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{"id":242186,"date":"2024-01-01T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/compte-rendu\/tim-whiten-elemental-fire\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T10:48:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T15:48:26","slug":"tim-whiten-elemental-fire","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/tim-whiten-elemental-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Whiten:\u00a0 Elemental Fire<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Guest curated by Liz Ikiriko, Tim Whiten: Elemental Fire <\/em>concludes a multi-venue quartet of exhibitions honouring the four elements and their role as alchemical agents in Whiten\u2019s art. Fire is the organizing principle of the fourteen works assembled for the Art Gallery of York University\u2019s installment in this cycle, but, because it is a perennial scourge to art galleries, it is unsurprising that fire itself is nowhere to be seen\u200a\u2014\u200aat least, not literally. True to Whiten\u2019s long-standing exploration of heightened states of perception, viewers are instead invited to seek out material traces of fire\u2019s transformational capacity in his \u201ccultural objects,\u201d as he prefers to call his creations.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The changes of state ignited by fire are strikingly embodied by the omnipresence of glass. A medium sculpted by fire, glass is fluid when heated and, perplexingly, maintains some of its liquid properties when cooled. Whiten wittily alludes to fire\u2019s enduring imprint on the molecular (dis)organization of this favoured medium through the air bubbles trapped in a glass block that seems to boil beneath the cast-iron frying pan of Elemental <\/em>(1992\u200a\u2013\u200a93). That work\u2019s alchemical synthesis of physical states and gendered signs establishes a primary conceptual axis of the exhibition. These connections are amplified through Elemental<\/em>\u2019s alignment with other works occupying the central line of sight through the gallery\u2019s undivided expanse. In effect, these objects describe viewers\u2019 potential journey of transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Tim-Whiten\"
Tim Whiten<\/strong>
Tim Whiten: Elemental Fire<\/em>, exhibition view, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, 2023.
Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of Art Gallery of York University, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Upon entering the nave-like gallery, one is confronted with Snare<\/em> (1996), a consummately crafted wooden packing crate whose mirror-lined interior is sheltered by a menacing drawbridge flap. The object\u2019s title suggests an apotropaic function: Snare <\/em>guards the exhibition from those who would transgress the sanctity of its ceremonial space. A similar motivation underlies the prevalence of skulls in Whiten\u2019s production, which allude to the boneyards historically maintained by some African American communities, including his hometown of Inkster, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit), a continuation of African ritual practices of protection. The late Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson meticulously excavated Whiten\u2019s affinities with the sacred arts of Africa, including his use of leather to cover and symbolically enflesh human remains in works such as Rebis II <\/em>(2010), which recalls a similar use of animal skin in an Ejagham headdress from Cameroon held by the Royal Ontario Museum. Likewise, Whiten\u2019s recurring engagement with spiritual diagrams reimagines the four elements of the Kongo cosmogram. In Ground Rules <\/em>(2023), a site-specific installation that he created specifically for the AGYU show, the motif of the spiritual diagram is transmuted into the ludic outlines of a children\u2019s game of hopscotch. But his game is a metaphorical trial by fire, in which potential players risk injury on glass shards whose shimmering fields of colour allude to the crucibles that forged them. He figuratively reserves a seat at King Arthur\u2019s table for those worthy of recovering the Holy Grail in Siege Perilous <\/em>(1988), a skull-embellished throne that serves as an apt terminus to his mystic itinerary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Tim-Whiten\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Tim-Whiten\"
Tim Whiten<\/strong>
Tim Whiten: Elemental Fire<\/em>, exhibition views, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, 2023.
Photos: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of Art Gallery of York University, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Elemental Fire <\/em>is a fitting final exhibition, and rite of passage of sorts, for the AGYU prior to the gallery\u2019s move into a new building designed by Hariri Pontarini next year. Ikiriko\u2019s show suggests that its current space\u200a\u2014\u200aslated to become storage\u200a\u2014\u200athough unseen by the public, will remain active, as will the invisible forces probed by Whiten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a PhD from the University of Toronto earned in 2016, Adam Lauder has taught courses on Canadian art at OCAD University and the University of Toronto. In 2018, he organized an exhibition of Rita Letendre\u2019s public art at YYZ Artists\u2019 Outlet.<\/p>\n
Adam Lauder, Tim Whiten<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Gallery of York University,<\/strong> Toronto
September 15\u200a\u2013\u200aDecember 2, 2023<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":242182,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[6774],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[832],"artistes":[6849],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-242186","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-110-agriculture-en","auteurs-adam-lauder","artistes-tim-whiten-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/242186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=242186"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=242186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}