3rd Stage

Artist Talk, installation preview and catalogue launch: Thursday, September 8, 8:00 pm

Presented in partnership with Supercrawl

This site specific installation draws its name from the 3^rd exhibition site exterior of Hamilton Artists Inc., and referencing its historic 3^rd Space gallery which was a space of experimentation for member artists in the past. Terris will construct an empty performance stage in Hamilton Artists Inc.’s ArcelorMittal Dofasco courtyard. Devoid of the musicians or artists featured during Supercrawl, this staging of empty spectacle will contain advanced lighting systems, as well as pyrotechnics that go off periodically throughout the installation. The lights washing the stage with colour act as a signifier, promising a spectacle, entertainment and action, mirroring a similar strategy to downtown businesses, clubs and bars along James St, while the shooting flames and fireworks of the pyrotechnics behind the low wall of the courtyard will be visible during the Supercrawl as viewers walk along the street, causing excitement and curiosity as to what is on the other side of the wall. As viewers enter the courtyard through gated access on the Cannon St. exterior, this aspect of discovery is doubled with a sense of deflation as viewers receive only half of the promised spectacle - a curiously empty stage exhibiting the mechanics of spectacle only. The work asks the viewer to refocus on the aesthetics of labour behind the mechanisms at work in “staged” events while also pointing to the possibility of the potential for use. There becomes with or without action upon the stage a separation in the layout of the outdoor courtyard - a kind of dividing line or threshold is created within the space between the stage and the grounds of the courtyard as well as between the spectator and performer – between producer & consumer.

This installation is accompanied by an essay by Benjamin Prus and can be downloaded HERE.

Reece Terris graduated from Simon Fraser University in 2005 and has had solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Western Front, Vancouver; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham; The Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, Banff; and the Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey. His work alters the expected experiential qualities of a place or object through an amplification or shift in the primary function of an original design. Past projects include a six-storey apartment building temporarily installed in the rotunda of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a pedestrian wooden bridge connecting two residential homes, and an architectural false front added to the existing false front of an artist-run centre. His practice is manifest through a variety of media, including sculpture, performance, installation, and photography. Quite often through their hybrid execution, he complicates the traditional definitions of each of these.

Project support for this installation comes from the Incite Foundation for the Arts and the Hamilton Community Foundation. The artist would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.