There’s some references to some pretty famous art works in this exhibition by Saskatoon’s David LaRiviere that’s on display at Neutral Ground (203-1856 Scarth St.) until August 30. I say references, because while the images and objects, like the one pictured above and the other pictured after the jump, resemble famous works by the likes of Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp, they’re obviously not the actual art works.
Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (1915-23), for instance, is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (with replicas located at the Tate Museum in London, the Kombada Museum in Tokyo and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm). Were the art work ever to hit the market, it would be valued in the tens of millions, so the idea of it being on display at Neutral Ground just isn’t on.
The same holds true for Warhol’s famous portrait of Marilyn Monroe, one version of which is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And Jasper John’s iconic painting of the American flag, and other works by Paul Cezanne, Auguste Renoir and Jackson Pollock that are also referenced by LaRiviere in his show.
Neutral Ground is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. If you visit the gallery in the next few days those won’t be the only familiar images and objects you’ll see. You’ll also see references to garden gnomes, My Little Pony and a gooey pie from Pizza Hut.
It all makes for an incongruous mix, granted, but that’s kind of what LaRiviere is aiming for in The Art Gallery. He’s particularly interested in exploring the hierarchy of images and objects in our world. What makes something deserving of treatment as fine art, purchased by collectors and museums, often for substantial sums, and displayed and viewed with reverence and care, while others things are consigned to the realm of pop culture, advertising, kitsch and other less esteemed categories of object/image.
