Andrew
Hunter: In the Pines
November
22, 2001 to March 24
Andrew
Hunter is a storyteller. He has
become widely known in Canada for his playful engagement with museum
collections, his commissioning and production of art works (both real and
imagined), and his unconventional approach to exhibition design and
installation. In The Pines was created specifically for the
Macdonald Stewart Art Centre in response to the University of Guelph's history as an
agricultural college, the Art Centre's collection and the holdings of the
University of Guelph, McLaughlin Library, Archival and Special Collections, and
the University of Guelph¹s Veterinary College museum. In the Pines is a tragic
tale of lost love, virulent evil, nature deformed, forgiveness and spiritual
resurrection. The exhibition was
based on a simple ghost story told to Hunter by his mother.
Hunter
told his tale by combining narrative elements from three classic folk songs, In
the Pines, Little Omie Wise and The Lost Jimmy Whelan. Hunter retold these
stories with elements from his own life. From each song, he extracted key
details, such as the tale of a young woman's lost love and the accidental
death of a young river driver in The Lost Jimmy Whelan.
In The Pines, the song that inspired the title of the exhibition,
provided the motif of a train which moves the characters through the narrative
and establishes the site where the story takes place — a sad little space
"where the sun never shines."
Hunter
used the form of narrative confession to tell his tale.
In his story, the primary characters are a young woman Omie Wise and a
young man John Lewis. Wise is
represented by an anonymous archival image portrait by photographer Rueben
Sallows and Lewis is portrayed by The Harvester, a bronze sculpture by Florence
Wyle in the Art Centre’s Sculpture Park.
Their story was told through the installation and an illustrated book
combining paintings, photographs, sculptures, artifacts, biological specimens,
period rooms and children's toys. Hunter's
version of the tale is not the end, but just the step in a narrative that can
continue to evolve — should the viewer take it to heart.
In
the Pines was presented with the support of the Ontario Arts Council and The
Canada Council for the Arts.
In
the Pines
22nd
Sculpture Commission for the Sculpture Park
Unveiled
on November 22, 2002
Andrew
Hunter's In the Pines creates a dialogue with the two adjacent works in the Art
Centre’s Sculpture Park, Florence Wyle¹s The Harvester (1938) and Frances Loring's Turkey (c.1932). Using an
image of an unknown woman on a farm by the late Goderich photographer Rueben
Sallows (1855-1937) and a fragment of the country blues classic In the Pines,
Hunter created a potent and poetic combination of image, object, text and site.
His work reflects his fascination with archival images, rituals of
mourning and memory, and the tradition of storytelling and recording history in
folk songs. Hunter presents Sallows' image near lifesize, in a cast
frame mounted to the exterior brick wall of the Art Centre accompanied by a
“headstone”. The work is
positioned to be read in relation to its "partner" — the young farm
hand of Wyle¹s The Harvester. Loring's Turkey completes the scene. The cast
frame and headstone, designed and fabricated by Hunter and his father William,
was formed after and are based on a late 19th century tombstone common in southern
Ontario — the limbless tree stump.
Purchased through the Florence G. Partridge Fund in consultation with the College of Arts and with financial support from The Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program.
Top image: Inspiration for the exhibition In The Pines.