A Regionalist with an Issue
-Chambers unabashed regionalism "is an issue" in appreciating the artist.-
Dennis Reid former art historian/ chief curator Art Gallery of Ontario
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/jack-chambers-ontarios-follower-of-the-light/article2249441/
What motivates a historian when the artist in question worked with that old fashioned instrument called a paint brush and local subject matter among other things. You can sense an edge in Reid's obsevation of the late Jack Chambers, [Ontario painter, film maker and regionalist], intended to help assess the nature of his complex and creative equasion. However, with a historian the devil is always in the details. The Globe and Mail article link does not expand on why Chamber's regionalism was an "issue", or why erasing certain particularities struck a chord with millions, as in the prescribed example of Chagall - also a regionalist. But I think it would be easy to surmise. Museums and curators moved toward the trophy exhibit. The latest ism in 1960's came at an ever increasing rate - musems exhibited as though art was more a knee jerk reaction to life and creativity, rather than focusing on a profound response to the moment which was Chambers' objective in painting - realist painting.
I would think though, for Chambers the realist, forging an identity during the heyday of Canadian modernism, when he was guided by realist and mystical principles was no easy feat. But Chambers had what is refered to as "resonnance" at the time. Now why is that?
Well, the same resonnance was also occuring at the same time in the Atlantic region through the Mount Allison School of Realism, so Jack really was not as alone as we may be lead to believe.
E.J. Hughs was doing his thing on the west coast and regionalism was alive and well with practitioners such as Eric Freifeld and Christine Pflug in Ontario also. There were still critics and curators out there interested in regionalism and its place in the modernist pantheon, but they could not compete with the broader spectacle we now refer to as the blockbuster.
So why did Chambers' reputation "dissapate like the mist" as Sarah Milroy claims? The answer lies not in why did Chambers' reputation dissapate? It is more likely: Why did regionalism in general dissapate and lose its place in our museum's consciousness - swallowed up in the wake of the ocean liner of modernism?
Chambers' work speaks for individuals, and Canadians alike even if there is an "issue" to his particular brand of unabashed regionalism. Consider the moment, where ever you are, who ever you are, and you will see why realism was his partner in a search dependent on the local to express the universal. It was all he needed.
Dennis Reid former art historian/ chief curator Art Gallery of Ontario
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/jack-chambers-ontarios-follower-of-the-light/article2249441/
What motivates a historian when the artist in question worked with that old fashioned instrument called a paint brush and local subject matter among other things. You can sense an edge in Reid's obsevation of the late Jack Chambers, [Ontario painter, film maker and regionalist], intended to help assess the nature of his complex and creative equasion. However, with a historian the devil is always in the details. The Globe and Mail article link does not expand on why Chamber's regionalism was an "issue", or why erasing certain particularities struck a chord with millions, as in the prescribed example of Chagall - also a regionalist. But I think it would be easy to surmise. Museums and curators moved toward the trophy exhibit. The latest ism in 1960's came at an ever increasing rate - musems exhibited as though art was more a knee jerk reaction to life and creativity, rather than focusing on a profound response to the moment which was Chambers' objective in painting - realist painting.
I would think though, for Chambers the realist, forging an identity during the heyday of Canadian modernism, when he was guided by realist and mystical principles was no easy feat. But Chambers had what is refered to as "resonnance" at the time. Now why is that?
Well, the same resonnance was also occuring at the same time in the Atlantic region through the Mount Allison School of Realism, so Jack really was not as alone as we may be lead to believe.
E.J. Hughs was doing his thing on the west coast and regionalism was alive and well with practitioners such as Eric Freifeld and Christine Pflug in Ontario also. There were still critics and curators out there interested in regionalism and its place in the modernist pantheon, but they could not compete with the broader spectacle we now refer to as the blockbuster.
So why did Chambers' reputation "dissapate like the mist" as Sarah Milroy claims? The answer lies not in why did Chambers' reputation dissapate? It is more likely: Why did regionalism in general dissapate and lose its place in our museum's consciousness - swallowed up in the wake of the ocean liner of modernism?
Chambers' work speaks for individuals, and Canadians alike even if there is an "issue" to his particular brand of unabashed regionalism. Consider the moment, where ever you are, who ever you are, and you will see why realism was his partner in a search dependent on the local to express the universal. It was all he needed.
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