ALWAYS FOREVER NOW
New sculptural Portal works by Harley Valentine
Go behind the scenes of the installation here: INSTALLATION DAY
Opening reception: Saturday, May 9th, from 1:00 to 4:00pm
Exhibition Dates: May 1 to June 20, 2015
EXHIBITION INTRODUCTION
By Francisco Alvarez
Harley Valentine’s striking new sculpture Always Forever, the latest in his series of Portals sculptures, rises in front of the Campbell House Museum like an apparition from another age.
On the face of it, the futuristic origami-like sculpture functions as a doorway between the bustle of 21st-century Queen Street West, Toronto’s locus of all things cool, and the stately Georgian architecture of the City’s oldest surviving building from the olde Town of York, built in 1822 (also considered quite cool in its day). But the title of this installation, Always Forever Now, suggests a grander idea – that the sculpture as installed here exists within a grander continuity of time, from the past, through the present and into the unknowable future.
No traditional rectangular doorway, Always Forever, for all its beautiful straight lines, facets and angles, also suggests a writhing form, caught frozen in the middle of its ages-long shapeshifting exertions. Valentine cleverly amplifies the portal’s movement potential in mesmerizing performances of contemporary dance, music and photography. The dancer sinuously crosses back and forth through the twisting red threshold, becoming a tender image of humanity, with all its complexity, emotion and temporality, framed within the permanence of classical architecture, the logic of science and engineering, and the irrational impulses of great art.
Francisco Alvarez is the principal of Mr. Pink Art Consultants, Executive Director of Heritage Toronto, and a former professional dancer.
