Thinking Animals

August 4, 2018 – August 25, 2018

Olga Korper Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition curated by our own John McEwen featuring guest artists Shary Boyle, Wendy Coburn, Stephen Cruise, Veronica Verkley and Brandon Vickerd. Thinking Animals will open on Saturday August 4th, 2-5 PM and will remain on view until August 25th.

The works in Thinking Animals were chosen because they make a contribution to the field of animal studies as works of art. The artists did not need to be an expert in either the theory or representation of animals but simply present one convincing model of our ongoing need for them.

Notes from the Curator

The philosopher Kelly Oliver begins her book Animal Lessons with the long lived idea of necessity; that we humans are here by necessity, (whether of religion or nature), and not by chance. Each work in the exhibition Thinking Animals confronts, in its own way, this idea of necessity and each work can be seen as a lesson in our need for animals and how animals teach us what it means to be human and at what cost.

I wish to thank each artist for their considerable generosity in participating in the exhibition Thinking Animals.

The work Live/Old is a sculpture of a young woman with the head of an elephant. It is almost, but not quite, seamless in its execution. This almost perfect embodiment makes it seem like a truthful work, one not dependant on authenticating evidence or reference.

In 1957 American psychologist Harry Harlow began developing theories on the ‘Nature of Love.’ He removed baby monkeys from their mothers to gain insight into the workings of touch on ‘normal’ development.

In Die Trauernde, Wendy Coburn presents the muybridge-like arc of a baby monkey moving to the refuge of a cloth mother. Against the trajectory of this arc we hear an anthem of the unloved, the leider Die Trauernde by Johannes Brahms.

In this work it is the animal that pays the price of the lesson.

In 1974 Stephen Cruise moved across the cultural landscape and took up the Japanese Martial art of Kendo.

In 1984 he made the work entitled Blood Red Run.

In Blood Red Run a moving LED sign details the problem(s) of continuing the sport. These he eventually overcame and has continued the sport’s rigorous practise to the present. Throughout this time he has produced a work each year based on that year’s Chinese Zodiac animal.

Seven large corten ‘scrabble’ stars each with a laser cut letter.

S is the most valuable letter.

S for species.

With one foot in the Yukon and the other in the film industry Veronica’s work is often focused on gestures of behaviour.

If the third term in Heidegger’s comparative analysis between humans and animals is a stone, Merleau Ponty finds more in common – by comparing them to machines.

Where machines function, both humans and animals live.

Veronica Verkley would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts in the production and transportation of Unbecoming from Dawson City, Yukon to Toronto for this exhibition.

In this set of taxidermied works Brandon Vickerd creates a portrait of the human in which collective life resonates. Rather than a single creature admired for a specific virtue, these works draw their strength from the idea of a smallness and multiplicity. This seems to be an important departure from the singular animal mask.