Saturday, April 22, 2000 to Saturday, May 27, 2000

    Opening
    • Saturday, April 22, 2000
    This exhibition is organized around the idea of fabrication as a process. It mixes material and intellectual or emotional elements with the relatively small scale (or sense of modesty) of the objects involved, and a sense of uneasiness related to one's individual experience. Small Craft Warnings brings together artistic practices that question the authority of traditional disciplines and modernist attitudes in art-making by juxtaposing works in drawing, ceramics and 'play-dough', and reinforcing the idea of inter-subjective perspectives based on our relation to the world and to others. The idea of 'warning' relates to transitions in personal experiences, and to the work's ability to express such ideas. It reveals an unpretentious attempt to share our apprehension of conflictive moments in a plural reality. Experience is change; this show reaffirms the transitory nature of reality, the variable definition of things, and the transformation of our perceptions and understanding of what is outside and inside ourselves. Mark Maestro's ceramic sculptures show his interest in the rendition of individual experience through the manipulation of matter. Earthenware provides a singular quality to the artist's attempt to communicate a personal story, literally materializing the work's capacity to translate the meaning of displacement. Similarly, Priscilla Yeung pays attention to the intimate relation between object-making and her everyday life. She collects and uses mundane materials and considers each work part of a 'continuous installation', insisting on the tenuous line dividing artistic and non-artistic activities. Janet Werner's paintings and drawings are also constructions of a subjective kind, layering and juxtaposing pictorial and psychological elements, often depicting the human figure in a relational experience with others, themselves, and the viewer. The simplicity of her drawings contrasts with a web of positions, notions, and definitions, revealing a 'multiple crisis' of the subject, object, gaze, and image. Curated by François Dion