New Work by Steve Higgins

Steve Higgins, Templum 1998
(photo: Courtesy of the artist)

By transposing his charcoal drawings into a wooden structure, Steve Higgins will create a temporary sculpture on an ambitious scale rarely seen in Halifax.

Among the source images for the complex structure are Mesopotamian ziggurat forms and the landing platforms on aircraft carriers. Viewers will receive contradictory impressions of the piece depending on whether they view it from the mezzanine (top down) or from the lower gallery (bottom up.) The experience of observational privilege, as determined by vantage point, is key to the work’s engagement with social inequities as expressed in built environments.

The public nature of the building process and the artist’s availability to discuss it with visitors during the residency phase are consistent with the political critique implicit in his handling of constructed space. At the close of the exhibition the piece will be dismantled, and the materials donated. According to the artist, “The way it goes will be as significant to my work as the way it becomes.”

Opening Reception
Join us for the opening reception on Saturday, 20 April, from 2 to 4pm.