Michael Davey: Overly Charmed

September 23 to December 20, 2009

In conjunction with the unveiling of Michael Davey’s Short Life, Long Branch, the 35^th outdoor installation in the sculpture park, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre featured a concurrent exhibition titled Michael Davey: Overly Charmed. The exhibition comprised over seventy Lucite blocks from Davey’s series Overly Charmed (1993–1994) and All Souls Passage (1999–2001). Acquired by donation from the artist in 2001, this is the first exhibition of these works to be shown at the MSAC.

Overly Charmed exemplified Davey’s interest in mass-produced, found objects; in this case, miniature charms made for the tourist trade. Davey’s work engages questions around Canadian image and identity. The charms (cast in bronze and suspended in transparent lucite blocks) are miniature sculptures that illustrate Canada’s provinces and territories, trades and natural resources, national past times (such as hockey) and consumables (such as beer), as well as the nation’s infamous architectural structures and institutions.

The exhibition also featured three works from Davey’s series titled All Souls Passage. These works form a conceptual bridge between Overly Charmed and Short Life, Long Branch. The miniature charms in All Souls Passage are cast in bronze, silver, and gold and the central figures are anatomically correct skeletons frozen in human-like postures. Only one of the skeletons is suspended in the Lucite block on its own (pictured).

Opening Reception Wednesday, September 23 at 7 PM

Public Talk with Michael Davey Monday, September 28 at 2:30 PM

Image:
All Souls Passage, 1999–2001 (detail) Gift of the Artist, 2001 Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection