published texts by La Melia, Magor, Meigs, Snow and acclaimed poet Daphne Marlatt. These writings, like the works in the exhibition, postulate ambiguous narratives of a woman and approach the female biography from a multiplicity of viewpoints. Each text, as well as the exhibition’s artworks, is united through the constant efforts of the author (and artist) in seeking their subject. This collection of essays works to contextualize the idea that a “collectively formed identity will always be partial.[2]”
The early sculptural works of Magor undoubtedly influenced The Most She Weighed/The Least She Weighed, and Hutton uses this influence as a meeting point for other works that address varied states of biography, narrative and selfhood. Hutton’s curatorial pursuit of an incomplete biographical measure of a woman effectively unites these artists’ works within an overarching investigation of representation.
The Most She Weighed/The Least She Weighed runs from June 9th to August 13th at Susan Hobbs Gallery. Hours of operation are Wednesday to Saturday 11 to 5, or by appointment.
-Ellyn Walker
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