Rating: NNN
RYANBARRETT at the corner of Queen and Soho, indefinitely. Rating: NNN
a cluster of mutant newspaper
boxes completely covered with ryanbarrett’s trademark appliqued mousetraps and repainted with reinterpretations of the original paint jobs are causing plenty of double takes at their prominent spot at Queen and Soho.
The setting is so perfect for this guerrilla display, it’s hard to believe they weren’t, in fact, created for this location. The artist first presented them in a solo show this April at West Wing Art Space.
In an obvious grab for media attention, he sent out press kits complete with digital photos of his appropriated newspaper boxes — NOW’s included — and nya-nya text peppered with phrases like “stolen,” which the boxes were.
A gratuitous image of a naked man “wearing” a mousetrap on his penis made the artist’s sensationalistic intentions very clear, but until the inspired street-level remount, in which the artist graciously returned the boxes with their value-added fine-art exteriors, it wasn’t quite there.
If only he’d skipped the foreplay and gone straight to the act.
deirdre@nowtoronto.com
