Chris Curreri at Daniel Faria | Robert Waters at PM Gallery

I'm in the midst of writing an eight thousand-word document and my ability to string together a cogent series of sentences is reaching its breaking point, but the inspiration provided by a couple nearby exhibitions has given me the strength to go on. While they are very different on the surface – one a bunch of still life photographs, the other documentation of body-processing performances – there's something about their attention to the material results of labour that makes them a pretty pair.



Chris Curreri, Untitled (Clay Portfolio), 2013, gelatin silver print

Chris Curreri's photographs – mostly small, a couple big – and one prominent concrete sculpture at Daniel Faria might seem like a no-brainer when you first read the specs ("artist takes clay workshop at Gardiner Museum and photographs the detritus of each class"), but, when you makes your way through the portfolio edition that lines the walls, it ends up reading like a checklist of contemporary art highlights from the past half century. Abstraction? Yes, in the molten swirls of clay pressed and dropped into all-over piles of shape and line. Appropriation? Yes, in the remnants of Curreri's classmates' work resisting their return to gooey shapelessness. Found art? Sure, though I guess all documentary photography could be called found art, though this feels more happenstance (in a good way) that most. Body art? Yes, certainly aided and abetted by his decision to print these in silvery grey and white so the soft, smooth texture of the worked-over clay is easily mistaken for twists of flesh, distended nipples, or exposed organs. Abjection? Yup, in the final stages of the shift to formlessness, Curreri catches the last gasp of artistic independence before it returns to the indistinguishable mass. Who would have thunk a lump of leftovers might evoke so much? The same game of "What exactly is it I'm seeing here?" can be played with the trio of cave interiors in the back gallery. Having enjoyed all that, the faceless concrete bust that sits out front seems less like a centerpiece and more like an afterthought.



Robert Waters, Processing the Essence of Human Life (Water from Lourdes Transformed into Sweat While Reading French Philosophy), 2012, water from Lourdes transformed into sweat while reading Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, & Jacques Rancière, souvenir glass bottles from Lourdes, souvenir plastic virgin bottle from Lourdes

A different kind of game – this one called "Haven't I seen this before?"– came to mind as I made my way through Robert Waters' exhibition at PM Gallery, but I could never put my finger on what was familiar. His use of his own body as a machine for producing the bodily fluids that make up his medium remind me of labour intensive performance practices from a couple decades ago (Janine Antoni, perhaps), but less political and more playful. I'm not so keen on the simple manifestation of sweat patterns on t-shirts (I can go to the gym to see that), but when he incorporates his production of the stuff to a exercise involving holy water, and doubles up his labour by including readings from braniac philosophers, he touches a nerve in me that dredges up my repressed memories of grad school and too many days spent slogging through Of Grammatology. I can laugh about it now, but the "no pain, no gain" mantra seemed equally applicable in the gym and the classroom at the time. Visually, the work is no great shakes, but as a call to reflect on the ongoing production of our very own flesh, the games Waters' plays are definitely sticking with me.


Daniel Faria Gallery: http://danielfariagallery.com/
Chris Curreri: Medusa continues until February 1.

PM Gallery: http://pmgallery.ca/
Robert Waters: The Essence of Human Life continues until January 18.


Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, Prefix Photo, Camera Austria, Fuse, Mix, C Magazine, Azure, and The Globe and Mail. He is the editor of Akimblog. You can follow his quickie reviews and art news announcements on Twitter @TerenceDick.