Sometimes the most intriguing things are the most dif\ufb01cult to \u00adcategorize. Elizabeth Zvonar\u2019s recent exhibition is a veritable mash up of references\u2009\u2014\u2009common hand gestures, 1960s counterculture, alternate space-time dimensions, early twentieth-century art movements\u2009\u2014\u2009thwarting efforts to draw a single line of interpretation through the work. Instead it is best to start in the middle.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Two diagonal walls intersect the main gallery. One sits only waist-high, and leans precariously toward the \ufb02oor. Walk around to the other side to \ufb01nd the wall held up by a dozen mannequin arms (Legs<\/em>, 2009). Above hangs a found book cover (Concentration<\/em>, 2009), the word \u201cfocus\u201d embossed in a 1960s typeface on its surface, as if an absurd imperative given the height at which it is hung. Parallel to this an oversized \ufb01st carved in yellow cedar juts out from the wall (The Ages<\/em>, 2008), the thumb raised in a gesture of approval or a slag. Yet either sign is complicated by an oversized rubber band draped over the thumb, falling \ufb02accidly into a heap on the \ufb02oor, suggesting that a game of \ufb02inging small objects has just come to an end. On the facing wall is a blown-up collage showing two young women reading a book, their long brown hair hanging down over faces replaced by radiant beams of light, as if the text\u2019s cosmic energy is being channeled from the pages directly into their brains (Channeling<\/em>, 2009). Between them on a pedestal is a provisional stack of mirrored and transparent glass cubes, a purported window into the fourth dimension (Object of Contemplation<\/em>, 2009). This peculiar dynamic between \u201cpicture\u201d and \u201cobject\u201d continues; the uncanny juxtapositions within the images mimicking the sculptural method, and vice versa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The adjoining exhibition, Face Up, co-curated by Zvonar and Jenifer Papararo, brings together works by Lee Lozano, Bruce Nauman, and Sarah Lucas. Nauman\u2019s close-up prints (Studies for Holograms<\/em>, 1970) of his \u00adcontorted facial expressions stand across from Lozano\u2019s abject and hilarious renderings of nose-hair removal, while in the centre of the space sits Lucas\u2019 classic chair (Cigarette Tits II<\/em>, 1999), its back laden with a black mesh bra holding two large breasts formed entirely out of cigarette butts. The evocation of the body in these works resonates with Zvonar\u2019s feminist sensibility, as does its deft humour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is remarkable about Zvonar\u2019s exhibition, as well as the neighbouring selection, are the idiosyncratic connections between objects and images, language and material, gesture and form; made with the kind of non-linear leaps that lend themselves to the joint practices of collage and assemblage. Indeed the spirit of both exhibitions rests on their potential to create meaning from lateral connections, complicating any straight reading, and instead inviting free associations between forms and objects, words and things, that is most productive in its imaginative potential. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Contemporary Art Gallery,<\/strong> Vancouver
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