In a curious feat of collective cooperation last month, Micah Lexier, one of the city's most accomplished mid-career artists, gave over one of his elegant forms to 13 commercial dealers and independent spaces, to be displayed however they saw fit.
It's done in conjunction with "---> the title is an arrow," Lexier's first commercial show back in Toronto (he spent most of the past decade in New York) at Birch Libralato, and by means of re-introducton, it's exactly the kind of clever engagement you'd expect. Aptly called Provenance, the piece, a hand-scrawled arrow laser-cut in different sizes and colours in aluminum, is Lexier up to his old minimalist tricks; the arrows' installation here, there and everywhere, from commercial galleries, like his own, to nominal competitors like MKG127, Diaz Contemporary, Susan Hobbs (next door to Birch Libralato), to public spaces like the Convenience Gallery on Lansdowne, necessarily question the object not only as a singular work of art, but its, well, provenance as just that very thing. By multiplying and dispersing it, Lexier playfully exits the conventional gallery context, making the gesture at least as important as the work itself.
In the various titles to the pieces, Lexier puts a finer point on it, surrendering authorship to function and, in a few cases, other people -- at least to some degree. "THIS IS AN ARROW WHOSE COLOUR WAS CHOSEN BY MY 5-YEAR OLD NEIGHBOUR OLIVER" reads one; "THIS IS AN ARROW IN A VITRINE POINTING TO OTHER THINGS THAT HAVE ARROWS ON THEM" reads another.
Using gentle wit, Lexier engages in a little goofy semiotic subversion -- arrows, at least in their contemporary meaning, are wayfinding means,or indicators of something of significance, or at least utility -- but Lexier's treatment reduces them to simple forms, leaving function dangling without intent. Which, dovetailing nicely with the multi-venue installation, might say something about art itself, I suppose. But I'll leave that to you.
What I can do is include a handful of images of its installation in various places. Lexier's Birch Libralato show closes too soon, on Nov. 14, while the arrows elsewhere are probably up to the various proprietors. Keep an eye out.
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