2014
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
EXHIBITED AT MUSEUM LONDON & THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY
CURATED BY CASSANDRA GETTY & GRANT ARNOLD
Taking the “cock and bull story”—an absurd or improbable tale passed off as the truth—as its starting point, this exhibition reflects Myfanwy MacLeod’s longstanding interest in satire as a tool for critical examination of the world around us.
Drawing upon the wry sense of humour that informs her own practice, MacLeod has selected an eclectic range of artwork from the Gallery’s permanent collection, with a focus on works that speak to the vexations that persistently confront artists: the struggle to produce something “socially relevant,” the tension between art and commerce, and the conflict between popular entertainment and “high culture.” Presenting a subversively humorous critique of imbalances of power within the art world—inequities MacLeod sees as representative of the world at large.
Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Myfanwy MacLeod and Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art.
Since the mid-1990s, the Vancouver-based artist Myfanwy MacLeod has become widely known for making art that traverses the boundaries that define high culture and mass entertainment in a satirical investigation of social power. Hinging on linguistic slippages and unexpected flashes of recognition, she uncovers new meanings and points of intersection within iconic episodes in popular culture and the history of modern art. Simultaneously amusing and troubling, her work has, for example, used overt references to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, incorporated sculptural motifs from the 1968 British musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and included origami sculptures from images of the murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten.
Myfanwy MacLeod or There and Back Again focuses on new works produced specifically for this exhibition, in which the sexually charged music of Led Zeppelin and the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien are key references. These include Ramble On, a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro that has been stripped of much of its bodywork and engine and hangs on a rotisserie stand, a bit like a beast in the process of being roasted, and Stack, a large-scale wall-mounted work that resembles the wall of Marshall speaker cabinets used by Led Zeppelin to produce heavily amplified sound for their stadium concerts.
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