Thursday, August 23, 2007
Burton MacKenZie's Winnipeg Louvre Public Installation Gallery has introduced fine 19th Century Impressionism to the masses.
Normally my installation pieces (like 'Math Will Set You Free') are designed as ubiquitously invisible urban street art, a hello message for the observant, delivered across the medium of the bizarre. Like an upside down Italian Bistro, their Somebody Else's Problem Invisibility Field keeps them hidden from consciousness.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1881 painting of St. Mark’s Square, by contrast, leaps out at you. "Hey, there's a framed painting over there on that wood". It doesn't blend - the metaphors are too divergent (and I'm sure the contrast ratio helps).
The juxtaposition of the old and respected work against the hasty and coarse-grained guerilla installation art uses overlapping positive space to highlight that art is for everybody, regardless of where you find it. Wow, I just had a deja-vu.
Burton MacKenZie www.burtonmackenzie.com
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