Music of the spheres . . . and blocks and switches
Jay Johnson relies on hand-craft for art His sculptures have nostalgic feel
They don’t make machines like they used to. They aren’t all that visible, for starters. The PC spewing out these words has none of the wonderful gimcrack intricacy of an ancient Underwood typewriter, with its rows of lethal- looking silver hammers punishing a page of paper. I don’t even wantto imagine how my Dell desktop actually works.
This brings us to Jay Johnson, machinemaker, drummer and designer of auto-kinetic sculpture found at the Clint Roenisch Gallery as of tomorrow. Johnson revives the combined tactile and intellectual adventure that went into any man- machine, from the car engine to a wood- burning cook stove to a sculpted old goat from Picasso. The simple bits of wire, tin, nails and simple gears the 47- year- old Vancouverbased artist attaches to elegantly worn chunks of wood connect Rube Goldberg’s crazy-cunning inventions with Marcel Duchamp’s ready- mades, Alexander Calder’s mobiles and Lucy Puls’s old- tech sculpture A walk around Untitled Cherub, ( 2005) is like going on an unguided tour from a junkyard to a child’s sandbox, then to a horror flick where a kid’s monster doll will push a button to turn the globe into one giant slushie.
Yet, all these reference points — and one can add in watching avant- garde video from Harry Smith and Lewis Klahr — may well overburden any true understanding of one of Johnson’s pieces. The sophistication of Untitled Windmill, ( 2005) is its simplicity. It is a tiny imperfect machine that does very little and does it brilliantly, the way a favourite toy is always remembered later on as being the best thing ever. The perfectly placed on-off toggle switch stuck in the side of an old box, its red paint flaking away, is as much a part of the piece as the tiny gear mechanism linked to the toy- like windmill. The switch is the very essence of the piece, a worn silvery thing that makes it all work, and not just by turning on a bit of electrical current.
This switch is to the rest of the piece what the piece is to the gallery itself. Growing up in Kamloops, B. C. in the 1960s and ’ 70s is at the root of Johnson’s attachment to the glories of old technology, he thinks. “ It was all ranch land at one time, with a real frontier vibe, so you might come across some abandoned tools,” he says. A Ford Model T, brought back to life, had the same effect. “ Seeing all the pulleys working had such a seminal effect on me,” he goes on. “ I was very much afraid of and attracted to these objects.
“This relationship with old things, with history is important. In contemporary art it’s often difficult to talk about the past. People just roll their eyes and say, ‘ it’s only nostalgia.’ But there are people who are not afraid of that, who understand that such a discipline, as visual art must build on its own history.
“ There’s a trend today to have a slacker quality to work. Maybe if I had been born later, I would have had it, but I don’t. To me the idea of craft — of something that’s hand- made or hand- crafted — is important.” Music — or at least sound — is another quality found in a lot of Johnson’s work, no big surprise considering he’s also worked as a professional drummer, gigging for years in the Kamloops area, recording the local punk hero, Harold Nix. ( Johnson says he admires but has little connection with fellow Vancouverite musician/ artist, Rodney Graham.) Then again, of all the machines ever made, musical instruments must be numbered among the most remarkable, not just for what they do but for the way they look. The shape and function of a bassoon fascinates far more than any Ferrari.
“ Most mechanical devices have some musical aspect to them,” says Johnson. “ We were driving around in Clint ( Roenisch’s) car, and I found myself listening to the engine. “My instrument is the drum set. There’s nothing more mechanical than that. There are several pulleys and a pedal, and screws and all that. But it’s also very sculptural.” Just the facts What: Jay Johnson’s auto-kinetic sculpture Where: Clint Roenisch Gallery, 944 Queen St.W. When: Tomorrow to Oct. 23