stella pace at Miriam Shiell Fine Art (16A Hazelton) to October 13. 416-925-2461. Rating: NNN
montreal-based sculptor stella Pace started working with concrete cast to look like rubble long before September 11, 2001. Pace constructs humanoid figures from concrete chunks and straw rope, arranges them in long lines and on concrete carts and places them on the gallery floor near low-hanging drawings of war zones.
Before the World Trade Center, these displaced figures seemed to refer to Bosnia and Rwanda. Since the commercial-free week of CNN footage, though, the materials have taken on spooky overtones. It just looks too freakishly familiar.
The coincidence was striking enough that Pace and her dealer, Miriam Shiell, seriously considered postponing the show. But the fact is that works from this series were exhibited in Montreal and Trois Rivières this spring.
If the work feels all too timely, maybe that’s because the artist has been doing something that artists have always done — tapping into the issues that underlie the heart of our culture.
