Beyond The Frame explores the relationship between art, space and its audience
It starts as an artist’s idea; then, through a complex creative process, the idea finally rests upon a canvas, there for anyone to see and interpret. But what if the fourth wall was shattered, bringing reality and art together?
The exhibit, Beyond The Frame, on display at the VAV gallery until Nov. 7, explores this bi-dimensionality with the work of three Concordia artists. Jonathan Theroux, Rihab Essayh, and Milo Flores have come together to create a peek into the alternate reality from the artists’ imagination. Using drawing and other mediums, they transformed the art gallery into an experimental installation studying the relationship between art and its viewers. It goes into the actual meaning and prominence of this said relationship and what the public can bring to the artwork.
A forest of black and white columns, weirdly evocating Beetlejuice’s stockings, welcomes you in the gallery space. Complemented by drawings, objects encouraging participation of the public and a surrealist video, the exhibit makes you wonder what is actually going on in this small, enclosed world.
According to the exhibit’s description, “the artist-curators all take up notions surrounding self, however within the expanded field of the exhibition, the works happen as a result of a viewer’s own experience.”
The exhibition really imposes a strong impression of being in an alternate reality. It is safe to assume that everyone passing by the gallery this week will have a very different interpretation of the exhibit. What Beyond The Frame represents is the way art can actually be present outside the traditional canvas and how we, as the public, actually are intermingled with it.
Beyond The Frame is presented at the VAV gallery situated at 1395 René-Lévesque Boul. until Nov. 7. For more information, visit vavgallery.concordia.ca.
