body & plan
Between the house and the field
An ecology of symbols emerges from Julie Forgues’s photographs. Dust, debris, nature, piles of anything and everything, trees whose shapes have been worn by the wind, truck tracks, gravel, stones. These black-and-white images seem to hover over a landscape we know is in metamorphosis. We know it is the past. We know that, in fact, this landscape has changed so quickly, without anyone being able to give it a careful gaze, that it was never really there. Her photos capture a disfigured, dilapidated landscape; grey living areas between the city and the countryside. Inhabited by insects, rodents, small birds, there is a post-apocalyptic depression in the subject captured on her film.
The series, an ongoing documentation of the Moncton region, BC, is titled trans form-[n]ation. The artist deliberately installs it outside the wall, bringing a living texture to this nature that seems to exist only approximately, and that can only focus on itself (not in a selfish way, of course. It is a matter of survival in the case of these unframed photos). These are fields open to change.
By contrast, Keung’s images are firmly hung on the wall. She created two series of colour photographs. One is printed life-size and the other is a reduced version taken from a video.
The life-size images are C-prints with long, virtuous titles. Victory Belongs to the Most Persevering; The Greatest Discipline, The Highest Devotion, Excellence Comes Back to What We Are are respectively quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte, Princeton basketball coach Pete Carrill, and former NFL player, coach, and ESPN commentator Mike Ditka. The photographs are self-portraits of Keung in moments of intense concentration that turn her outward expression into a demanding “face game.” In one image she appears practising a Tae Kwon Do punch, while in another she seems to be warming up her arms before skiing.
The smaller-format series, drawn from a video, Raising the Leg: Halfway Up, Lowered, Raised Again (Triptych), consists of three takes of the same movement, akin to animation cells. The movement begins with the artist bending backward—Urdhva Dhanurasana is the term used in yoga. From there, she lifts and extends her right leg while delivering another kick. This one is broader, which reveals that she is practising it on the roof of a building.
In both series, there is a silence, a sign of respect, as if to pay tribute either to the artist’s body, both powerful and cumbersome, or to the bare ground of suburban landscapes. These are documents of the “neither/nor.” The force of the movements and the facial expressions that miss the effort evoke the terminology of the house and the human body. The saying “Solid as a rock” comes to mind, as does the old concept of the body as a temple. Perhaps this is because I know that Keung is a house builder.
Forgues’s cool observation contrasts with her wild, vast subject, like a pile of earth baking in the sun. I am left with the clear impression that much of her landscape lies along the highways of New Brunswick around Moncton. These are microsystems, halfway between the worn and the new. What will become of this field when it falls into abandonment?
Each artist’s practice includes characteristics, processes, and sensibilities that are uniquely their own. Forgues’s is thoughtful, while Keung’s is dynamic. Forgues shows particular attention to territories quickly forgotten. Keung employs the physical consequences of time on the living human body.
Some say that a field is not a field if it does not have a house, and that a house is not a house if it does not have a field. A storm cannot strike windows that are not there, just as grass cannot sing unless there are ears to listen to it. I therefore propose that we find Forgues and Keung between the house and the field, where cause meets effect.