PAST EXHIBITION
DIAGNOSTICS
Dariusz Boron
5 November 1998 - 19 December 1998
Opening Reception 5 November 1998 8pm
Window: Diagnostics The inspiration for Diagnoistics was provoked by the book Technology and The Canadian Mind. In particular, I found inspirational the writing by Kroker and Harold Innis and Innis’ determination to create a fusion point between individual circumstance as historical beings buffeted by social forces beyond our control and silent language of industrial technology […]
PAST EXHIBITION
SENSELUCENCE
Iris Seyler
5 November 1998 - 18 December 1998
Opening Reception 5 November 1998 8pm
Project Room: Senselucence Senselucence ploys glass in a way that inverts its conventional symbolic meaning. The layers are reminiscent of the stratigraphic column of geology. The photocopies of the eye, mouth, nose, ear and finger embedded in these layers mimic fossils – or rather fossilized tracks deposited at different points in time. The entire construction […]
PAST EXHIBITION
MEMORIAL FOR AN INVISIBLE MONUMENT
David Miller
5 November 1998 - 19 December 1998
Opening Reception 5 November 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: Memorial for an Invisible Monument Towards the end of the XXth century people are looking backwards, into the past, as did Angelus Novus in Klee’s painting interpreted by Walter Benjamin. If I remember well, the angel’s gaze froze as in a ‘flashback’ that momentarily shed light into the dark corridor of history. “This […]
PAST EXHIBITION
THE ASCENSION OF THE GOOD BUSINESS MAN
Janet Morton
10 September 1998 - 31 October 1998
Opening Reception 10 September 1998 8pm
Windows: The Ascension of the Good Businessman Morton’s window installation was inspired by her daily bike trips up Bay Street and by her belief that in some way or another, each of us has aspirations of transcendence. Janet Morton has recently exhibited in a number of group shows throughout Ontario including the Galleria, London and […]
PAST EXHIBITION
THE LAST SUPPER
Michael Alstad
10 September 1998 - 31 October 1998
Opening Reception 10 September 1998 8pm
Project Room: The Last Supper “My installation at Mercer is a response to a New York Times news item which was reprinted in the Globe and Mail’s Focus & Books section. The article What’s Cooking on Death Row was a report of the 144 men executed by Texas in the last 15 years and the […]
PAST EXHIBITION
SIMPLE EXPERIMENTS IN AERODYNAMICS: 6 & 7
George Bures Miller
10 September 1998 - 31 October 1998
Opening Reception 10 September 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: Simple Experiments in Aerodynamics: 6 & 7 George Bures Miller‘s Simple Experiments in Aerodynamicsseries are less propositions for actual scientific experiments and more points of departure, preparatory works that represent and inform the sentiments of surprise, daring and crisis that accompany the experimental and subsequent experiential process. The mixed media sculptures are spare, […]
PAST EXHIBITION
DIG, HEAD-LEVEL HAPPENING, COURTESY MOMENTS: AFTER YOU
John Marriott
25 June 1998 - 1 August 1998
Opening Reception 25 June 1998 8pm
Windows: Dig, Head-level Happening, Courtesy Moments: After You (Art that Says Hello) In some of my art, as seen in this exhibition, I attempt to bring together disparate references, often taken from banal or common-place social artifacts, behaviours, or codes of meaning that are considered so unglamorous or boringly functional as to be unworthy of […]
PAST EXHIBITION
PHALAENE, SPIDERSENSE #6
Penelope Stewart
25 June 1998 - 1 August 1998
Opening Reception 25 June 1998 8pm
Project Room: Phalaene, Spidersense #6 In Penelope Stewart’s site-sensitive installation for The House Project (1994), the architecture played an integral role as the armature for the work. The careful tailoring of the room to organza articulated and made visible that body, that skin, that invisible history latent within that space, the House; the site of […]
PAST EXHIBITION
JOHN DICKSON
John Dickson
25 June 1998 - 1 August 1998
Opening Reception 25 June 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: John Dickson The Enlightenment provided an ordered model of the universe. That model was mechanical. The mechanical universe was solvable, computable, predictable. That was the hope. A doubting hope. Some prefer to say that curiosity motivates, then as now, humanity’s search for answers; and admittedly, curiosity does have feel-good appeal – a creative, […]
PAST EXHIBITION
A GUIDED VIEWING, SPIDERSENSE #5
Juliet Palmer
14 May 1998 - 20 June 1998
Opening Reception 14 May 1998 8pm
Project Room: A Guided Viewing, Spidersense #5 Mercer Union is pleased to present the fifth part in the Spidersense series of six exhibitions curated by board members Reid Diamond and Evelyn Von Michalofski. For each Spidersense, a visual artist and a concrete poet engage in spatial activities: one artist in the project room and one […]
PAST EXHIBITION
EUPHORIA – EMPORIA
Ingrid Chu
14 May 1998 - 20 June 1998
Opening Reception 14 May 1998 8pm
Windows: Euphoria-Emporia Euphoria-Emporia examines how we are influenced and affected by our surrounding environment. Through the creation of a false storefront window, Chu examines the effects of consumer culture on our society. Taking cues from advertising, fashion, and the media. Chu’s window display operates as both an artistic and commercial display, challenging what is and […]
PAST EXHIBITION
THERE’S SOMETHING I’VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU
Bruce La Bruce, Lisa Deanne Smith, David Grenier
14 May 1998 - 20 June 1998
Opening Reception 14 May 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: There’s Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You To utter the classic leading line There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…–even without making the specific revelation that it preludes–is to already betray a great deal: that there is something to be said, that something prevents it from being said, and that something […]
PAST EXHIBITION
MOUNTAIN SERIES
Donna Brunsdale
2 April 1998 - 9 May 1998
Opening Reception 2 April 1998 8pm
Windows: Mountains series Mercer Union is pleased to present Calgary-based Donna Brunsdale in the window. Brunsdale has documented things which are often overlooked, have little importance and few notable features. Photographs from the Mountains series are incorporated into the window, constructing mini-landscapes derived from the artists’ observations of snow and gravel residue in Canadian cities. […]
PAST EXHIBITION
XXX VIDEO. SPIDERSENSE #4
Barry Isenor
2 April 1998 - 9 May 1998
Opening Reception 2 April 1998 8pm
Project Room: XXX Video, Spidersense #4 Mercer Union is pleased to present the fourth part in the Spidersense series of six exhibitions curated by board members Reid Diamond and Evelyn Von Michalofske. For each Spidersense, a visual artist and a concrete poet engage in spatial activities: one artist in the project room and one artist […]
PAST EXHIBITION
RYAN’S ARCADE
Luanne Martineau
2 April 1998 - 9 May 1998
Opening Reception 2 April 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: Ryan’s Arcade Many cities have an emblematic promotional image and for Calgary its the skyline with the Saddledome, the city’s hockey arena, looming in the foreground. As an architectural trope of its western image, the Saddledome perfectly encapsulates a civic narrative, a story which Luanne Martineau’s recent installation Ryan’s Arcade circuitously evokes. Calgary’s […]
PAST EXHIBITION
THE TWAIN SHALL MEET
David Bobier
19 February 1998 - 28 March 1998
Opening Reception 19 February 1998 8pm
Windows: The Twain Shall Meet Through his site-specific window installation, The Twain Shall Meet, David Bobier continues to illustrate the evolution of communication among and between deaf and hearing people. The window installation contains wall illustrations of hands signing the names of five pairs of deaf and hearing people who, through their historic relationships, have […]
PAST EXHIBITION
CAMERA AND PROJECTOR, SPIDERSENSE #3
Murray Favro
19 February 1998 - 28 March 1998
Opening Reception 19 February 1998 8pm
Project Room: Spidersense #3: Camera and Projector Mercer Union is pleased to present the third part in the Spidersense series of six exhibitions curated by board members Reid Diamond and Evelyn Von Michalofski. For each Spidersense, a visual artist and a concrete poet engage in spatial activities: one artist in the project room and one […]
PAST EXHIBITION
ACCIDENT PRONE
Nancy Davenport
19 February 1998 - 28 March 1998
Opening Reception 19 February 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: Accident Prone Accident-Prone, a new series of photographs by Nancy Davenport, offers a meditation contingency and the tragi-comic compulsion to create order in the face of random events. In each of the fifteen silver print landscape photographs, a character is about to suffer a fatal misfortune, be it a dreadful fall from a […]
PAST EXHIBITION
JANITOR COLOGNE
Andrew Harwood
8 January 1998 - 14 February 1998
Opening Reception 8 January 1998 8pm
Windows: Janitor Cologne Janitor Cologne is dedicated to all artists who work at crap jobs to make ends meet. It is also a tribute to those men and women who work cleaning public spaces in institutions and who largely go unnoticed as individuals, often invisible to the people for whom they clean. It is ironic […]
PAST EXHIBITION
DISSEMBLING LANGUAGE, SPIDERSENSE #2
Sylvia Ptak
8 January 1998 - 14 February 1998
Opening Reception 8 January 1998 8pm
Project Room: Dissembling Language, Spidersense #2 Mercer Union is pleased to present the second part in the Spidersense series of six exhibitions curated by board members Reid Diamond and Evelyn Von Michalofski. For each Spidersense, a visual artist and a concrete poet engage in spatial activities; one artist in the project room and one artist […]
PAST EXHIBITION
BABY PICTURES
Philip Grauer
8 January 1998 - 14 February 1998
Opening Reception 8 January 1998 8pm
Main Gallery: Baby Pictures Encountering Philip Grauer’s Baby Pictures sculptures-in reproductions, at the gallery-one is compelled to ask, in quite a normal tone of voice: What are these strange lumber shapes which are ready to be tucked into bed or taken again to the kindergarten? Or else: What are these twisted sisters and brothers, these […]
PAST EXHIBITION
RENE: THEREFORE I AM
Beth Learn
8 January 1998 - 14 February 1998
Opening Reception 8 January 1998 8pm
Brochure: Rene: Therefore I Am Beth Learn has been creating computer-generated graphic text layers since the early 1980’s. Through software such as Paintshop Pro, Compupict, Photoshop and Corel, Learn has mixed weaved and produced image/text interface to create a number of web/”book” projects. The first “book” to come from her investigation was released in January, […]