Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller Open Gallery in Rural B.C.

International art stars Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are launching an exhibition venue in a small community in the B.C. Interior. 

Called the Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse, it's located in a former furniture store in Enderby, which has a population of about 3,000 people. Enderby is about 80 kilometres north of Kelowna.

The artists, who live in the area, plan to present a rotating selection of their work in the space, which opened Saturday.

"We've always wanted a permanent home to showcase our largest installations and when we discovered this huge space so close to where we live, we knew it was perfect," said Miller.

Their first show highlights four of the couple's large-scale installations, including the Canadian debut of The Marionette Maker, a work from 2014. First exhibited at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the kinetic piece is comprised of a full-scale vintage caravan that houses a myriad of robotic characters.

Also on view is The Murder of Crows, from 2008. It's a 98-channel audio installation that uses a filmic soundtrack to immerse visitors in a dense auditory environment.

A virtual choir installation, the Forty Part Motet, from 2001, reworks Spem in alium, by Thomas Tallis, a 16th century composer. A recording of the 40-part harmony choral work was made with the Salisbury choir in Britain. Audio from each of the work's 40 speakers represents a different voice in the choir, creating an almost sculptural experience of Renaissance music. 

The Poetry Machine, a 2017 work, is a small vintage organ with a collection of old speakers arranged around it. Each key on the organ contains a different poem from Leonard Cohen's The Book of Longing, read in his voice. When a key is pressed on the organ, visitors hear Cohen read a poem, and when another key is pressed they hear a different poem. Different combinations of the keys create linkages between lines of his poetry.

The artists have rural roots – Cardiff in Ontario and Miller in Alberta – and represented Canada at the 2001 Venice Biennale. They have exhibited at prestigious venues around the world and currently have shows at the Museum Tinguely in Basel and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

The warehouse, located at 507 Granville Ave., plans to open Friday to Sunday into the fall. 

Source: Luhring Augustine