ANGELIKA HOERLE at the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas West), to August 30. $18, srs $15, stu $10, free Wednesdays 6-8:30 pm. 416-979-6648. Rating: NN
Last week, the UK’s daily mail slammed the new Harry Potter flick for not being true to the book. Too much was cut from the original story, it said, resulting in a confusing, disjointed viewing experience.
[rssbreak]
Strangely, similar criticism can be made of the AGO’s Angelika Hoerle exhibition.
The show, tantalizingly pitched as a look at “the comet of Cologne Dada,” starts straightforwardly enough. It shows us Angelika Hoerle as a girl, promises to reveal her connections to art and politics in between-the-wars Germany and establish her standing as an early feminist artist.
Unfortunately, the show fails to deliver on these promises.
The first issue is overstatement. Hoerle, sadly, died at 23, far too young to have made an outstanding body of work. A lot of the art displayed is by her Dada colleagues, husband Heinrich included. Also, her pieces feel more like sketches than finished works.
Second, the exhibition omits key pieces of Angelika’s story. A related catalogue says Heinrich left Angelika because he resented her increasing independence as a woman and as an artist. This key fact – showing the difficult context in which Angelika, like most female artists, worked at the time – is nowhere mentioned in the exhibition.
Third, the origins of this show are somewhat obscured. The maverick Dada painting show in an adjoining gallery was deliberately rented from a Cologne museum, while Angelika’s show came about partly by coincidence – namely, that her grand-niece lives in Ontario and donated the family’s art archive to the AGO.
Granted, there are some compelling works here – a poster tribute to assassinated socialist leaders, for one.
But if you want the real story, read the book.
art@nowtoronto.com
