MERCYFLOATMELTOVERFLOW at OFFTHEMAPGALLERY
LYNN CAMPBELL ELIZABETH FEARON LIBBY HAGUE GARY Mac LEOD
curated by Rupen

offhthemap gallery, 712 Lansdowne Avenue, Back Building
www.offthemapgallery.com
www.torontobiennale.ca

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Libby's "art fix Saturday afternoons - pleasure without much responsibility".

Overflow: an art fix and colouring cure Rupen says it's like inviting musicians to come over and jam

Flowers pass through the window mesh and the tangle of razor wire high up the wall and fall into the garden. In that instant they are changed into a new material and a new pattern. We can't see both sides, inside and out, at once.

I' ve often thought that a difference between art and traditional craft is the anxiety inherent in making something new, that is almost always present in making art. However, over time, traditional craft has sifted out the mistakes so people can make something beautiful without the anxiety of failure. Work yes, but also pleasure without much responsibility.

I want to create an open art structure that can't fail its participants. I'll take on the worry and you can enjoy yourself by losing yourself in focused work. That¹s the art fix and colouring cure in this mix of art and craft. By having other people participate in making this piece, I want to give us all an opportunity to make something together that has a larger scale and greater modulation than either of us could do alone. At the end of the show, you can collect and keep your work.

I'll provide the instruction and materials. Visitors will be doing rubbings from woodblocks with me, cutting them out and attaching them to a scaffolding of sorts. My perfect participant is someone who hasn¹t made art since grade 1 but has always had a nervous desire to do so. Stephen Harper, this might be your big break.