In a letter to his wife from the Western Front in 1917 just after the Battle of Passchendaele British war artist Paul Nash wrote: “I am no longer an artist interested and curious I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever. Feeble inarticulate will be my message but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls.”
Dick Averns nichola feldman-kiss and Adrian Stimson share some common ground with Nash. They are all professional civilian artists. They have all chosen to go to the front line and they all reveal the same pride and compassion for the soldiers who serve there. They have also all brought home a message expressed it in their art and given it to us so that we may see with their eyes what would burn our own.
In 2009 under the auspices of the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP) Averns spent time with the Multinational Force and Observers in North Sinai a peacekeeping force that supervises the implementation of Egypt and Israel’s Treaty of Peace. In 2011 nichola feldman-kiss went with a peacekeeping force as part of the United Nations Mission in Sudan. Adrian Stimson was in Afghanistan during a counter-insurgency operation in 2010 at Ma’sum Ghar and Kandahar. Despite the melting pot from which this exhibition evolved it has all the sophistication and coherency of deliberate design. The muscular physicality of Stimson’s work balances the intangibility of feldman-kiss’ installations. The gravity of feldman-kiss’ work is offset by the lightness of touch in Averns’ photographs which flow effortlessly around Stimson’s expansive range of media.
The exhibition opens with Averns’ photograph of Corporal Jeremy Duff (“Duff” 2009) who has a quote from Homer tattooed on his arm. It is like looking into Achilles’ soul. “The Jerusalem Triptych” (2009) is beautiful but ironic. In it Averns blends the spontaneity of a snapshot with high art reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance. His landscape photographs are incredible but real. “Retired Observation Posts” (2009) huddle together in a landfill for worn-out war infrastructure spying on each other. Sharp focused and bright Averns’ work is a diatribe on war itself; the devil is in the detail. He misses nothing.
“Memory” (2011) by Stimson (pictured above) is 158 wooden plaques in rows with the name rank and age of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. In front of it is a black chair. It is simple but I just had one little nagging question: what is the chair for? Is it for me? Should I sit on it? So I did — awkwardly. And as I sat I thought how long should I sit? Long enough to read every name? Long enough to ponder the enormity of that white wall and all that its emptiness entails? Long enough to think of each and every soldier and their families and lives not lived? I could sit for a lifetime and it wouldn’t be long enough. Beyond is “Sandbox” (2011) an installation with real sand and real razor wire and looming over it is “Chinook” (2011) an anthropomorphic mural of the helicopter — a grim reaper for the technological age.
During all this the sounds from feldman-kiss’ two video installations come calling the tinkling piano and a faint buzz. Given the subject matter at first it’s not too bad — there is a momentary feeling of relief. But in time it is like being in someone else’s bad dream without actually being asleep. It gets darker and more haunting and the piano is eerie or it gets lighter and more sickening and the buzzing grates. And it never stops. Round and round and round. Flicker flicker flicker. When we can no longer endure it and we turn our backs we realize we can leave anytime — not so the victims the observers the perpetrators.
So in the end what is the message? Well it’s a bit like taking a seat on Stimson’s chair — how much time have you got?
Terms of Engagement: Averns Feldman-Kiss Stimson curated by Christine Conley runs until December 14 at Esker Foundation.
