Apr. 01, 2009 - Issue #702: Heartless Bastards

Cataclysmic Rescue Mission: No shades of grey

Liz Miller's Cataclysmic Rescue Mission is bold, but not much else

As you enter the Harcourt House main gallery, Liz Miller’s Cataclysmic Rescue Mission presents a bold first impression. The space has been a popular target for attempts at this kind of installation, which specifically calls to mind Stephanie Jonsson’s recent show there. Miller is more successful than many in her attempt to transform both the space and her mundane, crafty materials into something beautiful. Miller quite capably makes use of the room, and for once Harcourt House’s underfunded flooring can almost be forgotten. But after this initial success, Cataclysmic Rescue Mission doesn’t seem to know exactly where to go, and the colourful beauty of the installation is ultimately unfulfilled.

 

The installation is constructed from various household craft supplies: foam, felt and paper. Miller clearly has a strong interest in transforming her materials, and by and large she is successful. As one looks closely at the installation some of the magic falls away, victim to awkward creases or uninspiring foam, but the initial impression is undeniable, and the work is certainly alive with a strong sense of movement. From the smaller front gallery, the colours and shapes are appealing even when visible only as a glimpse, and there is a sense of excitement to being in the room with them. She seems shy about her references, however: the colour palette is strong and her nods to computer graphics come through strongly, coupled with the plainly cataclysmic nature of the wild forms and a few rocket-like cut-outs, and there is an architectural element, but there is not much more than that.

 

Miller’s work is certainly of the moment, and it calls to mind other art which, even if it is not shown in places like Edmonton, is easily found online. Miller’s interest in destruction and joyful, technicolor violence, her references to computer graphics and her wild installation is essentially the aesthetic that has been termed “new rave” in the music press, to much argument, and it’s found in the work of other artists like Assume Vivid Astro Focus. 

But it is most successful when it is braver: although Miller is clearly unafraid to make bold aesthetic gestures with her materials, she seems to lack vocabulary both in her work and in her statement. Where AVAF candidly talk about demolition and transgression/transgender, echoed in Miller’s hybrids and explosions, she resorts to a simple catch-all about failure and possibility and how complicated the world is, and we see this in the work. For all of the excitement, vibrancy and movement in Cataclysmic Rescue Mission, the transformed materials and exhibition space are just a collection of colours and shapes, hardly exciting new terrain for a young artist like Miller. The post-rave psychedelia and digital images that form her subject matter have plenty of theory behind them, and Miller’s work could only benefit from a closer reading and exploration of that material. In the meantime, if she just stops saying hybrid and starts saying cyborg, she’ll be half way there. V 

Until Sat, Apr 25
Cataclysmic Rescue Mission
Works by Liz Miller
Harcourt House (10215 - 112 St)

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