LIBBY HAGUE at the Natural Light Window (506 Adelaide West) to October 31. 416-504-1311. Rating: NNNN
libby hague can’t be pinned down by genre labels. She’s a printmaker at heart, but her paintings are breathtaking. She deftly slides into sculptural forms when three dimensions are needed to present one of her deeply philosophical multi-panel narrative forays, and she never shies away from pushing herself into experimental ground.
Right now she has captured the uncertainty unleashed by Ground Zero and America’s recent declaration of war, but then, Hague’s art practice has always probed what she describes as impossible moral dilemmas, assumptions of decency threatened by violence.
The fact that she’s got a month-long installation in Rupen’s savvy club-district Natural Light Window for October is hardly surprising, since she’s done one every year since 98.
But this one rings particularly true. A cutout of Hague’s alter ego, Lucinda, sits on a unicycle embracing a pig, poised to ride across a sea of waves.
“Finding herself in an absurd and dangerous situation, Lucinda says to herself, “Relax try.'”
Hague creates the choppy surface with a combination of photostats mounted on metal stands and red paper triangles pasted to fine blue ribbon that spans the distance of the two deep bay windows making up this storefront exhibition space. Wheels roll across the surface in the second bay, implying that Lucinda and her pig are not necessarily doomed to failure. Nothing is certain except the need for hope.
