Michael Snow, Wood Calling Bronze, 1989, bronze and wood base, 16″ x 9″ x 6″, 93/500

In looking at two works, Michael Snow’s Wood Calling Bronze,1989, and Kristan Horton’s Dr Strangelove Dr Strangelove, dr0027-s012,2003, we found some intriguing connections. For us there lies an uncanny perceptual disturbance in both works – a shattering and re-construction.

The phone and its ‘cord’ that star in the Michael Snow bronze sculpture Wood Calling Bronze, was originally made to be holographed in one of the ‘calls’ of each work of the 8 holograms in his 1985 holography installation Still Life in 8 Calls, commissioned for the Vancouver Expo ’86 and now in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. In 1989 a little modification was done to the all-wood original to make it cast-able and in the maquette’s casting (and destruction as part of the casting process), its final calling to bronze –still pulsing with energy and history.

Michael Snow, Still Life in 8 Calls, 1985, Installation: 8 rugs, wood table legs, 8 wood chairs, 8 transmission holograms in metal frames, white light illumination, approx. 1.52 m long; rugs: 259 x 182 cm; holograms: 71 x 61 cm, Collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
For further images: The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art

Kristan Horton, Dr Strangelove Dr Strangelove, dr0027-s012,2003, black and white ultra chrome archival print, 3.25″ x 15″

Kristan Horton, a mid-career artist whose practice became quite noteworthy in the the early 2000s, recreated frames from the 1964 Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, using every day ephemera found around his studio to build a model which he then photographed, juxtaposing the resulting photograph with an image/frame from the film.

The resulting work recalls and layers the tension, drama and ironic qualities of the Kubrick film.