One car, Two artists, Three days by Ivan Jurakic
Artsbeat, August - September 1999 Vol 12 No 2

Recently, Hamilton Artists Inc. presented an intriguing, and frankly quite entertaining project titled TRUNK©; that was displayed as part of the city's annual Aquafest festival. To give you some background, the artists Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel Dugas moved to Moncton in 1996 and realized that they had no available venue to exhibit their artwork. In response they created TRUNK©, a traveling exhibition in the trunk of their 1986 Chevy Citation. Reviving this idea for the Inc., TRUNK©; visited Hamilton - taking up residence in my 1986 Cutlass Supreme Oldsmobile - for a series of mobile off-site installations. LeBlanc's installation “RUSH”; featured a champagne fountain, Christmas lights and an audio loop with interviews of people-on-the-street discussing their summer vacation experiences. This was followed by Dugas' “The Daniel Gold Show” which placed 400 broken bottles backlit with yellow gels in the bottom of the trunk, alongside a pair of industrial leather gloves. Viewers were then encouraged to put on the gloves and rummages through the broken glass at their leisure. Because of the nature of the project, and its location, near the busy Midway at Aquafest, TRUNK© did something that many exhibitions inside of galleries rarely get the chance to do. It engaged the public on a very clever, yet personable level that allowed the work to be experience by hundreds of people who might otherwise never step inside the doors of an art gallery. Contextualizing art in the public realm is nothing new. It is an ongoing curatorial concern that has arguably become quite trendy. The Art Gallery of Hamilton is currently doing two such public art projects. One is a collection-based exhibition named ‘on movement’ on display at the GO Station. The other is a planned interventions situated in downtown parking lots. TRUNK© is no anomaly. It exists within a larger curatorial context being explore by many artists and galleries. As artists and creative people, we are constantly admonished to be more accessible to the public. At issue is the desire to take art outside of its hermetically sealed environment – the model of gallery or museum as modernist temple – and place it into the public realm. Although desirable, accomplished this without selling out or sacrificing the artwork is not an easy thing. One reason that the TRUNK© succeeded was because Valerie and Daniel worked hard at making it accessible. They were not only willing to explain their ideas to all participants but were obviously enjoying themselves doing it. Their actions helped demystify the art-making process, making it seem less elitist, less mysterious. By being on display with their work and being willing to answer even the most obvious question – like, what is it?, for instance – they became walking-talking ambassadors for the gallery, and for their own creative process. TRUNK© also worked because it was humorous and conceived on a manageable scale – one car, two artists, three days. Placing temporary artwork in the trunk of a car was a smart and fun idea that worked well in a very public setting, and could be appreciated without an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary arts practice. But on some level the arts will always preach to the converted, and consequently there will always be calls for artists to adhere to some rigid notion of what art is, or should be. In response, artists and galleries will continue to take on initiatives that engage the community outside of the gallery context with varying degrees of success. No doubt, there is a certain level of apprehension involved in entering a gallery. There is the hushed expectation that you must spend time admiring each artwork, contemplating it, understanding it, viewing it as a masterpiece. This is bunk. As an artist, I go to a lots of galleries and see lots of artwork. Admittedly, I don’t like everything I see, but it would be ignorant of me to dismiss it all as crap just because I dislike a particular genre of style. Frankly, ignorance should never excuse intolerance. If you find it hard to swallow challenging contemporary artwork, then don’t. There are plenty of other choices. When you’re tempted to slag-off new art, remember that all of those cherished European Impressionists were soundly ridiculed in their own time as not being able to paint a lick. It is not the artists job to spoon-feed the public. Being pro-active by taking art out into the community can be a constructive, educational and very rewarding experience, but only if it also expands and supports the context and the level of discourse that we, as contemporary artist, are engaged in. Sometime it’s as simple as filling the trunk of a car with broken glass.