John Greer at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax

RetroActive is about time. The exhibition currently on view at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia features a cross-section of works from John Greer’s career in a wide range of forms and media. A number of the works refer directly to ancient history: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek sculpture, and Chinese artefacts. But the work does not only look backwards in time; throughout the show, Greer integrates contemporary imagery and materials as well.



John Greer, Thinking Back to Gertrude and Henri

Reproduction is diptych of carved stone panels and two versions of the same image: a modified segment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the middle of the image, a block is cut out from the stone and carved into this space is a sunken relief origami paper crane. This mashup of imagery is disorienting. The label informs us that the images are of an Egyptian funeral scene and the paper crane refers to the atomic bombing of Japan. The gallery text also explains that one of the stone carvings is actually made of polystyrene foam.

Thinking Back to Gertrude and Henri is a series of bronze casts of someone’s back. The forms are intimate, beautiful objects that by virtue of their figurative nature embody the sad paradox of mortality moulded into material permanence. The title of the work refers to Gertrude Stein’s poem about Henri Matisse: “…hearing this one telling about being one being living…” A mirror installed nearby (titled End of a Full Length Image) underscores the ephemerality of the human form as viewers walk in and out of the reflected image.

Greer makes a point of playing with the materiality of the objects he’s created: the bronze forms are installed on what appears to be an iron plinth but which is in fact made of painted plywood; one of the hieroglyph pieces appears to be made of sandstone but is made of styrofoam. While at times oblique, the back and forth between permanence and ephemerality, past and present, asks us to reflect on our own fleeting place in time.


Art Gallery of Nova Scotia: http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/en/AGNS_Halifax/exhibitions/johngreer.aspx
John Greer: retroActive continues until September 13.


Daniel Higham works in a butcher shop where he’ll talk to you about art, food, and life. He writes for Visual Arts News, is Akimblog’s Halifax correspondent, and can be followed on Twitter @HighamDaniel.