On the stairs on the south* building of Emily Carr University, a paper coffee cup was neatly tucked on a stair by the riser. It so called attention to itself it might as well have had ringing bells and flashing lights.
Was the coffee cup more than just a coffee cup? Could it have been an subtle intervention in the official space of an institution? Was it one of the works in the 2012 Degree Exhibition?
On this occasion, the coffee cup was just a coffee cup and not a local version of a Gabriel Orozco orange or a Martin Creed crumpled piece of paper. When you’re at an art school graduation exhibition, you have to be careful. Everything had the potential to be art, no matter how slight.
Determining what was and wasn’t art was simply a practical question for the jurors who were looking at a dizzying variety of works and projects made by more than 350 students in fine arts and design. They had to pick 11 winners in eight different categories.
They had their work cut out for them. Nigel Prince, executive director of the Contemporary Art Gallery, Ron Tran, an artist, and Leah Nelson, a partner and creative director at Giant Ant Media started around 9 a.m. last Friday – May 4. I went along with them as they made their way through the exhibits for the first time. I was gone by noon but they kept at it until 4: 30 p.m.
Early on, Prince recognized the challenge of standing in front of a lone work by an artist and evaluating it.
“It’s so difficult when there is just a single work. How representative is it? Is it the best thing?” Prince said. “It’s a tricky decision. What does this one work represent?”
Prince said in graduating exhibitions, it’s not surprising to see student work that shows their influences.
“I’m looking for something about the ideas, imagery, and materiality and some reference points in art and design history,” he said.
“I’m looking for clarity of thought, a sense of moving toward an authentic voice in some sort of way. There are practical things in terms of how well something is made to hold an idea. It might be a piece of paper tacked to a wall but it’s the appropriateness of that to the idea. It’s those kind of qualities I’m looking for.”
I was with the jurors as they looked at the works for the first time. During most of the morning, the jurors looked with focussed intensity at the paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, photographs and other works. There was a lot of quiet time as they wandered around the works but when they did talk, they interacted with each other like colleagues working together as a team on a project. To help them make their evaluations, Tran and Nelson took photos of the works that caught their eye.
One of the observations that came out was the presentation in fine arts. In several cases, the works appeared to be haphazardly displayed. A video in front of a window was difficult to see because of the glare and a sculptural work on a hanger was crammed against another window so that one side couldn’t be seen properly. Some works that were more challenging to experience didn’t have clear instructions. That meant jurors also had to scramble to look for clues about how to turn some computers on or find where the volume switch was located.
One of the works that caught the attention of the jurors was Judy Shane’s The Painted Photograph: RGB Series. The three side-by-side light jet chromogenic prints were photographs of red, green and blue daubs of paint.
Since it was early in the day yet, the usual didactic panels hadn’t been attached to the works. Instead, they were each identified by an official-looking piece of paper called the Installation Instructions Form for Art Exhibits. It had the artist’s name and title. Some had a little extra information.
With Shane, the form included the comment “Faculty suggest/Hanging only two.” The two was underlined for emphasis. Below was the artist’s response that removing one of the prints “wouldn’t make the series work.”
The jurors appeared to like that the artist stuck to her idea and kept all three prints in the exhibition.
On another occasion, I looked across one of the exhibition rooms to see Tran on his knees with his face next to a stump on the floor. It looked like he was praying.
“It smells really nice,” Tran said.
As Tran demonstrated, being a juror meant being adventuresome and engaging with the work – no matter what height it was at.
Tran was the first to look at Alie O’Connor’s Biosis Skopeo. It was a moss-covered stump with a mirrored interior that was only visible by kneeling down.
When I asked Tran what he was looking for as a juror, he said that was a tough question to answer.
“I could be biased because I come from a visual arts background so we have to be open-minded,” he said.
“Again, you only see one work you can’t get sense of their practice. Obviously, it’s the presentation and finding any concept or content that I could grab. It’s the first instant, that feeling, going through and looking at the works. What I found intriguing the first time, I may change my mind when I come back.”
Nelson said she has a process she goes through when she attends the Emily Carr University degree show. Usually she goes through on the opening night and sees what catches her attention.
“When I come back, I spend a lot more time with the kind of work that doesn’t catch my eye. I read and let it sink in. Then you find the amazing pieces that you may have missed the first time.”
2012 Grad Awards
Aritzia Degree Exhibition Design Award ($1,000): Sophie Lundstrom Halbert
Canon Photography Award (Digital SLR and lens est $5,000; $2,000 cash; $1,000 cash): Winner: Hua Jin; 2nd: Kirsten Berlie; 3rd: Hannah Campbell
Circle Craft Graduation Award for Ceramics,($1,000) : James Kemp
Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver Emerging Artist Award ($1,000): Erika Rannali
Chancellor Awards ($2,000 each): Media (selected by a separate jury): Phoebe Chard; Fine Arts: Christiann Kennedy; Design: Caitrin Wootton
Farris Award for Art and Social Media ($500): David Vaisbord
Mary Plumb Blade Award (Painting or Printmaking) ($1,200): Shannon Craigie-Helkett.
Winsor Gallery Graduate Student Award ($1,500): Luke Parnell
* * *
Governor General’s Gold Medal (highest academic standing, graduate): Myron Campbell
Governor General’s Silver Medal (highest academic standing, undergraduate: Christiann Kennedy
Sophie Burnett Memorial Award (to media arts undergrad with highest GPA): Aleksandr Kudimenko
Emily Carr University of Art + Design Degree Exhibition continues daily to Sunday, May 20.
*corrected to south building Friday, May 11.
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Filed under: Art Seen Tagged: 2012 Degree Exhibition, Art Seen, Contemporary Art Gallery, Emily Carr University, Gabriel Orozco, Giant Ant Media, Kevin Griffin, Martin Creed, Nigel Prince, Ron Tran
