Daniel Young and Christian Giroux, Brave New Waves, 2010, powder coated aluminum enclosures, milled IKEA and rubber bumpers 185 x 185 x 41 cm
BOOLE | DANIEL YOUNG AND CHRISTIAN GIROUX
11.20.2010 to 01.09.2011
Boole is an ongoing body of work produced using machine fabricated, powder coated, sheet metal enclosures developed in a formal dialogue with pieces of Ikea furniture. It is this fusion of objects from the domestic realm with an industrial mode of manufacturing – the world of the commodity and the component – that positions the practice of Daniel Young & Christian Giroux in conversation with the spirit of contemporary modernism.
Young & Giroux frequently site three key sources that lay the foundation for this project. The first, visiting Brancusi’s studio in Paris, reveals their affinity for collapsing any distinction between the formal and functional value of the pedestal or support. Conversely, Brancusi’s near sacralization of the pedestal stands in contrast to the secular Ikea tables and desks embedded within the booles. Another critical influence was an exhibition of the maquettes of SANAA , the duo being drawn to the Japanese Architecture office for their capacity to impose tension between the exterior and the interior without bravado. Thirdly, the newest generation of booles has taken cues from the architectural dialogue that artist Gordon Matta-Clark started with his ‘Cuttings,’ producing negative spaces from the built environment.
To a large extent, Young & Giroux are post studio artists and their sculptures are generated almost exclusively on computers whether to facilitate correspondence (the artists live in different cities), sketch ideas or even to program the sheet metal machines that fabricate the work. It is worth noting, too, that the title Boole is derived from the term used to describe the basic 3D computer modeling operations of addition and subtraction of simple forms in the creation of more complex ones. Like these operations, their sculptures can appear complex in form, but there is an implicit logic more intuited than understood and an aesthetic that resembles the very machines they were constructed by - large metal clad, minimalist structures that conceal much of their inner workings.
Guelph-based Christian Giroux and Toronto-based Daniel Young have collaborated since 2001 with a practice spanning sculpture, film, video and drawing. Their body of work includes architectural proposals for public spaces, typological films of light fixtures and scale replicas of Cold War era satellites. Their work has been featured in solo-shows, including Access & Excel at YYZ, which coincided with Cosmos, Alouette & IDCSP at Diaz Contemporary in 2006. Recent group exhibitions include: We Can Do This Now at the Power Plant in 2006 and an upcoming exhibition at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. Giroux and Young also recently received the Lee Center Sculpture Commission from the City of Toronto for Reticulated Gambol in 2007-08 and were nominated for the 2010 Sobey Art Award.
Boole is organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and curated by Ryan Doherty. Funding assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the City of Lethbridge.
