Aleesha Mullen is a first-year student and is participating in Maureen Korp’s FYSM Special Studies in Art History – Visual Literacy. Throughout the term, students will seek out Ottawa’s arts scene and critique the good, the bad and the ugly according to a set of criteria they discuss in the classroom.
Deconstructed House is the fourth in a series of student submissions that critique Ottawa-area public art to be included in This Week @ FASS. What students define as bad art, is not a reflection on the work itself, but a comment on the curatorial choices made in exhibiting the piece.
Deconstructed house
By Aleesha Mullen
What defines art minimally might be said to be composition that creates a reaction or emotion. The monument in Majors Hill Park at the site of the residence of Lieutenant Colonel John By provokes none of these feelings. Although from the monument a beautiful view of Parliament can be seen, the monument does not however enhance the view or its historical significance. It is merely a place that was once the site of a house, what remains is the foundation.
Towering approximately fifteen feet in the air a polished stone representation of the original chimney stands. The artist has detailed the chimney by carving grooves in the stone, this use of the subtractive method of construction mimics the blocks of the chimney that was once there. The artist has also added an indented block, which represents where a fire would have been lit on the hearth. Although it is obvious the monument is meant to represent a chimney the scale appears awkward given the size of the site. Moreover the purpose of the chimney is lost given the other parts of the monument.
Bronze cast sculptures of everyday items that were found in the house have been displayed within the site. More of these items are shown with descriptions and narrative at the front of the monument. As a whole, they give the viewer more insight into the history of the location, by adding a sense of time past. Nonetheless the monument itself stands as a distraction.
I spent an afternoon at the site. This gave me the opportunity to witness the reactions of others at the site. Like myself, many enjoyed the site as a place, but they had trouble understanding why the monument was constructed in this manner. I overheard one lady say to her friend, “Oh, it looks like there was a house here, but what is that suppose to be?” as she motioned towards the monument of the chimney.
It is a shame that historical places of such significant value as Lieutenant Colonel John By and his home are presented to the public in the form of “bad public art”