Isabelle Pauwels

1 July 2004 - 7 August 2004
Opening Reception 1 July 2004 8pm

Front Gallery:

37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations

Opening night Artist Talk by Isabelle Pauwels, 7PM

Pauwels mixes language and architecture, linking them structurally as well as by method of usage. Language is an existing structure that we use to define and present personal intent, and on which we are dependent in order to define ourselves. Within this determined structure, we find the possibility for inscribing the self and the option of creating personal formations. But how dependent are we on this preexisting public domain to render our intentions or meanings recognizable? And inversely, how does that structure or space modify understanding?

For 37A Lisgar Street: A Few Situations, Pauwels’s exhibition at Mercer Union, she sublets part of the Front Gallery. Adhering to Ontario building codes, Pauwels constructs a walled room, defining a personal space that structurally reflects the minimum provincial standards of what constitutes a livable structure. This newly declared space also ceremoniously bears its address and has its own mail slot. Pauwels is already sending mail to this newly established space, as part of legitimizing and deeming it a real address space. (excerpt from brochure essay by Jenifer Papararo)