Yam Lau at Christie Contemporary
CHRISTIE CONTEMPORARY | TORONTO
Have you ever had the experience of being in a space with someone beautiful who refuses to conform to the projection of form and order of the other, even of that very space? Albeit in awe, leaves you astray.
Yam Lau: “If there is/if not” | PHOTO: Christie Contemporary
What is a space if not a transgression on endless emptiness? I cannot imagine an endlessness, so I must compartmentalise, perhaps with right angled intersecting walls, to create a mini replica of such endlessness, now contained. Walls; assert our kind on an otherwise indifferent universe. Lit or dark, the drama of space has to end within the reach of my sight, so I can belong. Locating yourself such, is the politics of existence. Then must one also locate the other, mundane objects of fear, desire, and compassion. That would make our gravity. We then start to forget the intricate mechanics of our orchestration, the joy and the dread of having found something tangible, now faded now gone. To relocate ourselves, the space must then be reinvented, perhaps with another interruption, a re-invention of the original idea.
YAM LAU breaks the spell of such inertia with “If there is/ if not” by placing an object in the forgotten space. An object in a constant dialogue within the confines of a space once found, then lost again. These installations mimic the straight lines, defining its captor; the room, yet running into its boundaries, rather than flowing inside in their endless safety. Walls make space. Walls own the occupants of such space. Yet walls are the first to be forgotten, then the space.
Enter the gallery, resist the urge to indulge with Claire Christie beyond a warm greeting and place yourself in the middle of the hall (You are going to need her sooner than later). You might need many orientations and repeated calibrations until you realise that your failure to achieve that and this slight discomfort; is the original work. I believe Christie stands there just waiting for this moment, when you might need her reaffirmation that nothing is wrong with you, but a small invasive nudge to your perspective in slumber. Hope she forgives my childish jumping around and explaining her own making to her. Well, such is the joy of reigniting our age old romance with space, then its occupants.
