Lucid Clutter at YYZ (401 Richmond West, suite 140) to February 8. 416-598-4546. Rating: NNN Rating: NNN
maggs’s documentary art, which lends itself so well to documentary film, has also inspired the art of younger generations, directly or indirectly. A show at YYZ called Lucid Clutter documents the disorder that contrasts so nicely with Maggs’s order.Katharine Harvey photographs junk shops through their windows and then creates 3-D images in which the objects lie on different planes. The clutter of the shop turns into visual chaos as optical illusions play silly games with your eyes. The effect, with figurines near the window appearing to be ready to jump out of the work to escape the awful glassware looming behind them, is quite fantastic.
Derek Sullivan takes stuff like Clinique cast-offs, cardboard boxes, shopping bags and other varied consumer excess and creates a sculptural piece out of it all — a city of sorts where the words “What have I done to deserve this” envelop the largest skyscraper. It’s junk as eye candy.
Four large panels of white hexagons on white canvas by David McFarlane and Melanie Shatzky’s eerie photos round out a thoughtful show. thmoas@sympatico.ca
