In the depths of dreary winter, nine U of T students from the Visual Studies department staged All Inclusive, an art show that endeavoured to give viewers a taste of what such a vacation might offer. The show, which ran during the holiday break from December 10-21 at Toronto’s Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts, featured all manner of multidisciplinary works, from sculptural installation and photography to painting and collage.
The conceptual basis for the show evolved from the idea of the all-inclusive vacation, which offers a package holiday complete with all amenities. The works exhibited referred not only to the decidedly tropical, but also to the mood of hedonism, freedom, and debauchery that is often associated with a week of fun in the sun and unlimited alcohol.
An all-inclusive vacation is not only a holiday from the stresses of daily life or the forces of Canadian winter, but also an escape from oneself, where the participant can almost be anonymous, slip into a new identity, and engage in activities and behaviour they would normally shy away from.
That idea was explored in “Quality Inn, Room 307”, a series of eight colour photographs by Katie Babcock and Kevin Parnell that presented a series of objects with illicit undertones. Taken at close range, each image focused the viewer’s eye on a specific object, such as a drain clogged with hair, a single stocking dangling from a lampshade, a used condom, or a single, discarded high-heel shoe. These objects, distanced from the people to whom they belong, took on a life of their own, becoming both evocative and symbolic, while at the same time referring to a larger story, inviting the viewer to create their own narrative to go along with the images.
The intimate space of the Propeller Centre was dominated by Lauren DiMonte’s “A week’s worth of souvenirs”, an installation that filled the centre of the room. In this piece, white towels and bed sheets were twisted and fastened together around a supporting structure to form a towering palm tree, transforming an organic object into a sterile, man-made rendition of one. On the ceiling hung Jillian Locke’s “Bathingsuit Blowfish”, in which eight bathing suits dangled while being mechanically inflated and deflated, the brightly coloured garments simultaneously amusing and eerie, strangely alive despite their disembodiment.
On the walls hung a variety of multimedia work, including a collection of six acrylic paintings by artist Meghan McKnight. These pieces were surprisingly mesmerizing, despite their bland pastel palette and lack of strong imagery. The pieces placed strong emphasis on texture and were overwhelmingly tactile, with the artist using the paint to create thick dots, shapes, and patterns on the canvas. Works like “I want to dream of a sandbar” evoked allusions to topography, with textural shapes reminiscent of waves, coral, and starfish.
Artist Sarah Phillips created a series of cyanotype prints in murky shades of blue. In this printing process, paper treated with a photosensitive chemical is covered with a negative and exposed to UV light, creating a distinctive blue image. The results were visually complex and invited closer inspection, while the viewer’s eye searched the image for recognizable shapes.
The All-Inclusive show was a unique opportunity for nine fledgling artists to display their talents in an environment outside the university structure, and exhibited the rawness that is inherent in most young artists’ work. While the show’s concept may have been well thought through, the execution was shaky from a curatorial standpoint. While the ratio of impressive to mediocre work was at par with any other show of this type, there was a lack of cohesion between the show’s conceptual foundation and the works shown, leaving the viewer with a mild sense of dissatisfaction.
The wide range of work presented and the artists’ very diverse applications of the show’s concept detracted from the focus that would have given the exhibition a greater sense of completeness. Nevertheless, the journey to the Propeller Centre was a worthwhile one, especially as an opportunity to witness the talent (which often goes unheeded) that lurks within U of T’s Visual Studies department.
