Exploring a cross-section of int’l perspectives “Out of Place,’’ A Group Exhib- ition, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby St, Van- couver, to fan. 17, 1994, N THE end, it may be that all we really have in H common as human be- ings is our compulsion to re- tain our differences. In today’s culturally imploding world, the need to preserve one’s unique identity can often appear at risk, particularly if one perceives it from the nebulous and nondescript perspective of late 20th-century postmodernism. In an effort to explore the meanings of individual experience, especially one’s sense of place, in an increasingly global culture, Vancouver Art Gallery curator Gary Dufour has assembled a highly diverting exhibition of sculpture and installations. He in- vites us to explore “our own hybrid identities,’ by exploring _the creative identities and preoc- cupations of seven artists whose social and historical contexts pro- vide a broad cross-section of in- . ternational perspectives. Without fear of oversimplifying matters unduly, it should prove expedient to divide this exhibit in- to two categories or spheres of ex- pression: the subjectively abstract and the systematically detached. Only the mesmerizing high-tech explorations of San Francisco artist Doug Hall can be said to slip pro- miscuously into either category. What the works of Waltercio Caldas, Claudia Cuesta and Chie Ron Falcioni ART REVIEW Matsui have in common is their obsessive preoccupation with the nonsocial (or even pre-rationall perception of space. Their works are thus not merely ‘oul of place’ but “out of time’ in the sense that they embody what is timeless and universal in human experience, They advocate not social interac- tion but social withdrawal into the spiritual dimension of the self. This emphasis on tapping one’s inner resources is essentially primal and mystical in origin. Caldas’ Sculpture For All Non- transparent Materials, like his other works here, is fundamentally — and coldly — idealistic in its emphatic formalism. By his own admission it is not man - a purely peripheral concern at best — that Caldas attempts ‘to grasp and ac- tivate’”’ in his work, it is merely space, In Cuesta’s work, on the other hand, the forms used are organic and generally life affirming in a profoundly inquisitive way, in At- temipting to integrate (1988}, a pe- riodic flow of water gives cohesiveness to the various disparate elements which, despite Photo Claudia Cuesta CLAUDIA CUESTA'S metal installation laoks as if it might have been transported to the gallery from some fecund but unearthly jungle. Elegant Comfort Food for Breakfast, Lunch & Brunch Opening Hours: Mon.-Sat. 7:30am-5:00pm Sun 9:00am-4:00pm Catering & Take-away 130.- 14 926-4800 j their fabrication from metal, look as if they might have been trans: ported to the gallery fram some fecund but uncarthly jungle. Like the enigmatic journey (1993), which engages the viewer with the prospect of four taunting portals of sel-discavery, or Lite Perpetually Starting (1992), which is blatantly and primordially sexual in its connotations, it is a work that places the perception of the world “beyond space and beyond time” on a plane thatis primal, visceral and mysterious. As in Matsui’s timeless and nec- essarily title-less installation (an in- ner sanctum of sorts that seduces with intimations of harmony, obli- vion and peace), Cuesta’s percep: tion of space is inherently spiritual and ineifable. To say that the other artists rep- resented in this exhibit are self- consciously analytical is not to deny the inherently analytical See Spirit page 46 fina Lall'ge: all's Stee re Dial-A-Movie has the largest TV’s for the lowest prices... 100 inch TV’s from $4999.99 installed evie GENTECH 2021 Do