I began writing these notes while waiting between pickleball serves\u200a\u2014\u200asuspended in a rhythm of motion and pause. The tension of the body and the stillness of waiting folded into each other, like yin and yang. Present. Tense.<\/em> returned to me then: a grammatical hesitation that is also a bodily hesitation, a pulse stretched across time. The exhibition brought together two distinct approaches to equilibrium, staging a dialogue between compression and release.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Rod Mireau\u2019s wooden constructions occupied the gallery\u2019s western and rear walls, holding tension within apparently static forms. In Machine Artifact: Rings <\/em>(2025), four elliptical wooden loops carried the visual weight of time through their sanded surfaces, suggesting duration compressed into matter. Machine Artifact: Loops <\/em>(2025), composed of walnut elements connected by cord, appeared flexible yet structurally firm, hovering between looseness and restraint. The interplay between rigidity and pliancy gave these works a latent dynamism. Mireau\u2019s constructions arrest motion at the threshold of release, compressing force into form. Standing before them, one sensed not movement but its suspension\u200a\u2014\u200aas if the surrounding air were drawn inward, tightened by the work\u2019s internal stress. In contrast, Huy Lam\u2019s installations\u200a\u2014\u200adistributed across the centre and eastern side of the gallery\u200a\u2014\u200acultivated a stillness that was not inert but attentive. If Mireau captures tension, Lam redistributes it. Rather than containing force, his works disperse it across body, object, and space, implicating the viewer in a subtle process of calibration. At the centre of the gallery stood Yield<\/em> (2024), a metal plane balanced on a rounded Navajo skipper stone. Hovering at waist height, its matte surface absorbed light and its edges were ground thin enough to register the slightest touch. The work existed in a threshold state within the gallery space: when moved, the plane responded with a slow circular displacement, its movement unfolding over time rather than space. A faint tremor lingered, extending the moment of contact into a duration that had to be attended to rather than simply observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This interaction recalls the striking of a temple bell: sound emerges not from impact but from its aftermath. Similarly, with Yield<\/em>, the viewer\u2019s touch did not impose change but participated in an existing system of responsiveness, in which cause and effect were no longer clearly separable. In this exchange, the boundary between viewer and artwork dissolved into what the philosopher Gaston Bachelard describes as a form of dwelling\u200a\u2014\u200aa condition of attunement rather than occupation. Surrounding works such as Precipice<\/em> (2025) and Too Many Tears (Tomorrow)<\/em> (2025) extended this investigation, presenting balance not as resolution but as sustained attentiveness to instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Present. Tense.<\/em> operated accordingly: the present was continuous, yet punctuated by pause. Mireau compressed tension; Lam prolonged it. Together, they suggested that equilibrium is not a fixed state of stability but a lived and ongoing negotiation between human intention and material resistance, one that unfolds across time, perception, and embodied attention. This negotiation did not end at the object but extended into the act of departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I left the gallery, passing once more through Mireau\u2019s restrained constructions\u200a\u2014\u200awhich now seemed almost volatile in their compressed force\u200a\u2014\u200aI looked back at Yield<\/em>. It remained poised in quiet equilibrium, its edge catching the late afternoon light in a thin silver line. Its stillness was not the absence of movement but its continuous potential. What lingered was not an image but a shift in perception: a residual vibration, a phantom resonance that persisted beyond the encounter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United Contemporary,<\/strong> Toronto<\/br>September 4\u200a\u2013\u200aOctober 11, 2025<\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"author":6506,"featured_media":275600,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[8014],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[7775],"artistes":[8072,8084],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-275616","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-117-crip","auteurs-qing-sheng-en","artistes-huy-lam-en","artistes-rod-mireau-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/275616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=275616"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=275616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Rod](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/117_CR_Sheng_Rod-Mireau_MachineArtifactLoops-scaled.jpg\")
<\/strong>Machine Artifact: Loops<\/em>, installation view, United Contemporary, Toronto, 2025.
Photo: courtesy of the artists & United Contemporary, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Present.](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/117_CR_Sheng_vuedexposition-scaled.jpg\")
Toronto, 2025.
Photo: courtesy of the artists & United Contemporary, Toronto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n