s

Often, the compositions in

Reid's watercoiors seem to result
more from physical process than
formal intent; she lets gravity and
other properties of the medium
play a major role. In this way, she
arrives at a relaxed, organic inter-
pretation of Minimalist form.
Meiissa E. Feidman
TORONTO
Gerald Ferguson
at Wynick/Tuck
Gerald Ferguson is perhaps best
known to Canadian art viewers
for his 7,000,000 Grapes instal-
lation at the National Gallery of
Canada in 2000. In that work the
artist designed a stencil of 40
grapes, borrowing the composi-
tion of the fruit from the still life
that appears in Picasso's Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon. Using
a roller and black enamel paint,
the stencil was applied 250
times on each of a hundred
48-inch-square canvases. The
individual paintings are almost
Gerald Ferguson; A/o. 2, 2002. enamel on drop
Cloth, 78 by S2 Inches; at Wynick/Tuck.
entirely black, except for the
occasional small bit of raw oan-
vas. Hung on the wall in a grid,
the paintings resemble a starry
night skythe gorgeous and
serendipitous result of a very
mechanical process.
In his recent show at Wynick/
Tuck, Ferguson continues to
develop his unique brand of
process painting in which beauty
is the by-product of banal, anti-
vtrtuosic means. In 11 new
paintings (all 2003), rather than
using a stencil, the artist frot-
taged a length of 2-inch welded
steel chain by placing it under a
canvas in various positions and
passing over the top with a roller
and black paint. Instead of plain
canvas, Ferguson employed
fabric drop cloths that had been
used by housepainters. With
their spills and marks, the
drop cloths were themselves
ready-made paintings. In the
beautiful, opportune "collabora-
tions," Ferguson simply adds
his signature with the frottaged
chain.
The drop cloth in No. 2 {78 by
92 inches), an old sheet, is pat-
terned with small, yellow flowers.
Brilliant pink and blue splotches of
paint punctuate the surface.
Ferguson laid a length of the 2-
inch chain under this sheet in
even rows. The result is an intri-
cate, abstract pattern of thou-
sands of aggressive dashes.
No. 17 {80 by 92 inches) is made
on a white drop cloth bearing four
black, square outlines in a row
across the top and black paint spills
at the bottom right and top left. The
chain marks are less dense than in
No. 2; there is only a delicate pat-
tern of thin, black vertical lines over
the surface. No. 27(59 by 53 inch-
es) is one of the more
spare compositions. A
cream-colored cloth is
frottaged with thin black
lines. There are only
three interruptions to
the otherwise airy com-
position: a thick red line
cuts through the middle
of the canvas; a thinner
black line enters from
the bottom right; and a
black L shape, tilted
slightly to the left,
appears near the top.
In these new works,
Ferguson continues to
create visually complex
paintings using the
most humble of materi-
als and processes.
Melissa Kuntz
OXFORD
Mike Nelson at the
Modem Art Museum
British artist Mike Nelson has
made his name as the king of sal-
vage installation. This magpie fre-
quenter of flea markets and thrift
stores utilizes everything from
reclaimed doors to discarded tele-
phones and broken toys to create
his disorienting, space-devouring
works. Unlike previous Nelson
adventures, notably in the Venice
Biennale and Turner Prize exhibi-
tions of 2001, his latest show was
not one ail-encompassing environ-
ment but a show in three acts,
hence the (punning) title, 'Triple
Bluff Canyon."
First came a disheveled cinema
foyer with boarded-up box office
and dog-eared posters for Alien,
an inauspicious no-man's-land of
a beginning with three numbered
doors urging the visitor to choose
his or her own multiplex destiny.
Just one of the exits worked, but
only to reveal the unpainted
wooden structure ot the false
lobby. Nelson's first "bluff" being a
film set of a cinema.
Further on, the next space again
took us behind the scenes, this
time to the artist's front-room-cum-
studio in South London, which he
re-created right up to the ceiling
rose. This was not the first time
Nelson displayed his studio as a
set within an exhibition, but here
one was not granted entrance and
could merely peer into the installa-
tion through the glassless window
bays. This shift from total immer-
sion to theatrical distance sug-
gests Nelson wants the act of
viewing to be as important as any
phenomenological concerns. A
projector on a table in the room
bounced a film off a convex mirror
and back to the gallery wall, but
this was no cinematic experience.
Instead, a little-known U.S. con-
spiracy theorist named Jordan
Maxwell ranted on about the
Knights Templar and the llluminati,
claiming that these groups had
been plotting a New World Order
with roots in ancient Egypt.
As if on cue, the next installation
offered a giant pyramidal sand
dune. A rickety, narrowing wooden
corridor that resembled a disused
mineshatt seemed to offer a pas-
sage through the tons of sand but
culminated in a Nelson trademark:
a dead end lit by a naked lightbulb.
With no way through, the viewer
was forced to retrace the path back
to the ground-floor information desk
and up a flight of stairs to the muse-
um's first floor, where the partially
submerged wooden structure was
visible in a sea of sand. The image
paid homage to Robert Smithson's
Partially Buried Woodstied{1970),
built at Kent State University, in
which earth was piled onto an exist-
ing structure until the central beam
cracked. The exhibition catalogue
highlights the connection between
Smithson's work, which was politi-
cized after student demonstrators
were killed on campus months
later, and Nelson's desert remake,
which included discarded oil drums
referencing the Iraq war and occu-
pation. However, there is another
link between the two artists.
Smithson lamented the stale
View of Mike Nelson's installation
"Triple Bluff Canyon," 2004;
at the Modern Art Museum.
atmosphere of the gallery ("muse-
ums are tombs," he onoe wrote)
and so took his work outside, while
Nelson goes some way to reinvigo-
rating the museum with works of art
that suggestively transport the out-
side world into the white cube.
Ossian Ward
PARIS
Jennifer Allora
and Guillermo Calzadilla
at Chantai Crousel
"Ciclonismo," a term invented by
this artist team, is the study of the
effect of natural phenomena, such
as cyclones, on social movements
in the Caribbean. "Histories of
power, colonization, and cross-
cultural exchanges can be told
through wind routes," explains the
Jennifer Allora & Guillermo
Calzadilla: The Nature of Conflict,
2004, used motor oii, water, mixed
mediums; at Chantai Crousel.
189