Toronto artists examine industrialization and modernism with a contemporary outlook
Sarah Ciantar
Arts Editor
Past and present artistic styles come together in the exhibition Nostalgia for Postmodernists (After Modernism), held at the Xpace Cultural Center until September 1.
The show, which started on August 10, consists of works by three contemporary artists united by a shared interest in re-exploring modernist art of the industrialization era.
Tobias Williams, Aryen Hoekstra, and Julian Higuerey Núñez insert contemporary elements of culture and new materials into their work, which reflects on modernism, and presents the concept of nostalgia as a desire for what “never actually was.”
In essence, the artists attempt to succeed where the art of the past failed, and explore what could have made it successful.
“It’s hilarious to look at the failures of previous eras,” says Amber Landgraff, curator of the exhibition. “Considering
how simple solutions are today, the problems seem comical in retrospect.”
“I like the ones that failed,” she says. “I’m interested in their flaws.” This idea was central to putting together the exhibition.
The walls of the gallery are covered in a unique wallpaper, which references the designs of William Morris, whose art has been seen as a reaction to industrialization.
Morris wanted to produce aesthetically pleasing works in much the same way as consumer goods.
The screen-print designs of Tobias Williams, a York visual arts grad student, are showcased along the southern and western walls of the gallery. This installation puts a modern twist on Morris’s style, attempting to fix the failures of his original creations.
Morris’s original goal during his involvement in the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement was to create art that could be reproduced and be available to the masses.
However, due to the limitations of printing and costs at the time, and because he rejected mechanical mass-production, Morris’s work became so expensive that it was only accessible to the very wealthy.
This is where Williams’s work succeeds in ways the original work of Morris never could. Created with cheap material, the art becomes easily reproduced.
Subtle references to pop culture are also inserted into these designs. The internet meme “Nyan Cat” is integrated into in one series of prints, while another references Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
These easily recognizable characters demonstrate the mass culture that the internet has created, and make the work more accessible.
Williams also allows you to take a part of the exhibition home by giving away free original prints.
Along the northern wall, old-fashioned slide projectors face the opposite wall to create a .gif, a moving image made through a combination of multiple image stills, with Hoekstra’s piece “rotorelief.gif.” This piece is one of the standouts of the show as the sounds and the lighting of the projectors create an engaging atmosphere.
Using a film projector to link multiple images, Hoekstra creates an unconventional .gif with film stills of Marcel Duchamp’s “Anemic Cinema.” This series is meant to display a way that Duchamp’s work could have been more effective.
Along the southern wall is Núñez’s piece, “Monuments.” This is a series of videos on the destructive elements of industrialization. A looping video depicts an artist attempting to build a tower out of popsicle sticks, repeatedly failing, growing increasingly frustrated, but picking up and attempting to rebuild it in spite of his struggles.
“It explores the desire for progress for the sake of progress, and the failure that is to come of it,” says Landgraff.
Nostalgia for Postmodernists (After Modernism) presents some intriguing pieces. Unified by a common theme, the artists’ works complement one another, and the exhibition accomplishes what it sets out to do by putting a new spin on modernist art.
