Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2007
Curated by Lisa Baldissera
Read the Canadian Art review, "With Light: Robert Youds" by Barry Schwabsky, Fall 2007
Excerpt from essay by Saul Ostrow, "Robert Youds: The Real as Subjected as Form"...
It was during the 1950s and 60s that artists concerned with the confluence of art, science, and technology momentarily broke through into the mainstream under such rubrics as “experiments in art and technology,” “light art,” and “cyber art.” Employing forms like programmable light boxes, light shows, robotic sculptures, interactive sound and light installations and environments, and abstract films, artists employing new media and technologies creatively exploited real time and space to explore phenomenal, perceptual, and material concerns. In the face of pop art, minimalism, and the various schools of abstract painting that dominated the critical scene at that time, these works—which were
dismissed as gimmicky or merely interesting experiments that would go nowhere — sank out of sight.
The most enduring heritage from this period seems to be the disco dance floors of the 70s, psychedelic light shows, and the blinking lights used to represent advanced technologies in sci-fi movies. It was this exclusion, or subordination, of modernism’s exploration of sensuous experience that, in part, made the work of such 60s artists as Dan Flavin, Doug Wheeler, and James Turrell, or the recent work of Jennifer Steinkampf, Leo Villareal, and Youds, appear to have no other precedent than abstract painting. Given this problematic history, the question is how are we to understand the pronounced materiality of the light works Youds makes today.
Excerpt from catalogue interview, "Karin Davie in Conversation with Robert Youds"...
KD: I love how you playfully commit to putting things together that might resemble a neon store sign, street lights, industrial packaging, gadgets, modernist furniture and make a totally new and impure hybrid abstract form. I remember a piece you did in 1999, Goodbye. It looks like some kind of modernist / futuristic creature, packaged and ready to be shipped out to another destination.
RY: Yes, Goodbye was a work I made in the late 90s, part of a larger series of works that had certain formal characteristics in common. They were intended just as you describe — to be hybrid adaptations, a sort of constructivism meets our contemporary lifestyle. I felt they could just as easily have been installed like furniture in the home, or perhaps shopping mall signage, rather than limited to the gallery. I was interested in the work implying itself back into the world of things. Artificial light has a transfixing quality that easily catches our gaze. It is part of our everyday world — it lights our homes, streets, storefronts, and work places. Those works
you are talking about were meant as lights to light our spaces by.
Works in exhibition:
Late One Morning - 2005
Plexiglas, aluminum, fluorescent lights, assorted objects
122 x 152 x 25 cm
Phantasm or Lo and Behold - 2005
Plexiglas, aluminum, fluorescent lights, assorted objects
122 x 152 x 25 cm
Friday - 2006
Lexan, fluorescent lights, assorted objects
91 x 124 x 25 cm
Collection of the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Saturday - 2006
Lexan, fluorescent lights, assorted objects
91 x 124 x 25 cm
Sunday - 2006
Lexan, fluorescent lights, assorted objects
91 x 124 x 25 cm
Collection of the Art Gallery of Hamilton
I feel the air of another planet - 2004
Plexiglas, aluminum, neon light, polycarbonate
124 x 163 x 30 cm
Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
Plato’s Cave - 2005
Plexiglas, aluminum, LED colour-changing tubes, theater lamp,
electronic controls, electric fans, foil
122 x 152 x 15 cm
Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON
airguitar/teeth - 2007
various materials / various sizes
Advertisement for Absorption (blue) - 2005
cast plastic, fluorescent light
61 cm sphere
skymud - 2005
cast plastic, fluorescent light
61 cm sphere
friendlyburn - 2005
cast plastic, fluorescent light
61 cm sphere
quoting Blake/one cloud festival - 2007
various materials, intermittent duration (30 seconds on, 2 minutes off)
Three Hundred Times a Day - 2001
Plexiglas, aluminum, closed-circuit TV, vinyl, lights
152 x 122 x 25 cm
Collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Home Is Office - 2001
Plexiglas, steel, aluminum, vinyl, glass, light
152 x 122 x 91 cm
Collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Thank You - 1999
Plexiglas, steel, aluminum, plastic, fabric, light
157 x 38 x 20 cm
Collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Booster - 1998
Plexiglas, steel, aluminum, light
135 x 56 x 25 cm
Collection of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery
Visiteur - 1998
Plexiglas, aluminum, light
183 x 66 x 15 cm
Collection of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery