Hazel Meyer | The Marble in the Basement
to
Richmond Art Gallery 180-7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond, British Columbia V6Y 1R9
Hazel Meyer, “The Marble in the Basement,” 2020
performance with Moe Angelos and Stephen Jackman-Torkoff (courtesy FADO Performance Art Centre) (photo: Polina Tief)
What gets stored in a shoebox? Deposited into an archive? Shoved into a corner? Catalogued as important? Fever pitched towards a garbage can? Centered on a pile of marble scraps that possibly once belonged to iconic Canadian artist Joyce Wieland, Meyer’s installation and performance The Marble in the Basement untangles issues of power, memory, and inheritance by anthropomorphizing a forgotten object from this influential Canadian artist’s domestic archive. The work is a part of The Weight of Inheritance, Meyer’s multi-year research project funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, which looks to the legacy of Canadian artist and experimental filmmaker Wieland to work across questions of inheritance. Meyer asks how a notable and supported figure like Wieland can direct us to lesser-supported histories of art, land, representation, and care.