Nothing Is As Stark As The Body Next To You
Group exhibition at AC Repair Co., Toronto, Canada
March 4 - 13, 2016
Michael Abel Jeff Bierk & James Evans Tetyana Herych Lili Huston-Herterich Liza Lacroix Mickey Mackenna Robert Anthony O'Halloran Connor Olthuis"The room is in the Ducal Palace, Mantua... It was conceived as a private room where the prince could receive visitors... The whole room is painted. We're inside a painting... All is representation. We know they are painted curtains. We know they are painted figures, painted sky, painted hills. Everything is surface... Here, everything is both presented by and hidden in [art]. And so nothing is as stark as the body next to you..."
– John & Katya Berger, on one of Andrea Mantegna's painted rooms (1465-74) (from John Berger's Portraits [2015])
In a room in disrepair, art performs in the opposite manner, both presented by and hidden in the room itself. We are struck by the space's imperfections. What was here before? Why have we been invited here? Still, the stark body next to you is the only definite element of the room that we can be sure isn't art.
All photographs courtesy Kristie Muller.