1 Comment Add your own

• 1. nouknouk  |  October 25th, 2005 at 5:35 pm

  Cellphun

  On a small side street sandwiched between the shoppers on St. Laurent and the diners on St Denis rests an all too easily overlooked space that at first blush seems to be, if one is was feeling expansive, a café: and it is - but it isn’t. Pine-paneled walls, roughshod tiling on the floors, a disassembly of tables, chairs and a scattering of magazines and flyers it could very well be the definition of esoterica but the Fôkus Gallery is, at its disheveled core, an art gallery. Recently Fôkus hosted Cellphun, an exhibition of digital art/photography by Roxana Brongo, a local Montreal artist with an intrepid vision. Armed with only a Sony Ericsson T630 cell phone, Brongo has captured a world of the everyday – city streets, buildings, marquees and concrete walls which all help form the vocabulary of Cellphun.

  Cellphun is a story about layers. On the first layer we have the immediate and the everyday. The dirty streets, the burnt out marquees lights and chipped concrete that all help to form the backdrop of our daily existence in the city. To experience the second layer we must look a little closer and it is in this examination that we see the details and understand that even though we live and see the day to day as static and unchanging it is, in fact, much more amorphous and is only in the moment of unplanned capture does this fluidity become perceptible. The final layer is the layers themselves and how this plays upon our memory. Humans think in scenes: small windows of activity frozen in the act of reflection. The presentation of the art is as much of the story as the images themselves; suspended in riveted panels of acrylic, these small, precise images arranged in unique and compelling groups of three to seven pieces each creates the sense of brief and intense stories. By making each piece of art small (measuring only 3 by 5 inches) the viewer is pulled into a more intimate experience with the subject and the art. It is the viewer’s proximity that exposes the designs of line and shape overlaid onto the bright and sometimes explosive colours of Brongo’s works. These designs, sometimes delicate, sometimes aggressive, serve to exaggerate and define but moreover these serve as complementary motifs to the theme of Cellphun. The effect is immediate and jarring: the act of pulling us into what at fist might be familiar but then becomes foreign and exotic. It is, in fact, a fun tweaking of our own memories and brings us back to what is to be the core aspect of the show: fun.

  Digital photography has only recently come into the common lexicon of daily speak and almost immediately the world weary debate over its merits as ‘Art’ began. And while many ‘experts’ toss around the tiresome – and invariably resolutionless – arguments as to the definition of art and whether or not digital photography has a place within this surprisingly – yet often closed – world. It is a statement of pure snobbery that dictates that because something is accessible to everyone it should be enjoyed by no one. Digital artists have a very difficult time getting shown as many galleries can’t seem to find any validity in the physically intangible. It is as if to say that the very idea of art, and its implications, has nothing to do with concept or feeling. In the end, however, perhaps being turned away from more conventional art venues is to the benefit and credit of artists like Brongo, her colleagues and galleries like Fôkus who don’t fear taking us down new, unexplored roads. As the truism goes, talent is common, true talent is the courage to do something with it. Roxana Brongo demonstrates a rare talent but moreover the courage to push on with it and while Cellphun is, on its surface, an exhibition of digital art/photography, upon viewing we discover we need less and less to qualify the art as being ‘digital’.

  Let’s call this what it is: Art.

  Cellphun
  Roxana Brongo

  Fôkus Gallery
  68, rue Duluth Est
  Montréal

Leave a Comment

Name Required

Email Required, hidden

Url

Comment

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed