8 décembre 2004

nooses


nooses
Originally uploaded by Chris Lloyd.
For those of you in the Saint John area, you might want to check out the "Kites, mobiles and things that hang from the ceiling" x-mas exhibition at the Peter Buckland Gallery. When my friend and bestest patron saw this little doozy she emailed me saying "now I know you've completely lost it". Perhaps, perhaps not. I think the noose is an icon loaded with meaning and worthy of artistic investigation. Nooses may convey lynching, suicide and the death penalty, but are also practical and functional knots, and look like poetry. I find it bizarre that after Ronald Turpin, 29, was convicted of shooting a Toronto police constable and Arthur Lucas, 54, was convicted of murdering an FBI agent, they were both hung in Toronto on December 11 1962. They would be the last people hung under the death penalty in Canada. Louis Riel is probably the most famous hanging case in Canada. I defended him in a mock trial in grade 7 and still couldn't convince the jury, and that was only 1989! Anyway, the rubbing of the individual noose turned out way cool.

1 commentaire:

Dear PM a dit...

Actually, the nooses weren't included in the exhibition. They were just too strange and morbid for a fundraising auction. Peter was showing Judy the piece a couple weekes ago. He held it up and said "I'm pretty open about most things, but…what the hell is this??". Can't say I blame him. It would be more interesting if the nooses were arranged in such a way as to create intricate pictures from the shadows.