sculpture.gruntarchives.org

Robin Peck - Synthetic Monolith
May 9 1989

From Artist’s Statement - Synthetic Monolith, Robin Peck

“The Synthetic Monolith is Robin Peck’s translation of the structural language of Architecture and Engineering into the plastic, representational or synthetic language of Sculpture. Peck refers to this work as Anti-Proun - that is, anti-utopian, or anti-Constructivist. He uses materials of architecture, of the contemporary built environment and the recycled detritus from the culture of consumerism in a different, synthetic, sculptural way.”

“In Peck’s equation of creativity within the built environment of consumerism, Construction is related directly as equal to Consumption.”

From Burnaby Art Gallery Publication Robin Peck by James Graham

By the time Peck's next solo show opened, a year and a half later, his sculpture showed none of the despondency of his earlier works. He had received some sessional work at the Emily Car College and was becoming much respected for his published writings. Also important was the minimal financial support of the Grunt Gallery. This meant that Peck no longer had to pay the rental fee of the Or Gallery.

When the Or moved up-town and away from the fringe, Peck shifted to the Grunt — a fringe gallery, like the 'Old' Or Gallery — that seemed to have accepted him to be a fellow Bohemian. But it was apparent from the work Peck exhibited that he had not left the "Or" behind.

Directly inside the Grunt Gallery's front door, Peck had cast a crisp-edged block of white plaster of the same internal proportions and volume (although much condensed and represented as a solid) as the 'New' Or Gallery. The block measured 3ft x 3ft x 2 l/2ft. The Grunt space was unusually clean; having been gutted of all posters, plants, chairs, etc. In order to look more like the Or — to create a confusion of place and experience. On one of the grey walls were the precisely painted words OR GALLERY in clear varnish. The effect was subtle but readable.

A surface reading might have suggested an orthodox minimalism. To take the work literally would create a confusion of place (some of the opening-night visitors believed themselves to be in the Or Gallery). To see the Block as an anthropomorphic representation of the Or Gallery's political body transforms the Grunt into an arena of ideological conflict. As the philosophi¬cal opposite of the bohemian, egalitarian Grunt, the cooly Protestant and intellectual Or, in its new element seemed out of place, surrounded. The feeling of colonial unease was enhanced by the freshly cast Or plaster block that sweated through the hot summer days, clammy to the touch, waiting for its inevitable destruction. The movie "Zulu" comes to mind