Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky

It could be said that the collaborative works of Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky are useless wrecks. True enough. In a literal sense, much of what they produce is a crumpled façade, or simulacra, but that’s the very point.

If Pop Art had been concerned with the aesthetics of mass production, and Minimalism with the formal quality of materials, Weppler and Mahovsky have pushed these conversations to explore the multiple roles of consumables and disposables in day-to-day life. Moreover, through production of hollow representations of complex goods, casting of throwaways and the resurfacing of objects with iconic Pop culture status, they have strived to challenge standard readings of manufactured items.

At the far end of an exhibition space at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, two roughly fashioned balls of aluminium foil sat one atop the other, much like the beginnings of a robotic snowperson. Their story began to unfold through the title, Nissan Altima 1 (ball) and 2 (ball), and through the sense of history established in the few photographs located at the front of the room. In a witty reference to actual processes used in the automotive industry, the foil had once formed two casts of a small car. The casts were subsequently installed without supports and left to the mercy of gravity, which, sooner rather than later, caused the cars to collapse.

Damaged goods are typically thrown away, but these nonfunctional objects were transformed into memorials to their former selves and, in the process, used to comment in a refreshing manner on the formal principles of Minimalism. These objects offered no pristine surfaces as a testament to the kind of perfection possible only at the “hands” of machines; instead, the artists returned an element of humanity to the equation. Furthermore, they invested the forms with the sort of creative resourcefulness that comes from needing and wanting to make something new out of something no longer useful. Hence, the photographs in the gallery were not merely documents of past installations, but a type of memory that indicated the past lives of these temporary objects and foreshadowed their reincarnation.

In the same space, an ironically commanding object titled Thirty Foot Canoe Yawl (collapsible) offered the dilapidated surface area of a sailboat. First constructed at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, it was left, installed, to fall to the ground. The shell was later rebuilt for exhibition at the Rodman Hall Arts Centre where, once again, it was permitted to collapse. For the installation at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, the artists reconstructed the broken form into the shape it had acquired naturally at the previous venue. The yawl was never meant to sail, so, as a boat, it was always hopeless. As an intentionally useless and seemingly displaced object, it provoked a dramatic sense of tragedy.

The second gallery featured a range of surrogates more permanent than the objects that inspired them. As actual consumables, everything from a block of butter to a laptop is essentially the same; however, through the minimal applications of colour to meticulously fashioned plaster, wood and resin objects, the artists transcended the ubiquity of the forms by capitalizing on their mnemonic capacity. The proximity of the objects, and their occasional marks of use and abuse, also encouraged an imaginative response by pushing them from being merely formal to potentially narrative. The ample space reserved for creative musings on each object encouraged viewers to recognize the complexity of consumption as a socially, and sometimes emotionally, affecting experience.

The objects featured in the hall, and the large photographs in vitrines, monumentalized otherwise trivial goods. Mask (darth vader, flocked) and Mirror Ball (flocked) were particularly intriguing as coveted symbols of popular culture that are ultimately replaceable but given improved value through the provision of a new surface. Indeed, the American Flock Association declares flocking as a “process of enhancing the quality of a wide range of surfaces.” While other, unadorned, masks and mirror balls will be disposed of eventually, these will sustain.

Exploring failure and monumentalization through provocative and sometimes mischievous responses to ephemera, Weppler and Mahovsky have offered a critical context for questions concerning production, appropriation, use and meaning. Despite the variety of possible ways to enter each work, their relevance to issues concerning the environment and waste is apparent. What is it our culture is leaving behind as evidence of its passing? A plaster cast of a disposable coffee cup will certainly present a challenging archaeological find. ■

“Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky” was organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Liane and Danny Taran Gallery, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Doris McCarthy Gallery, and Cambridge Galleries. The presentation at the SAAG was exhibited from January 21 to March 5, 2006. The exhibition then continued through to Rodman Hall Arts Centre, the Doris McCarthy Gallery and Cambridge Galleries to November 26, 2006.

Milena Placentile is a curator and writer living in Toronto.