From Electrical Fire Spirits May Be Kindled

Warming the white walls of Two Seven Two gallery from its sunken main space, an amethyst glow beckoned viewers to explore a captivating ensemble of neon and LED art. An oasis of colour during an extended polar vortex, From Electrical Fire Spirits May Be Kindled nimbly sidestepped the formalist pitfalls of its medium-specific premise through an engaging materialist excavation of inter-generational artistic experimentation. This archaeology of light-based practices took inspiration from the genius loci of the gallery’s eponymous address, which was once home to the fabled Electric Gallery, Canada’s premier venue for kinetic and new media art in the 1970s.

Curator Emma Bain deftly nodded to this place-based history through her inclusion of Electric Gallery co-founder Sam Markle’s Neon Flower (1971), a luminous bricolage of sinuous neon tubing and an empty Coke bottle that has been continuously “on” for more than five decades. Markle originally opened the Electric Gallery in partnership with his brother Jack on a six-month lease in the Flatiron Building, with an inaugural exhibition by the late New Zealand conceptualist Billy Apple, before relocating to 272 Avenue Road later in 1970. In addition to jump-starting the careers of visionary artists such as Norman White and Michael Hayden, the Markle brothers’ enduring legacy includes the iconic Sam the Record Man sign that has been integrated into Toronto’s Sankofa Square, an area once synonymous with neon signage and its illicit connotations.