By Sarah Bonell
Instructor: Pete Smith
Walking up to Diaz Contemporary, it was quite a surprise to find a familiar piece from this year’s Nuit Blanche parked right outside of the gallery. Kim Adams’s Auto Lamp was displayed on a spinning platform from sunset October 2 to sunrise October 3 at the corner of Queen Street and Yonge Street steps away from the Eaton Centre. The 1996 Dodge Ram van had thousands of punctured holes in a whirling abstract pattern. A powerful light was placed inside the van to illuminate the intricate design and to create elaborate dancing shadows on the surrounding buildings.
The works inside the building were of a similar nature. After walking into the gallery, the viewer is met by two large abstract sculptures comprised of deconstructed car parts taken from a couple Ford Ecoline vans. The wheeled sculpture on the left is mostly built from colourful hoods, doors and windshields with side-view and rear-view mirrors decoratively perched on top. Cocooned in the middle of the sculpture at eye level, visible through the glass are numerous multi-coloured light bulbs. Also on wheels, the sculpture on the right is built from silver parts to form a tall cylinder. The metal tube is perforated similar to the Dodge Ram van and the structure is topped with a peaked metal cap. Love Birds implies a heterosexual couple, compelling the viewer to apply gender to these abstracted, mechanical forms. The left sculpture is portrayed as “female”, which then leads to the question: is she pregnant? Are the colourful lights representative of a new baby safely protected by the strong material surrounding it? This piece is playful and like all of Adams’ works on display here, quite a bit of fun.
Adams is often referred to as a kit-basher – he buys kits to build himself. Clearly he doesn’t read the instructions. Both Love Birds and Auto Lamp are examples of this process replicated with life-size automobiles. Adams has been working with life-size cars for about a decade and has been working with miniature cars for over two decades.
Across the room from the two sculptures are numerous toy cars perforated in a similar style to Auto Lamp. The multi-coloured toy cars are displayed on simple, individual white shelves against a white wall, which really help them stand out. They are all pierced with complex swirling designs. The cars are diverse in their makes: trucks, cars, vans. Although the miniature cars do not have the same initial impact as the life-size car, they are impressive nonetheless. The level of detail put into these small objects is very impressive. All these works are fascinating variations on everyday things, forcing the viewer to reconsider their relationship to these objects. The perforated cars have an interesting sense of fragility about them which seems in conflict with the nature of the car. A car is supposed to be strong and protective, whereas these artworks look more like lace than armour. The life-size perforated cars appear to still be driveable, but they have lost the sense of security automobiles generally have. The reconstructed cars go one step further to alter them so far as to make them unusable. The cars thus become objects purely of aesthetic value and loose all practicality.
Adams’ work causes us to reflect upon our society’s values. When purchasing a car, the buyer does not only think of its use value (getting them from point A to point B), but also its aesthetic and cultural value. Cars are not merely a convenient mode of transportation, but a reflection of the buyer’s wealth and status. Owning a car, as compared to taking public transit, brings some social status, but owning the right car results in a further elevated prestige. Kim Adams’s work pushes these ideas of beauty over practicality further than they occur in life, but remains rooted in a sort of social truth. He has managed to create a beautiful body of work that playfully comments on mass consumerism in our society.
Sarah Bonell is a second year drawing and painting major at the OCAD University.
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