Spring Hurlbut Interpretive Guide Web Version.pub

THE PRAIRIE ART GALLERY
An Interpretive Guide to the Exhibition . . .
SPRING HURLBUT
Le Jardin du sommeil
June 4 - August 22, 2010
Partial view of Spring Hurlbut’s installation Le Jardin du sommeil (1998). Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay
INTRODUCTION
The moving sight of about 100 cribs and
cradles lined up in orderly fashion in The
Prairie Art Gallery summons up memories
of hospitals, orphanages, dormitories,
cemeteries – images that focus on the cycle of life from birth to death. Le Jardin du
sommeil (1998) [The Garden of Sleep] is a
remarkable installation by Toronto artist
Spring Hurlbut.
While experiencing this exhibit, please
keep in mind that our interpretive guide is
by no means a complete interpretation of
this installation. The way YOU interact
with this exhibit by relating your own life
experience and appreciating connections
you make is how any artwork completes its
circle and finds meaning in many unexpected ways.
This exhibition is organized and circulated
by the Musée d’art contemporain de
Montréal, as part of the Momentum touring series, with the support of the
Department of Canadian Heritage, through
its Museums Assistance Program.
We welcome any comments and invite
questions about the exhibit or the
interpretive materials/activities.
Thank you for visiting The Prairie Art Gallery!
THE ARTIST & HER WORK
Spring Hurlbut was born in Toronto in 1952 and continues to live and work
there. She attended the Ontario College of Art from 1970 to 1973 and the
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1973 – 74. Her works have been
exhibited internationally in group shows and in site-specific installations in
non-conventional spaces like warehouses and commercial buildings.
Since the late seventies, she has developed a painstaking, intimate art
that employs strategies from architecture and museology to guide us
through the labyrinth of the human psyche. Variously reappropriating
artifacts, colour illustrations and taxidermy specimens, the artist picks out
objects that represent archetypes of the life cycle.
Spring Hurlbut. Courtesy of Musée
d’art contemporain de Montréal.
Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay
Le Jardin du sommeil is simultaneously
spectacular yet intimate and offers the
viewer a unique experience involving
thought… and movement, and revolving
around the notions of wandering, commemorating and anticipating. Drawing
on accumulation, addition, even repetition, but not at all in the way of standardization, the spare-looking installation
is built on the presence, multiplied many
times over, of a single motif, an item of
furniture persistently and passionately
sought out, found and collected over the
years: metal cribs and cradles from the
late nineteenth or early twentieth century.
ART IS A
SENSORY EXPERIENCE
A WALK THROUGH THE EXHIBIT
Spring Hurlbut’s remarkable installation takes into
account the viewer’s entire sensory experience.
What do you see ?
What do you hear ?
Enter into this moving sight of about 100 cribs and
cradles lined up in an orderly fashion. Le Jardin du
sommeil (1998) invites us into a lyrical journey between a ceremonial and a place of contemplation.
Proceed through the rows of the installation quietly
observing the subtle variations in the cribs and cradles finely worked metal. With each pause along the
way notice the graphic intricacies of the grating,
vertical bars and movable sides, and the curves and
curls of the decorative motifs.
Experience the spatiality of the Gallery space: its
high ceilings, low hanging white lamp shades creating solemn dim lighting. Spare simple empty forms
rest peacefully inside the space.
How would you describe the mood of
this installation as you move through
it?
Spread over a large exhibition space, Le Jardin du sommeil gives off a remarkable impression of order, calm and recollection. At first sight, it
seems to suggest both the disconcerting idea of a deserted dormitory and
the more troubling notion of an overpopulated necropolis. The small size
of the beds conjures up early childhood.
How does the repetitive yet individually different aesthetic presence of the
beds and cradles impact you?
In the elegance of its presentation and coherence of its visual form – the
constants of Hurlbut’s aesthetic – Le Jardin du sommeil offers a lyrical
glimpse of time in history, corresponding to the period when these antique beds were crafted or industrially produced, as well as a reminder of
the collective universal consciousness, and summons up a possible crossing over, a kind of ritual ceremony marking a passage and the separation
of body and soul.
Although the cribs and cradles were manufactured
on an assembly line in the 19th and 20th century, the
ornamental details of the cribs and cradles in the
exhibit were often hand forged. Hand forging is a
process of hand-working steel and other materials
through the use of extreme heat, hammering and
shaping.
( Text based on Josée Bélisle MACM Curator of the exhibition Spring Hurlbut: Le Jardin du sommeil, and
Cybermuse)
“Memory embeds itself in architecture, fixed in by
now solid now crumbling mortars, mixed to hold for
eternities and so to withstand uncertain futures.”
- Sharon Kivland
Did you know?
Patina on metal, is a coating of various chemical compounds such as oxides or carbonates
formed on the surface during exposure to the elements
(weathering). Patina also refers to accumulated changes in
surface texture and colour that result from normal use of an
object such as a coin or a piece of furniture over time.
Look at the crib’s and cradle’s surfaces. Notice the
variation in the wear of the individual beds’ patinas.
The different patinas and the individual ornamental
designs of each basonette tell us the unique stories
of their sleepers. Be intrigued by the complexity of
the workmanship in the cradle or bassinet, the quality of its execution and degree of ornamentation.
They indicate the social class and origin of its owners
(Bélisle 19).
Which bed(s) are you drawn to?
What story does the antique object
reveal to you?
The opening lines of Susan Sontag’s
novel The Volcano Lover – A Romance
comes to mind, as a kind of undercurrent while reflecting on this astounding
exhibit:
Partial view of Le Jardin du sommeil (1998). Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Photo: Richard-Max
Tremblay
THE ART OF SEEING ART
Notice the organized, systematic
arrangement of perfectly aligned
rows, specific grouping of all the
assorted elements. This is based on
skillful methods of classification
and arrangement.
What do the beds symbolize
to you?
How do you feel about seeing these domestic yet intimate objects displayed in a
public space?
Are you reminded of any common
archetypes? An archetype is an
original model of a person, ideal
example, or a prototype upon
which others are copied, patterned,
or emulated; a symbol universally
recognized by all, like a "mother
figure". Archetypes have been present in folklore and literature for
thousands of years, including
prehistoric artwork. Symbols of
birth, life and death are also common archetypes.
Spring Hurlbut not only selected
with care and commitment each
individual bed herself. To her it was
also important to salvage them for
future generations. This installation
work is now in the permanent collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
The artist painstakingly designed
the Gallery space negotiating the
aesthetic and functional purpose of
each bed to create order, rhythm,
beauty and balance. High walls
were installed to create the special
lighting needed to honour the authentic lives of their original owners/sleepers. Each bed was arranged and grouped in the Gallery
space by the artist until visual perfection was obtained and each bed’s
integrity and purpose celebrated
and manifested.
It is the entrance to a flea
market. … Why enter? What
do you expect to see? I’m seeing. I’m checking on what’s in
the world. What’s left. What’s
discarded. What’s no longer
cherished. What had to be
sacrificed. What someone
thought might interest someone else. … But there may be
something valuable, there. Not
valuable exactly. But something I would want. Want to
rescue. Something that speaks
to me. To my longings. Speak
to, speak of. Ah…
(Sontag in Bélisle 14)
“Each crib carries its
own history; even
though the sleepers
remain a mystery to
us. The infant mortality rate was extremely
high during the period
of these metal beds. A
child’s sick-bed could
easily become a child’s
death-bed.”
- Spring Hurlbut
How does Spring
Hurlbut’s installation
speak to YOU?
Does the installation evoke any personal memories to you?
Where does your imagination take you as you wonder about these beds?
What is composition?
An artwork (or installation) which captures our attention and is
pleasing to us, always has a good composition. A good composition
includes many elements of design working with the principles of
design. For example, space (like here the Gallery space) is an element, and movement is a principle of design. Movement uses colour, line and shape to direct the viewer’s eye from one part of a
design to another. Pattern, also a principle, uses planned or random
repetitions of colours, lines, values, and textures to create a pattern.
How would you describe the pattern in Spring Hurlbut’s installation?
Is it random or planned? What elements in her installation create
movement?
“Out of this ontological, even humanistic, preoccupation with remnants, traces, signs of passage,
with a predilection for the preserved remains of a
bygone organic life, there flows, by extension, the
artist’s diligent commitment to saving from oblivion and physical deterioration certain reference
objects that are part of the universal psyche.”
- Josée Bélisle, MACM Curator of the exhibition Spring Hurlbut: Le Jardin
du sommeil
“Art is primarily visual, but it heightens your sense of the other, the outside, the thing experienced, and in
the process, heightens your awareness of yourself, and even though
you’re being fully absorbed and
transported by an object perceived
by the senses, you’re losing yourself at the same time you become yourself”.
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Hurlbut, who has spent more than a decade
methodically and passionately collecting
these beds, discreetly uncovers “the secret of
things.” She gradually roots out the essence,
so close to the soul, […].
– Josée Bélisle, MACM Curator of the exhibition Spring Hurlbut:
Le Jardin du sommeil
Le Jardin du sommeil, (1998). Installation at The Prairie Art Gallery: 64 cribs, 18 cradles and bassinets, 7 doll’s beds, 3 doll’s cradles, 3 children’s funeral wreaths, and 21
suspended lamps. Gift of the artist. Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
Exhibition Interpretive Guide: Written by Sabine Schneider / Designed by Melanie Jenner / Photos: Richard Max Tremblay, courtesy
of Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal / Printed June 2010
Works cited:
Archetypes. 26 May 2010. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype)
Bélisle, Josée. Spring Hurlbut. Le Jardin du sommeil. Montréal: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. 2009. Exhibition Catalogue for the Spring Hurlbut exhibition.
CyberMuse: Artist’s Page. Spring Hurlbut. 26 May 2010. <http//cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/docs/bio_artistid2580_e.jsp>
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. The Art of Seeing: An Interpretation of the Aesthetic Encounter. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 1990.
Kivland, Sharon. When the Body is revealed, Buildings Fall. Lethbridge: Southern Alberta Art Gallery, 1991. Exhibition Catalogue for Spring Hurlbut: Sacrificial Ornament exhibition.
MACM’s Touring Exhibition Manual for the Spring Hurlbut: Le Jardin du sommeil exhibition.
Patina. 29 May 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina>
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