27 Oct. 2023 – 13 Jan. 2024
Museum in the Hallway
Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture
Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University
Museums and galleries draw prestige from their architecture, geographic locale or historical significance, while compelling works of art, performances, and public expressions of creativity galvanize the diversity of art both within sanctioned institutional spaces and the ‘non-spaces’ that have the capacity to take on resonance. Derek Knight: PLACES, A Flâneur’s Eye documents his museum visits over the last decade in North America and Europe.
Derek Knight. PLACES: A Flâneur’s Eye. 2023. Video loop, three channels, 666 photographs.
PLACES represents a record of Derek Knight’s travels over the last decade or more in North America and Europe. In Canada, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Vancouver. In the USA, New York City, Beacon, North Adams, Williamstown, Boston, Houston, and Buffalo. In England, London, Liverpool, Stourhead, Wiltshire, and in Wales, St. David’s. In France, Paris and Poissy. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Maastricht. In Belgium, Antwerp, Brussels, and Genk. In Spain, Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao. In Germany, Berlin, Kassel and Münster. In Italy, Rome, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Isola d’Elba, Turin, Milan, and Varese. In Switzerland, Ticino.
Curatorial statement / Catherine Parayre and David Vivian
PLACES is neither a documentary nor a travelogue; it is an invitation to foster free associations and develop personal narratives. Not naming the places shown as they appear one after the other on the screen reveals the artist’s intention to deterritorialize them and create the conditions for a dreamy aesthetic experience, not a geographical one. Not naming is also a way to destabilize our position as viewers, as none of these places are non-places. They are landmarks in a cityscape. As such, they attract the attention of visitors; the images show us people watching. Yet Derek Knight urges us to walk the thin urban line between full awareness of exceptional environments – museum buildings, public art, museum galleries – and the random, often unknowing yet always formative exposure to art through urban architecture and culture in our daily lives: a flânerie indeed, and a poetic gesture.
Artist Statement / Derek Knight
The experience of the flâneur is one of cumulative impressions, piqued by observation and the sensory experience of the street, public spaces, and architectural contexts. The camera focuses momentarily, transforming random encounters into fleeting or fixed expressions in which visual motifs, social interactions and gestures are isolated from the urban environment. PLACES highlights the cultural significance of the museum or gallery and our frequent encounters with art in public spaces. If my objective is to seek out works of art and the context in which they are exhibited, the interactions sometimes caught between viewer and artwork are illustrative of the social dynamic in moments of contemplation, obvious pleasure, and even bewilderment.
The multi-faceted aspect of bringing many different places and geographic locales into play is reinforced by the visual montage that unfolds in the form of these 600 or more images. Many of the places depicted will be unknown to the viewer, but semblances of meaning or recognition will emerge in the unfolding relationships –some random, some by design– and the juxtapositions of images presented on three different screens. Although the body of work is the same on each of the screens, by adjusting the duration at which each image advances, a new and changing visual syntax arises from the sequencing. Interior and exterior shots trade back and forth, details of artworks give way to panoramic views of a city skyline. The contrasts between the plastic perfectionism of structures such as Romanesque and Gothic churches and the dynamic principle of form and function at work in many of the museums shown here, underscore how shifts in a progressively secular society have imbued us with many conflicting notions including aesthetic judgment and consumerist desire. We are, in the end, arbiters of our own aesthetic experience, and I invite you to engage in the freedom of the drift or dérive.
A former Director of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts (2009-16), Derek Knight is an artist (as a member of ARTIndustria) and an independent curator (N.E. Thing Co.: The Ubiquitous Concept, Oakville Galleries, 1995; Industrial Niagara, Rodman Hall Art Centre, 2020, etc.)