Geoffrey Farmer: Ongoing Time Stabbed With A Dagger

Additional Information

Opening Reception and Artist talk: Friday, May 7, 7:30pm

This new sculptural installation by Vancouver-based artist Geoffrey Farmer debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2009. Staged objects are choreographed in a kinetic work that shifts between time keeping and theatrical allusion. Expanding upon recent generatively composed works, Theatre of Cruelty, 2009 and And Finally the Street Becomes the Main Character (Clock), 2008, Farmer has now introduced moving components to create an ever-reconfiguring play presented in real time. The construct of the clock is key to the temporal narrative of the work, which coalesces through interacting sounds and movement embedded amongst a number of sculpturally constructed objects and figures. The set-up functions both cinematically and on theatrical terms; while some actions presented in real time exploit a direct relationship between viewer and object, others allude to representations of time and history. Characters such as a cloaked figure, a clock wearing a bowler hat, a shuttered cellar and other objects comprise the interacting performative relationships between these sculptural subjects. As is with most of Farmer’s work a text is then used to create a tension between what is described and what is experienced.

Geoffrey Farmer was born in 1967 on Eagle Island, BC, and lives and works in Vancouver. Recent solo exhibitions include: Geoffrey Farmer, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2008); The Last Two Million Years, The Drawing Room, London and Pale Fire Freedom Machine, Power Plant Gallery, Toronto (2005). Recent group exhibitions include: The World As A Stage, Tate Modern, London (2007), and ICA Boston (2008) and Gasoline Rainbows, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (all 2007).  Farmer attended the San Francisco Institute of Art (1991-92) and the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (1993).

Geoffrey Farmer, Ongoing Time Stabbed With A Dagger (Installation View), 2010.