Close up, a finger points to the thin line where deep ocean and light sky meet in a painting. A tape measure runs vertically on the left edge measuring the distance from the floor to the horizon line during installation.
Mossy logs lay mixed up between shore and water. Paint strokes relay directional confusion between standing trees, fallen logs and the surrounding setting. Royal blue water meets lightly clouded sky in the background of this wooden muddling.
Five landscape paintings are hung against a vermillion wall. The frames are shifted up and down on the wall inorder to align the horizon lines of each different bucolic setting.
Six landscape paintings are hung against a vermillion wall. The frames are shifted up and down on the wall inorder to align the horizon lines of each different forest setting.
Three ocean landscape paintings are hung against a vermillion wall. Each has a golden filigree frame which decreases in size from left to right. The horizon lines of each different sea and sky align although the composition of ships and stormy or calm waters ranges.
A viewer stands in front of a large landscape painting with a vast grey sky and dark green rolling grasses. The surrounding paintings are shifted up and down on the wall inorder to align the horizon lines of each neighbouring painting.
Landscape paintings line the vermillion walls of a long gallery space. The paintings are framed with antique filigree frames and hung at various heights to ensure the horizon lines of each landscape line up with those in the neighbouring paintings. A few people move about the space or stop to look.
Landscape paintings line the vermillion walls of a long gallery space. The paintings are framed with antique filigree frames and hung at various heights to ensure the horizon lines of each landscape line up with those in the neighbouring paintings. A few people move about the space quickly blurring their bodies.
Cathy Busby and Mandy Ginson, two women wearing black and both holding microphones, stand next to the black lettering of the title vinyl of the Horizons exhibition.
Horizons Allocations, original text by Gary Neil Kennedy from Pluralities 1980. Framed on the gallery wall.
Horizons Allocations, original text by Gary Neil Kennedy from Pluralities 1980.
Archival documents hang on vermillion walls in an L-shaped gallery room. The documents are at a distance which obscures their details.
Four framed documents ranging from note paper drawings to typed letters hang in a row on a vermillion wall.
A small note paper framed with blue border holds orange and yellow shapes and the words quote: su casa es mi casa, mi casa es su casa, when you shit on the floor it gets on your feet, are written using a typewriter. The whole note is framed with black wood that has swooping pointed corners which look hand carved.
A note torn from a journal holds faded ink handwriting which says: Sidney Sept. 86, far away hills is always shiny, but, just a stone’s throw away, most best from down hems (west of eden), L. Weiner. These lines are broken up by arrows pointing to mustard coloured rectangles.
A scanned document holds scattered rectangles. Words push the rectangles borders saying: weiner, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Garry Neil Kennedy, 297 West Fourth str. Tel 212 929 2355. Fax 212 929 0628. NYC 10014. 28 January 2000. Dear Garry/Cher Garry. Time. Do. Fly. All built with the same erestor set. Bon Chance. Kisses to Jane. & you. Je t’embrasse. & Alice aussi.
Erling Klingenberg and Cathy Busby stand in front of a black and white portrait of Garry Neill Kennedy. Klingberg is wearing a black leather coat and has black sunglasses resting on his grey hair. Busby is wearing a royal blue silk top and wears black wire rimmed glasses and a broad smile.
Horizons artwork labels list and medium details.
Horizons artwork labels list and medium details continued..

HORIZONS (2024)

HORIZONS is a conceptual art project by Garry Neill Kennedy (1935–2021) in which a selection of landscape paintings are rehung so that the horizon lines are at the eye level of the artist, and—when viewed together—these otherwise disparate landscapes form one continuous horizon line around the gallery walls. Kennedy's exhibition concept was posthumously realized by Cathy Busby and Mandy Ginson at the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) in 2024. All the paintings in the show were works from the VAG's permanent collection, with accompanying postcard works by Lawrence Weiner sourced from Busby's personal collection. 

Kennedy had been thinking broadly about the medium of painting since the mid-1970s. These investigations took the form of paintings in which the artist followed a series of predetermined, systematic steps to create a work, as well as site-specific projects that considered the gallery as a framework for his conceptual interventions.

Kennedy conceived of HORIZONS in 1980 when he was invited to participate in the group exhibition Pluralities on the occasion of the centenary of the National Gallery of Canada. His proposal to rehang historical paintings illustrates one of the questions that has been central to institutional critique—what does it look like when the conventions of a museum or gallery are challenged by an artist? With paintings shifted from their conventional positions, Kennedy re-imagines gallery norms and practices.

 

Related Projects:
Atrium
Acquired in 1964
About Face
Related Readings / Media:
HORIZONS Exhibition Tour (37 mins)
An Interview with Cathy Busby (16 mins)
Lawrence Weiner Poster Book (18 mins)
Horizons and Of and About Posters, Create a Stir
Themes / Topics:
Collections / archives
Curation
Forms / Mediums:
Collaboration
Exhibition
Painting