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{"id":268726,"date":"2025-05-01T16:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/compte-rendu\/from-electrical-fire-spirits-may-be-kindled\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T13:34:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:34:54","slug":"from-electrical-fire-spirits-may-be-kindled","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/from-electrical-fire-spirits-may-be-kindled\/","title":{"rendered":"From Electrical Fire Spirits May Be Kindled<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Warming the white walls of Two Seven Two gallery from its sunken main space, an amethyst glow beckoned viewers to explore a captivating ensemble of neon and LED art. An oasis of colour during an extended polar vortex, From Electrical Fire Spirits May Be Kindled <\/em>nimbly sidestepped the formalist pitfalls of its medium-specific premise through an engaging materialist excavation of inter-generational artistic experimentation. This archaeology of light-based practices took inspiration from the genius loci <\/em>of the gallery\u2019s eponymous address, which was once home to the fabled Electric Gallery, Canada\u2019s premier venue for kinetic and new media art in the 1970s.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Curator Emma Bain deftly nodded to this place-based history through her inclusion of Electric Gallery co-founder Sam Markle\u2019s Neon Flower <\/em>(1971), a luminous bricolage of sinuous neon tubing and an empty Coke bottle that has been continuously \u201con\u201d for more than five decades. Markle originally opened the Electric Gallery in partnership with his brother Jack on a six-month lease in the Flatiron Building, with an inaugural exhibition by the late New Zealand conceptualist Billy Apple, before relocating to 272 Avenue Road later in 1970. In addition to jump-starting the careers of visionary artists such as Norman White and Michael Hayden, the Markle brothers\u2019 enduring legacy includes the iconic Sam the Record Man sign that has been integrated into Toronto\u2019s Sankofa Square, an area once synonymous with neon signage and its illicit connotations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several of Bain\u2019s artists alluded to the seductive lure of illuminated script. Julia Rose Sutherland\u2019s Flesh Economics <\/em>(2018) confronted viewers with the jarringly tender phrase \u201cDeeply Loved Flesh\u201d in glowing scarlet letters. Sutherland\u2019s recontextualization of this quotation from Toni Morrison\u2019s novel Beloved<\/em> (1987) drew attention to the overrepresentation of Indigenous women in the sex trade, while simultaneously honouring those who perform this denigrated labour. The Riot-Grrrl chorus of Pamila Matharu\u2019s adjacent Invited To The Party, But Never Asked To Dance (GRRRLS, GRRRLS, GRRRLS) <\/em>(2019\u201320) cannily harnessed the eye-catching power of neon to interrupt the masculinist gaze addressed by strip-club aesthetics. Steven Beckly\u2019s forever and ever <\/em>(2019) offered a more buoyant vision of intersubjectivity. Its dazzling white lettering and pendant colour transparency of a disco ball inscribed a yearning to prolong the joys of queer clubbing. Katie Bethune-Leamen\u2019s Composition for looking and being looked at\u2026 <\/em>(2017) conjured the queer play of gazes in Luchino Visconti\u2019s Death in Venice <\/em>(1971) through the frisson generated by unlikely juxtapositions of neon, porcelain, and ersatz bars of soap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Pamila
Pamila Matharu<\/strong>
Invited To The Party, But Never Asked To Dance (GRRRLS, GRRRLS, GRRRLS)<\/em>, 2019-20, installation view, 2025.
Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of Two Seven Two, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Steven
Steven Beckly<\/strong>
forever and ever<\/em>, 2019, installation view, Two Seven Two, Toronto, 2025.
Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of Two Seven Two, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"Roda
Roda Medhat<\/strong>
Blue Totem on Red <\/em>; Hanging Kilim,<\/em> 2024, installations view, Two Seven Two, Toronto, 2025.
Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of Two Seven Two, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Toronto\u2019s shifting identity was the subject of two poignant neon works by Shellie Zhang. Replicating vintage logos of the Danforth greengrocer\u2019s where they were originally exhibited, Zhang\u2019s bittersweet cornucopias referenced a 1934 protest targeting immigrant street vendors that backfired. Roda Medhat\u2019s entrancing LED carpets extended his ongoing project of adapting and preserving Kurdish design traditions. His works\u2019 floral and geometric patterns bathed surrounding walls in ambient shades of rose and violet. Medhat\u2019s (and Matharu\u2019s) use of LED as an energy-efficient alternative to neon indexed a broader turn away from the obsolescing medium, whose artisanal manufacture is quickly becoming a lost art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Seven Two,<\/strong> Toronto
January 17\u200a\u2013\u200aFebruary 15, 2025<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":268718,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[7491],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[832],"artistes":[3800,7503,7467,7465,7504,7445],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-268726","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-114-abstractions-en","auteurs-adam-lauder","artistes-julia-rose-sutherland-en","artistes-katie-bethune-leamen-en","artistes-pamila-matharu-en","artistes-roda-medhat-en","artistes-shellie-zhang-en","artistes-steven-beckly-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/268726","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\/268718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=268726"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=268726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}