These Things Happen

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Martin Bennett, “When I Can No Longer Lay Waste To What is Already Ruined – These Things Happen: Part One,” 2019

installation view at Jarvis Hall Gallery, Calgary, showing “MaxBeckmann/Studio/Amsterdam/1938/Helga Fietz (I), (II), (III)” and “Static Image Painting/Orange and Blue/Max Beckmann/Studio/Amsterdam/138(Helga Fietz)/St Dominic's Preview” (courtesy Jarvis Hall Gallery)

An unsuspecting eye – whether in the gallery or online – might assume Martin Bennett’s latest paintings, on view at the Jarvis Hall Gallery in Calgary until June 15, are elaborate photocopies. But those familiar with Bennett’s long-standing Static Image oeuvre know his paintings layer multiple histories, with a nod to tropes of art history, image making and reproduction technologies.

In plying his craft, Bennett, who spent his formative years in Calgary and is based now in Saskatoon, contests, problematizes and parses how painting can still pass as painting. He does an admirable job of posing, and then debunking, indulgence in the suspension of disbelief with works that suggest a level of photographic reality, but are contingent upon hundreds of hours of painterly labour.

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Martin Bennett, “Standard Drawing/Chris/Canadian Art/Fall/1986(John Dean),” 2019

graphite, tape and gesso on paper, 24” x 18” (courtesy Jarvis Hall Gallery, Calgary)

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Martin Bennett, “Standard Drawing/John/Canadian Art/Fall/1986(Doug Curran),” 2019

graphite, tape and gesso on paper, 24” x 18” (courtesy Jarvis Hall Gallery, Calgary)

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In addition to photography, he invariably invokes references to still life, landscape painting and artists, including German painter Max Beckmann and Calgary icons Chris Cran and John Will. The latter two indicate influences that might variously invoke German philosopher Walter Benjamin’s influential essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, as well as the penchant for language particularly evident in Bennett’s writing for the exhibition and the elaborate titles. This exhibition, for example, is called When I Can No Longer Lay Waste To What is Already Ruined – These Things Happen: Part One.

The installation is well configured, matching the artist’s preoccupation with content that conceptually interrogates conventions of display and authorship. Not everyone will enjoy this work, but it’s easy to appreciate its ambition, aplomb and fastidious industry. Yes, Bennett uses a projector to map out his picture plane, an approach some practitioners and critics eschew, but this, of course, is just another layering. I, for one, was both indulged and calmed. ■

When I Can No Longer Lay Waste To What is Already Ruined – These Things Happen: Part One is on view at the Jarvis Hall Gallery in Calgary from May 3 to June 15, 2019.