Le Sigh: Pulp Fiction and the Phenomenon of Ambivalent Enjoyment

So I finally went to see Pulp Fiction at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art last weekend (it opened June 26, and closes August 23).

And I'm writing this post to talk a bit about why I held off on seeing it for so long, as well as the resulting ambivalent enjoyment I experienced.

Basically, this travelling show, which debuted at Museum London in southwestern Ontario in July 2008, was designed to examine a particular subgenre of youngish art, partly grown out of London, Ontario, that works with hand-made and comic-book aesthetics. Think a Gen-X/Y R Crumb mashed up with Royal Art Lodge and hanging out with Marc Bell, and that's a little taste of where the artists in the show are kind of coming from.

Part of the reason I put off seeing the show was a fear of being disappointed. I've actually had enjoyed a lot of works from artists in the show in the past, like Seth Scriver and Jason McLean. I was also excited to see works from people I had only heard about, like Amy Lockhart and Liz Garlicki. I just worried that seeing them all together would be too much--that the quirk of these genre practitioners would lose its appeal when presented as one solid block of zeitgeist.

The show, curated by Corinna Ghaznavi, actually succeeds this challenge, at least satisfactorily so. Scriver's video here, Asphalt Watches, which I'd never seen before, is a highlight—-a hilariously psychedelic take on a real-life hitchhiking trip across Canada. Seeing more of McLean's paintings on everyday objects was really worthwhile (liked the briefcase a lot). And Lockhart's film Walk for Walk didn't disappoint—-it was like the old Monty Python sketch "Silly Walks" but featuring a series of fantastical animated creatures of all descriptions (and ridiculous foley effects) in a video-game inspired landscape. Quite enjoyable, even if its impossible for each artist to really get their due.

The misanthropy lurking behind my enjoyment, however, I think had to do with the way we understand (or misunderstand) art geographies in Canada. I felt a little like "Well, now that this show is on in Toronto (rather than London, or Winnipeg, or Halifax), many members of the media will sit up and take notice of some of these artists. But if the show only stayed in London, or Winnipeg, or Halifax, the bulk of our national media wouldn't really care as much--even if the work was just as good."

What do you think? How do you deal with Toronto-centrism in the Canadian art scene and art media (of which I am, admittedly, a wonderfully misanthropic member)?

Still from Amy Lockhart's Walk for Walk from canadianart.ca