The Stepped Form

Rodney LaTourelle

The IKG welcomes Rodney LaTourelle as artist-in-residence from March 24 to April 5. LaTourelle will work with ACAD students to create a large-scale sculptural installation in the Main Mall. Based in Berlin, the Canadian artist and architect’s works investigate relationships between light, colour, space and the body using site-specific interventions. 

His residency will feature open sessions for behind-the-scenes views onto the design/build process, as well as an artist’s talk and public launch. 

 

The Stepped Form installation addresses the nature of institutional common spaces typical of colleges and universities that were built in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. The work reacts to these ambitious multi-purpose spaces, usually conceived as voids interrupted by level changes and stepped elements, in consideration of the current climate of a restricted and increasingly privatized public sphere, along with the expansion of the public realm in the virtual dimension. 

 

Consisting of eight assemblages of multi-coloured stepped forms, the installation has the potential to act as temporary infrastructure for events and communal activities in ACAD’s Main Mall. Multiple use is encouraged: from impromptu, casual meetings and classes, to performances, art and craft displays and vending. By making direct connections between everyday experience, socio-political observation, and formal study, the installation has a hybrid status, joining aesthetic and social concerns that are activated by public activities. 

 

Modular and mobile, the structure’s potential functions are emphasized by materials: a combination of common plywood with brightly coloured specialty finishes (auto paint, plastic laminate, enamel paint, etc.). The assemblage refers to a particular architectural zeitgeist that combines optimism and brutalism, emphasizing the void as a space for possibility, especially for an expanding counter-culture. 

 

For students in today’s increasingly privatized and digitized world, the preferred public space for interaction seems to be less and less affective or body/place-based; the proposed temporary and participatory structure aims to provide a renewed focus on the messy juxtapositions of the materiality of the public. 

 

The Stepped Form will be installed in the Main Mall throughout spring and summer 2014. 

 

Rodney LaTourelle completed his Bachelor of Environmental Studies (Architecture) and Master of Landscape Architecture at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Since 1999, he has worked as an installation artist. His work has been exhibited internationally and is included in numerous collections such as the National Gallery of Canada and Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg. In 2004, LaTourelle was a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude and guest critic at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in 2005. Recent exhibitions of his work include Diaz Contemporary and Optica, Montreal (2013); Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon (2013); Winnipeg Art Gallery (2012); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2008, 2010); Exit Art, New York (2010); University of Quebec, Montreal (2009); Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2009); Artnews Projects, Berlin (2009); Kunsthalle Göppingen (2008); and Program Gallery, Berlin (2007).   

 

The IKG would like to acknowledge the important support of the Alberta College of Art + Design, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, CADA and an anonymous donor. Gratitude is extended to The New Gallery, Bill Gardner, and Jason Hussey.