You may want to practice hand-stands before seeing the exhibit Monumental toc by Mathieu Valade at Galerie sas.

Valade’s work consists of a series of shelf-like boxes which are mounted on one of the gallery’s walls, reminiscent of the work of Donald Judd. But here’s the twist: underneath each shelf hides an illuminated cut-out or a small moving object. There’s a lonely fishing lure circling round and round, as well as a scrunched-up ball of paper, circling underneath the shelf as if by magic. Other shelves have symbols such as the Superman logo or the Air Canada maple-leaf cut out on the underside. You’ll need to plunge your head upside-down to make sense of the display. And that’s exactly the point. Valade questions an object’s function. When is a shelf not a shelf? What happens to those small every-day objects the artist assembled at random in his kitchen as they are re-assigned a new context and displayed in a gallery?
It’s an amusing perspective and worth the rush of blood to your head.

Galerie sas
space 416
Mathieu Valade
Monumental toc
exhibition period: June 18 – August 30, 2008
www.galeriesas.com