Only one lucky artist is chosen to represent their country at this famous international art exposition and of course we had to find ours.
His name was Geoffrey Farmer, who the guidebook says "blew the roof and some of the walls off the Canadian Pavilion" with his work called A Way Out of the Mirror.
A powerful fountain shoots into the air at unpredictable intervals, 71 planks of lumber appear tossed to the ground.
Water pours through an old grandfather clock and spurts out through the walls. Then everything stops and all is quiet.
A photograph from 1955 depicts a collision between a train and a lumber truck driven by the artist's grandfather. The impact of the collision has been passed down through his family without them being aware of it, marked by rage, trauma and grief. This work is Geoffrey Farmer's attempt to break the spell and find "A Way Out of the Mirror."
We had never heard of this artist before, but at the same time we were looking at his installation, our daughter in Saskatoon was assembling his piece called "Journal of Norman Bates" which had just been acquired by the Remai Modern art museum. I later saw it there and liked it better than the fountain/lumber project.
