hic, window screens

Lyla Rye has a very interesting description in the hic leaflet about her concept of doing the window and door installation with building blocks in the Debates Room. What I experienced that day was actually the "exclusion" aspect of her concept. I couldn't go inside the Debates Room because there was a rehearsal going on. So I just peeped from the door, through the holes of the building blocks. Access to some installations, such as Max Streicher's Clouds, and Lee Goreas's Target Practise are also restricted to guided tour. Free guided tours of the exhibition leave from the Hall Porter's Desk of Hart House on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The show will close on April 16.

hic, Dark Lord on the floor

This is obviously some form of artwork and easy enough to hunt down spectators. A surreal pool of black vinyl on which sits the helmet of Darth Vader, the Star Wars' villain. In the hands of the Quebec group BGL (Jasmin Bilodeau, Sebastien Giguere and Nicolas Laverdiere) the Dark Lord is powerless and reduced to a pitiful pool of vinyl remains. The reflections of the window on the sheen surface of the vinyl is perhaps the only clue to track down a connection, and a very direct one, to the Hart House building.

hic, installation in the library

The installation "In The Air" takes place in Hart House's library, breathing a bit of humour and life in the usually dead quiet space (except for a few snores by people sleeping there). This project has many participants, who are mainly students from the Hart House activity clubs. The artist asked each participant to breathe into the balloon, draw a face on it, then place the balloon on the shelves.

hic, blocks

The installation "Screen" by Lyla Rye is really smart and beautiful. These screens on doors and windows created by the artist using plastic building blocks look so ornamental and blend-in that one can mistake them by thinking they are the original artifacts of the historic building. Without looking at the hic leaflet, I only realize that this is an installation upon a second examination.

hic, Wheel of Fortune

One won't miss this installation located on the second floor, east side of the Hart House. Created by Kristinna Lahde, the sculpture is a huge tire based on a 1940's Massey-Harris tractor tire. The artist created the tractor tire with carved, anti-industrial Neo-gothic patterns to bring together two opposite ideological positions between the architecture of the Hart House and the industry that created it.

hic, Beasts on the main stairwell landing

Designed and make you turn your head to get a closer look are these grotesque hairy "heads" suspended in the Hart House main stairwell. Not surprisingly, it is the work of Catherine Heard, one of my favourite artists. The installation, called Beasts, could have different and sometimes startling interpretations. Personally I saw histories - the bloody scenes of ancient war where the captives or the deads were beheaded, bundled together and hung on the winning side's city walls as symbols of victory. To the artist it has a totally different symbolic function - it reveals the "primal vestiges of the human mind, suppressed by the cultured and educated aspects of our psychologies". This is really the beauty of the work which can be interpreted in different levels. It's a contemporary chandelier in the Hart House illuminating the other side of beauty.

hic at Hart House, University of Toronto

I went to the Justina M. Barnicke Art Gallery at Hart House many times to look at exhibitions. The longest time I stayed in the Hart House was to attend a friend's wedding about four years ago. And yes, I've almost forgotten, I was there once to attend a Chinese poetry reading. All these roughly sum up my impression of the Hart House - beautiful architecture inside out and always bustling with activities. When I heard of hic - the 18 installations and interventions taken place in the Hart House, I was naturally drawn to visit again and find out more about the site-specific works. Located at the main entrance is a mixed media installation work by Ontario artist Brian Scott.

hic, the Collective

hic stands for the Hart House Installation Collective which consists of six artists: Carlo Cesta, John Dickson, Gordon Hatt, Catherine Heard, Lisa Neighbour, Lyla Rye and Max Streicher. Together they initiated and organized the exhibition hic to "situate contemporary art within the life of the university community". Eighteen artists has participated in the project, producing installation works situated throughout the building - in the first and second floor and the basement. At the vestibule outside the southeast entrance, John Dickson set up the installation Smoke and Mirrors, creating the illusion of an infinitely long arched tunnel filled with trees.

hic, installation and intervention

Exhibiting contemporary art in non conventional spaces is interesting and challenging at the same time. This is true to both artists and audiences. It's almost like a see-it or miss-it game. With the help of the hic title label, I was able to locate this work by Kristen Peterson. What's interesting about this work is that it is more of an intervention, to re-direct attention to a doorway which was once one of the two entrances leading to the small chapel. It is now blocked by bricks and defunct.