As part of Toronto’s 5th annual Nuit Blanche, two exhibits explored the relationship between art and advertising…
ENDGAME
A back alley is negative space, a liminal zone between the architectural order on either side—stage for the shady and dangerous. In Endgame, giant inflatable clown heads are stuck between two buildings high over an alley.
The heads are made of vinyl from recycled billboards. Referring to the history of collage as a tool for turning propaganda against itself, the artist has stated: “There is something satisfying in reshaping corporate ads into something whimsical, generous or even scary. Clowns on their own embody a certain tension; we expect them to be funny and yet many people experience them as sinister. The tension here is physical as the heads are held in place by their own internal air pressure. Their squeezed and distorted expressions add to a sense of urgency. It is a situation that invites any number of imaginative narratives. Perhaps they are renegade parade balloons whose joyride has gone tragically wrong. In any case, these happy-go-lucky characters are now pinned in a back alley. While still monumental, they are now vulnerable in a way that invites a kind of empathy, but possibly a guilty empathy, or schadenfreude, fear combined with the pleasing anticipation of a spectacularly destructive end.
ISO3D
Grey Canada and The Media Merchants hosted an all-night projected installation at Toronto’s Union Station sponsored by Sensodyne iso-active tooth paste. The project, called “iso3D”, showcased the product’s foaming action and is to date the largest branded, 3-D projection mapping display in Canada.
