Remembering Kelly Mark
108 Leyton Ave, 2014, video still, single-channel split-screen video with sound, 10 minutes, 13 seconds. Collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Kelly Mark died on February 21, 2025. Her combination of inventiveness, humour, hard work and play with language established her as one of Canada’s most important conceptual artists. Her split screen video performance in 108 Leyton Ave., 2014, is classic Mark. She performs herself in duplication, playing solitaire on a table with matching glasses of Maker’s Mark Kentucky bourbon and packs of cigarettes. Every gesture is duplicated and the clock between them never moves from 6 o’clock. The picture on the wall above her/them is an image of another of her iconic works, showing a pair of television screens in a techno-embrace. Called The Kiss (Light Box), 2009, it brought Brancusi’s famous 1907 sculpture of the same name into the 21st century. The dialogue she has with herself throughout the 11 minute and 13 second video is a set of ongoing Everything and Nothing contraries.
In the video, one of her selves says, “Nothing matters in the end.” But for Kelly, everything mattered, including the end. She died with close friends around her. The night before, she told one of those friends, she’d had the best sleep of her life.
In May 2018, Border Crossings published an interview with Kelly called “Tough Love”. It is a romp, bursting with wit and wisdom. On the cover of the issue was a still from her 2017 video, Smoke Buddies. In recognition of her contribution to art and life, Border Crossings is pleased to make available the entire interview.
