Today@Dal

Thierry Delva - Drawings from the Heart: Reproductions

For much of his career as a sculptor, Delva has produced work that is one-to-one in scale, whether these are modified commercial refrigerators or mundane domestic objects such as Styrofoam coolers that he has precisely rendered in polished white marble. Although Drawings from the Heart: Reproductions may appear to be a departure from his object- making practice, it is consistent with his on-going interest in one-to-one renderings.

“After I suffered a heart attack in 2005, electrocardiogram (EKG) tests became the primary tool for medical doctors to monitor my recovery process.” Thus began Thierry Delva’s relationship with a new tool that he has incorporated into his art making practice for the past decade.

In early experiments after his heart attack an EKG technician noted that the machine’s print out ‘renderings’ varied from session to session when Delva intensely concentrated on a variety of photographic portraits. How this would be manifested when he was looking at art was the subject of Delva’s artist residency in 2014 in Bruges, Belgium, at the St. John’s Hospital Museum, which houses an extensive collection of paintings by Hans Memling, a Flemish Primitive painter from the 15th Century. Mindful of the longstanding tradition of artists copying works of the Masters, and the intense, direct observation this requires, during the month-long residency Delva methodically spent time in a state of ‘deep looking’ at the paintings, drawings, and artefacts in the museum while his portable EKG rendered his responses. This exhibition presents a selection of his EKG ‘drawings’ of specific works by Memling, and a documentary video of the process by Jose Huedo. The ! grouping and spacing of the drawings refer directly to the configuration of Memling’s multi panel paintings.

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Paulette Phillips - The Directed Lie

Most of us will admit that we lie to navigate tricky social interactions, we lie to protect people we love, we lie to maintain a sense that we are trustworthy and honest, and some of us lie to get what we want. We accept that lying is “kind of okay” and yet the idea of lying goes against our moral and ethical codes of behaviour. The Directed Lie inhabits a shifting perspective—complicit with, and critical of, the act of lying.

In 2009, Phillips enrolled in the Maryland Institute for Criminal Justice in Baltimore to become a certified polygraph examiner. Applying these interrogation and lie detection skills and technology to her art practice, Phillips has invited more than 320 artists in Toronto, Paris, London, Dublin, Montreal, Vancouver, Berlin, Banff, Venice, New Smyrna Beach, Florida and, recently, Halifax, to submit to a polygraph test. Through the measurement of blood pressure, heart rate, and electricity, the polygraph produces mechanical ink drawings that record the ‘knowledge’ that resides in the bodies of each subject. In each test, the artist/subject was asked to answer 33 questions while attached to a polygraph and recorded on video. Based on the principle that most people lie, participants were ‘directed’ by Phillips to answer “no” to questions that were probably lies.

Phillips states: “I am interested in the multiple and contradictory registers of ‘truth’ and am intrigued that the body belies the authority of language; as the subject speaks, the body indicates a rupture below the surface of composure.”

The interviews are presented as a video projection accompanied by guidebooks that index all of the videos by city. Viewers can browse through the guidebooks and select the inter- views they wish to watch. The exhibition also features inkjet prints of several participants and their corresponding polygraph charts, and wall-mounted sculptures.

By bringing the controversial science of polygraphy into the realm of art, Phillips intends to generate a conversation about our complicated ideas of truth and judgment, about authority and language, and about the performance of the self.

Runs from: 28 AUGUST TO 22 NOVEMBER
PUBLIC RECEPTION Thursday 24 September at 7 PM

Regular gallery hours:
11AM to 5PM Tuesday to Friday
noon to 5PM weekends

For more information, contact the gallery: 902.494.2403
or visit our website: artgallery.dal.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/880060345413786/