Sexpo '97: The Last Bang
as it appeared in The Fulcrum, August 14th, 1997
article written by Stephanie Power
Please see the easy to read text version below.
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press clipping for Sexpo '97: The Last Bang as it appeared in The Fulcrum, August 14th, 1997 article written by Stephanie Power Please see the easy to read text version below. |
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| Creative
Outlet goes out with a bang Local gallery holds its last show After just over a year of breathing life into the Ottawa art scene, Creative Outlet's Cumberland Street gallery is about to take its last gasp. The independent gallery, geared toward emerging local art and artists, will shut its doors after the run of its current show Sexpo 97: The Last Bang. Darcy Schmidt and Laura Margita, two graduates of the University of Ottawa's Visual Arts program, set up the gallery and adjoining art shop with the aim of giving some much-needed exposure to up and coming area artists. "When we started out, we were really hoping to last at least a year," said Schmidt. "We really did accomplish what we wanted to do. We wanted to give Ottawa a venue for emerging serious artists and have things that you don't normally see in a commercial art space." From June 1996 to August 1997, Creative Outlet has shown Ottawa artists' work exploring everything from sex to spirituality to fish, giving many artists their important first gallery showings. Creative Outlet's inability to sell enough art to keep it running can be attributed, said Schmidt, to being located in a "comfortable" town with a strong need "not to put anything offensive in the home for when the boss comes over." Nevertheless, there are those who maintain that art spaces like Creative Outlet are important for a city - especially a bureaucratic coma-town like Ottawa. David Cation, a local artist who has shown in New York, Paris and Montreal, says that he sold a number of works through Creative Outlet at a time when no other gallery in Ottawa would show what he was making. Cation, who also ran an independent gallery in the Market about four or five years ago called Gallery Intersection, says that a short life span doesn't negate the positive impact a gallery can have on a community. "A lot of good things come, they make a bang and then they go. I think (Creative Outlet) was a great thing. During the year or so that those places are open, they really shake up a community - in a good way," says Cation, whose work is included in Sexpo. Schmidt and Margita add that even though Creative Outlet is closing, they plan to use the extensive list of local artists that they have gathered over the gallery's life to organize more art shows. "We will continue Creative Outlet as a concept. And we'll do guerrilla shows," said Margita, referring to their plans to rent unused spaces for about a month, collaborate with other artists to coordinate group shows and publicize them like crazy. "It's not a death of us helping keep things happening in the city. It's a sort of a transition," said Schmidt. Stay tuned, then, for another incarnation of Schmidt, Margita and Creative Outlet. last show: Sexpo 97 This month, the collaborative gallery duo that started out with a bang is going out with one too. The first group show that local art gallery operators Darcy Schmidt and Laura Margita organized together was the popular Sex Show at Kinga Gallery. Two years later, the last show at their own gallery, Creative Outlet, is none other than Sexpo 97. "The things that people were really, really interested in as subject matter were sex and death," said Schmidt, of the reason behind the first Sex Show. So he and Margita continued the theme with Sexhibition, their second show at Creative Outlet, and now with Sexpo 97: The Last Bang, in which Schmidt's pretty ceramic penises (top right) pop up again. "A long time ago, sex was dirty and the air was clean and then sex became clean and the air became dirty and now sex is dirty and the air is dirty," said Schmidt with a laugh, emphasizing that they wanted to do a show that celebrated sex. Sexpo 97 features the works of 62 artists in a number of different media. The show covers virtually every inch of the gallery's small space. But rather than negate one's enjoyment of the art, the density actually ads to the ambience of a very fun, and at points challenging, creative orgy. Adrian Göllner and Mark Marsters' "The Dirty Dozen" proves what many Tim Horton's aficionados already know - even doughnuts are sexual objects, and a subtle, untitled work by Tim Dallett is made all the more eerie because of all the in-your-face art surrounding it. Sexpo 97 is, by far, one of the giddiest shows I have been to in quite a while and a testament in its own e-raw-tic way to the community and life force that has been Creative Outlet. Sexpo 97: The Last Bang Creative Outlet / Gallery C O 332 Cumberland Street Aug. 9-27 Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-6 p.m. Free admission/Works for sale Info: 789-9223 |
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