2016, BARRIE, ONTARIO
AGAIN AND ONCE MORE, AGAIN
CURATED BY EMILY MCKIBBON
EXHIBITED AT THE MACLAREN ART CENTRE
The exhibition Again and Once More, Again takes its title from a 1939 defence of Marxism Leon Trotsky gave while exiled in Mexico, Trotsky offering his mechanic as a metaphor and model for frustrated socialists of the world. Each of the three artists—Kristie MacDonald, Myfanwy MacLeod and Mitch Robertson—works with archival or found materials to make these historical traces present, their processes iterative and occasionally corrective. There is also an interest, shared between them, in unresolved stories, old hurts, frustration and failure. Myfanwy MacLeod works with material from the MacLaren’s Sovfoto Archive of 23,000 Soviet press prints dating from the Stalinist period.
MacLeod ultimately created works for this exhibition that do not directly reference any one single photograph in the Sovfoto Archive. Instead Flagspreader features two portraits of a cheerleader printed on three Soviet red flags, the flags fringed in black and mounted on wooden flagpoles with brass acorn finials. The pictured cheerleader is dressed to perform, her hair up and teased, but her focus directed inwards. Reminiscent of Soviet gymnasts as much as the classic North American cheerleader, her presentation on these flags complicates notions of camp, gender, athleticism and nationalism.
Photos: Dennis Ha
Source: Maclaren Art Centre