Programming
Lance Blomgren, Annika Grill and Yvette Poorter
The Complete Owner's Manual
This collaborative project is based on the concept of the owner's manual. The gallery intervention consists of a variety of three-dimensional objects scattered throughout the space, images and texts displayed on the walls.
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Photos: Paul Litherland -
Photos: Paul Litherland -
Photos: Paul Litherland -
Photos: Paul Litherland
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The Complete Owner's Manual is a collaborative project based on the concept of the owner's manual. The gallery intervention consists of a variety of three-dimensional objects scattered throughout the space, images and texts displayed on the walls. The objects and images, "cultural artifacts," are created by Grill and Poorter, multidisciplinary artists; the texts are prepared by Blomgren, a writer. The texts do not explain the objects, but rather offer a perspective on what precedes them behind the scenes. The Complete Owner's Manual is an installation that connects the creative process with the product through a visual and literary dialogue that is both informative and playful.
Lance Blomgren (Montreal) is a British Columbia-based author, curator, editor and artist. His publications, literary projects and textual installations are concerned with the relationship between text and social architecture, writing and psychogeography. His artistic activity aims to uncover the narrative potential of seemingly unrelated texts: notes, advertisements, technical writings, lists and other texts of an "unproductive" nature. Ultimately, Blomgren attempts to restore a sense of mystery, humor, and meditation to the dispassionate facades and false adornments erected by everyday life before words and images. His most recent publications: OASIS (Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, 2001) and Walkups (conundrum press, 2000).
Annika Grill, a Swedish artist who lives and works in Paris, develops a work in which the object is only valid if it can be handled and manipulated. She focuses on the notions of use and wear. Wear is here, not a state of the object which would have lost its functionality, but a state of satisfaction. The object is personalized, shaped for a specific use, and according to an expected satisfaction. The other (the one who manipulates, who uses, but also the one who discovers) is one of the essential elements of her work. As she writes, "the presence of the artist must not take over the work". The work could be anonymous and exist only in the importance given to it by its owner. Grill has presented her work (objects, sound, writing, videos, interventions in urban and public spaces) in Quebec, France, England and Italy.
Yvette Poorter lives and works in Montreal. Her artistic practice explores the simultaneous construction and collapse of ideas and objects. The artist is preoccupied with the absurdity of everyday life and develops projects that lack a beginning and an end. Poorter aims to constitute a physical presence and an engaged perplexity through her art. She is drawn to confusion and believes that she can unearth a displaced understanding in this busy place. Whether she is an object maker, a pedestrian, a photographer, a reader or a citizen, she works alone and in collaboration. Recent projects include Metaplace (Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Japan, September to December 2002) and A Wilderness of Elsewheres (DARE-DARE and rad'a, Montreal, April 2002).
