Myfanwy MacLeod
Or There and Back Again

March 8–June 8, 2014

Since the mid-1990s, the Vancouver-based artist Myfanwy MacLeod has become widely known for making art that traverses the boundaries that define high culture and mass entertainment in a satirical investigation of social power. Hinging on linguistic slippages and unexpected flashes of recognition, she uncovers new meanings and points of intersection within iconic episodes in popular culture and the history of modern art. Simultaneously amusing and troubling, her work has, for example, used overt references to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, incorporated sculptural motifs from the 1968 British musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and included origami sculptures from images of the murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten.
 
Myfanwy MacLeod or There and Back Again focuses on new works produced specifically for this exhibition, in which the sexually charged music of Led Zeppelin and the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien are key references. These include Ramble On, a 1977 Chevrolet Camaro that has been stripped of much of its bodywork and engine and hangs on a rotisserie stand, a bit like a beast in the process of being roasted, and Stack, a large-scale wall-mounted work that resembles the wall of Marshall speaker cabinets used by Led Zeppelin to produce heavily amplified sound for their stadium concerts.

Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and Museum London and curated by Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art and Cassandra Getty
  • Myfanwy MacLeod
    Miss August, 2012 (detail)
    creased Dorothy Stratten Playboy poster, flocked matte board, Plexiglas
    Collection of Jane Irwin and Ross Hill, Greychurch

  • Myfanwy MacLeod
    Stack, 2013
    acrylic and ink on canvas
    Courtesy of the Artist and Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver
    Photo: Rachel Topham, Vancouver Art Gallery

Publication

Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again

Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again is an ambitious new monograph that focuses on the Vancouver artist’s recent sculpture and photography, in which the sexually charged music of Led Zeppelin and the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien are key references. A 1977 Chevrolet Camaro on a rotisserie stand, a large-scale modular sculpture that resembles both the “stacks” of Donald Judd and the wall of Marshall speaker cabinets used by Led Zeppelin, and a series of origami sculptures produced by folding Playboy centrefolds of Dorothy Stratten all appear in this exciting new book on one of Canada’s foremost contemporary artists.
 

Available at the Gallery Store

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