Photo by Noel Bégin
Please Don’t Go (09:01 December 22, 1977 – )
In this performance art installation by London, Ontario artist Stephen Mueller, the artist is confined inside a display case made of two-way mirrored glass. For several hours each day, Mueller sits and kneels inside the case, performing a series of repetitive tasks to divide and organize his time of isolation. Physically trapping the artist, the performance reflects the futility of ritual and the creation of memory in the face of death.
Performances
- Monday September 10, 13:00–19:00 at Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture (10248 106 Street)
- Tuesday September 11, 13:00–19:00 at Latitude 53
- Wednesday September 12, 13:00–19:00 at Latitude 53
- Thursday September 13, 14:00–20:00 at Latitude 53
- Friday September 14, 13:00–19:00 at Latitude 53
- Saturday September 15, 13:00–18:00 at Latitude 53
- Sunday September 16, 13:00–16:30 at Latitude 53
Artist’s Statement
Utilizing a variety of media, my studio practice explores personal fears and anxieties through ritualized compulsive obsession and futile representation. Cultural signs are delicately interwoven with personal symbolism to create works that are both poetic and poignantly elegiac—a multilayered consideration of beingness, mortality, and survival through an honest and personal lens. Notions of ‘purposeful futility’ and blind conviction play an important conceptual role in my research as I investigate the relationships between fear, longing, anxiety, obsession, faith/belief, and the propensity to surround oneself with representational yet illusory objects and images in an attempt to circumvent inevitable loss and, ultimately, psychological and physical death.
Bio
A native of Windsor, Stephen George Alexander Mueller lives and works in London, Ontario. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Arts from the University of Windsor (2004) and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Visual Arts from the University of Calgary (2006). He is currently a first-year project-based PhD student in Art and Visual Culture at the University of Western Ontario. His performance work has been exhibited across Canada, with upcoming exhibitions programmed for 2013-14 in Windsor, ON (Artcite Inc.), Calgary, AB (UAS Satellite Gallery), St. John, NB (Third Space Gallery) and Victoria, BC (Open Space), among others.
