New art exhibition about Sask. Maritime Museum questions history and reality
At first glance the latest exhibition at the Art Gallery of Swift Current appears to present artifacts and objects from the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum, but the reality is that such an institution does not exist in this landlocked province.
The Saskatchewan Maritime Museum is a concept of Saskatoon artist Todd Gronsdahl’s vivid imagination. He uses realistic sounding stories in a humouristic way to create sculptural works and installations that invite visitors to ask questions about fact and fiction, history and myth, conspiracy and reality.
His latest version of this ongoing artistic project, which is titled The Saskatchewan Maritime Museum presents Emma Lake’s Workshop Series, is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Swift Current.
The opening reception for the exhibition on Jan. 19 provided an opportunity to hear directly from Gronsdahl about the ideas behind the imagined reality of his work.
He has been creating artwork based on invented or partially invented characters for about 20 years and since 2017 it has been linked to oceans and rivers.
“I’ve decided to create my own history and by trying to give it official veneer, I called it the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum,” he said. “We’re probably the furthest place away from a coastline and we don’t have an official maritime museum. So that gives us a chance to invent any history we want and sort of legitimize the myths and underline the fanciful, fun, imaginary stories.”
Swift Current is the 13th city in Canada and the United States where the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum exhibition has been displayed since 2017. Each exhibition will look somewhat different, but some works have been part of every display.
“Everything else works its way in and out, kind of based on my interest, because it has to keep me interested,” he said.
The boat named Gasparfon has been present in every exhibition. He constructed it with recycled flooring and Masonite that were fixed to a 1960’s peddle boat, which he saved from the landfill. It is associated with a fictional character called Charles Gaspar, whose large portrait is displayed in this exhibition.
Gronsdahl has created an entire story around Gaspar, who he describes as a prairie gentleman, engineer and inventor. He used the Gasparfon to travel on the South Saskatchewan River to collect aquatic plants for medical cures, but his inventions did not always work or he created something different by accident.
Different storylines have been presented in the various Saskatchewan Maritime Museum exhibitions.
This one in Swift Current is focused on the wellknown and real-life Emma Lake summer workshops, which took place for several decades. It became influential gatherings that involved eminent guest artists from New York and elsewhere.
Gronsdahl re-imagined this history and created a fictional Saskatchewan artist named Emma Lake, whose large and imposing portrait greets visitors at the entrance to the exhibition. In his version of the past, she was an avant-garde artist who welcomed artists from New York who wanted to learn from her.
“They came to Emma Lake’s studio and then marvelled at the motifs and the style she was creating,” he said. “Then they stole these things, went back to New York City, and became rich and famous artist in their own right by ripping this woman off. So what I’ve done is sort of reverse engineered a body of artwork that would look like something they could have stolen from her to create their artwork. It’s sort of like this reverse stacking of dominoes, which is kind of common in the work I make.”
Other works on display in this exhibition are related to his interest in conspiracy theories and the speculative aspect of history. He created an installation that depicts a 5G cell tower as a reference to a conspiracy theory during the COVID-19 pandemic that mobile phone signals could transmit the virus.
“I love conspiracies and I think they’re amazing, until that became everywhere and everyone believed conspiracy,” he said. “That made it less fun for me. Now people are arguing about it. It’s not fun anymore.” DiefenBeacon, one of his newest works, is the result of an imaginary story he created in which Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker received the device as a gift during a visit to the Soviet Union. He put it in his office, but the beacon was bugged and his conversations were transmitted to the enemy.
The basic premise behind this story did actually happen during the Cold War, The Russian inventor Leon Theremin created a listening device called The Thing that was hidden in a gift presented to the American ambassador in Moscow, which made it possible for the Soviets to listen to confidential discussions. The bugging device was only discovered in the ambassador’s officer after seven years. The fictional stories associated with Gronsdahl’s artworks can easily trick anyone who is not aware of his artistic approach, which can result in mixed reactions. The artwork known as C.R.E.A.M. (Creative Re-use of Environmental and Available Means) was used during the opening reception on Jan. 19 to provide fresh coffee and aebleskiver, a traditional Danish dessert, to attendees. The artwork known as C.R.E.A.M. (Creative Re-use of Environmental and Available Means) was used during the opening reception on Jan. 19 to provide fresh coffee and aebleskiver, a traditional Danish dessert, to attendees. The artwork known as C.R.E.A.M. (Creative Re-use of Environmental and Available Means) was used during the opening reception on Jan. 19 to provide fresh coffee and aebleskiver, a traditional Danish dessert, to attendees.“They either think it’s funny and get the joke or they’re mad and they just feel like betrayed,” he said.
His works and the associated stories have humorous and playful elements, but he hopes it will let people reflect critically on issues. At the same time, he wants audiences to have fun with his work. He used to have explanatory information with artworks, but felt it was too didactic.
“I wasn’t giving my audience enough credit that they could come up with their own interesting thing,” he said. “Now I almost think that if I can set them on a path with the title of the exhibition and a little bit of the writing and the titles of the objects, that maybe they’ll come up with something far more interesting or imaginative than I have.”