Robin ArseneaultFalling Off The Log

In tap and jazz dance, “falling off the log” is a classic sequence of steps starting with a pretend fall: the dancer briefly leans back, off balance, before quickly recovering and landing a step on beat. Here, the dancer’s save of the movement is emblematic of creative practices in which limits are pushed and failures are anticipated. Calgary-based multidisciplinary artist Robin Arseneault reflects on this daring attitude in her latest exhibition, which draws inspiration from — and borrows the name of — the dance sequence and illustrates how uncertainty is meditated on in visual and performative art practices. Calgary-based multidisciplinary artist Robin Arseneault reflects on this daring attitude in her latest exhibition, which draws inspiration from — and borrows the name of — the dance sequence and illustrates how uncertainty is meditated on in visual and performative art practices. Featuring selections of images from a book on dance history and sculptures modelled after driftwood assemblages, the exhibition is dynamic in narrative and rich in materiality, suggesting a humble welcoming of uncertainty and accidents, whether genius or inconsequential. Exploring Arseneault’s exhibition, visitors gradually become aware of their body and how it moves in relation to the gallery’s architecture. The exhibition opens with seven large hanging curtains, titled Walk-In Drawings (2022), animating the hallway leading into the gallery, where the main acts unfold. One set of curtains is hung off the wall and the other blocks a row of alcove spaces, creating a pleasant backstage experience familiar to many amateur and professional performers. Visible on both sides of the panel, cut-up images of body parts and Arseneault’s blocking sketches come together to set possible stages for art to unfold. This theatrical characteristic is emphasized by a large installation of twelve wood sculptures titled Dancing Men (Troupe) (2022). Arseneault purchased a set of palm-sized pieces of driftwood from the estate sale of a New York artist to work them into an ensemble of small figures. She then scaled twelve assemblages to human size with cedar off-cuts. Sprawling across an MDF riser that dominates the back gallery, the sculptures appear as dancers rehearsing on stage; some are warming up, others stretch, and still, others are practising complex movements. Arseneault has also looked to the 1967 book The Dance Through the Ages for images of body movements throughout history and cultures. In La Danse (2021), twelve photo diptychs were made by folding the reference images in half — often cropping out the dancers’ torsos or abstracting their faces; two images with similar formal characteristics were then rotated sideways and joined together. The result is abstract compositions of shapes, bodies, and movements that transcend time and cultures. With the long horizontal frames recalling film strips, the work evokes a cinematic experience showing how humanity has embodied instability by leaning into gravitational forces and momentums to create the body’s most expressive language — dance. Robin ArseneaultWalk-In Drawings, installation view,Esker Foundation, Calgary, 2022.Photo: John Dean Robin ArseneaultDancing Men (Troupe), installation view,Esker Foundation, Calgary, 2022.Photo: John Dean Effectively employing a theatrical sensibility that plays with movement, scale, and space, the exhibition accentuates the relationship between bodies and architecture, both spatial and physiological. This intention is solidified in Plus (2022), in which bodies are entirely removed from photographs, leaving only enigmatic environments inside a gold cross frame, and in Lantern (2022), in which inverted black-and-white vinyl silhouettes of the sculpture cover the gallery’s atrium windows. Throughout the experience, the exhibition sustains a feeling of uncertainty but, instead of the typical negative connotations, the “uncertainty” in Arseneault’s work is imbued with potentiality. Robin Arseneault, Tak Pham

Robin Arseneault
Falling Off The Log

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