Andreas Rutkauskas "Suburb Beautiful" March 24 - April 25, 2009
Andreas Rutkauskas's practice rises out of the differing attitudes toward the urban environment in cities across Canada. The desire to live in a metropolis is weighed against economic and social reasoning, resulting in a boom in suburban development. This work underscores both the dystopia and desire that such housing tracts represent and calls into question issues of urban decay, socio-cultural change and environmental legacies. 1.
As an artist originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, a city with a crumbling urban structure and a continuous spread of suburbs, I was astounded to find such a dramatic juxtaposition in the thriving multicultural centre of Montréal. If one looks at cities such as Toronto or Vancouver they find an urban-suburban structure governed more heavily by economics. In order to afford a home large enough to accommodate the fast-growing footprint of the contemporary Western middle-class family, it often becomes a necessity to situate oneself far from the urban centre.
Despite the varied economic and social reasoning for shifting one’s community from an urban to suburban setting, I find the relative homogeneity of these places intriguing. At first glance, a scene from outside Toronto may look like that of Calgary, however the individuality lies in the details. Dan Graham, in his Homes for America described some 2,304 possible arrangements for tract housing projects, and certainly that number underestimates.
Traditionally, the role of the artist has been to engage with, and to revitalize the urban environment and its public. There is a shift occurring however, with more and more artists living in, or reacting to suburbia. As such, I find that suburbia is playing a greater role in the lives and practice of artists working in the 21st century.
1. Lynn Beavis, Exhibition Text from A Typology of Canadian Suburbs, FOFA Gallery 2007 |
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