ADRIENNE SPIER | UNWANTED, stomach BROKEN AND USELESS
SATURDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2006 – SATURDAY 16 DECEMBER 2006
OPENING RECEPTION | FRIDAY 03 NOVEMBER 2006, healing 8:00PM – 11:00PM
Photo credit: Peter MacCallum
My work deals with refuse or unwanted objects. Urban centres have been my primary sources of material. We all have intimate contact with furniture on a daily basis; we trust chairs to support our weight and we freely caress a tabletop or counter in the places where decisions are made. Furniture is designed to accommodate the human body and therefore mirrors our shapes and proportions. It is a crutch supporting our weight, making our days easier and more efficient. In this installation I have dismantled a room full of furniture and attached it to a system of low-tech mechanical devices such as pulleys, hinges and cables. All of these parts were originally manufactured to increase efficiency. The room is made in such a way as to be transformable: the viewer has the option to collapse or re-compose the room and to explore its in-between stages. Viewers are invited to participate physically by moving parts with their bodies causing the furniture to contort and collapse and fail in its initial design as an aid to the human body. In this sense, the installation personifies uselessness and frustration.
ADRIENNE SPIER graduated with an MFA from Concordia University in 2004 and completed the Independent Studio Program at the Toronto School of Art in 2001. She earned her BA in Fine Art from University of Guelph in 1997. Her work has been shown at various artist run centres and galleries across Canada including Truck (Calgary), Eastern Front Gallery (Toronto), Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Montreal), Dare Dare (Montreal) and Gallery Optica (Montreal). She participated in the International Artist Residency on Toronto Island and in the This Neck of the Woods residency in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Spier received a creation/production grant from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2005.