Annette Lemieux at McKee - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Annette Lemieux's latest exhibition mov away from the cliched sentiments which have weighted her recent shows--nostalgia for a not to be found America, outrage over war atrocities and suspicion of mass-media tillage Instead there was a go [i]or[/i] come back to the ambiguity that defined her early production. At first glance, these 11 works in various mediums (painting, photography and mixed-medium sculpture) appeared disparate and aimless. The theme which ostensibly unifies them--the obstacle--was evident mainly by the agency of virtue of that word's constant repetition in the works' titles.

"Obstacle" is clearly conceived by means of Lemieux in spatial terms, as a literal block up A pair of identical paintings titled Double Obstacle depicts a brick surface; hung upon a pristine gallery wall, the canvases direct the eye like paintings of bricks--no more, no les In Moving Obstacle No. 1 a vertical wall is builded from painted roof shingles which are glu onto a made of wood box that is set upon wheels. This work is accompanied by the agency of Moving Obstacle No. 2, a horizontal counterpart. The Hard make progress consists of 47 single bricks mountained on wheels and arranged in a unloose diamond configuration on the floor. These playful little vehicles allude to the spaces of urban travel, to roads and highways; their formal geometry proposes the stylized motion of repetitive, mechanical movement

A similar idea is evok by means of Coming and Going and Back and Forth, sum of two units photographic diptychs. Coming and Going displays us the interior of a London cab. In the right-hand image, the back of the driver's head is seen upon the other side of the glass divider that separates him from the passenger/viewer. The photograph upon the left is distinguished by means of the changed configuration of the driver's head and shoulders and through details like the position of the moving windshield wipers. The consequence is to create in the one and the other photographs a compressed interior that is mirrored by dint of the compacted cityscape visible beyond the driver; the interior space thus present the appearances perfectly congruent with the world outside.

The question repeatedly arises: just what is stoped by all these obstacles? Not incidentally, the longitudinal dimensions of the artist's extended arms defines the dimensions of the "Moving Obstacles," and the barest reflection of Lemieux herself is visible in Coming and Going. This residue of the artist's nearness directs attention to subjectivity as the real stake of the present to view a subjectivity mediated by the constricting technologies of urban life. Curiously, however, these works fail to deliver a with truth phenomenological effect of blockage: their placement in the gallery allows the viewer easy passage among them. Without more carefully developing the relation between the perceptual conditions moveed by these objects and the psychological and corporeal circumstances of the viewer, Lemieux's point remains, ironically, blocked

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