Hundreds of Things Volume 1
MKG 127,
Toronto,On
October 15 - November 12, 2011.
Reviews
By The Numbers - The Star, Murray Whyte, October 20, 2011.
"The title of Ken Nicol’s new show is “Hundreds of Things,” and massive as it might sound, it’s actually a very tight edit. At his Niagara St. studio — mind the arc-welder, the steel cutter, the shards of metal that tangle and snarl underfoot — you can see how modest a number it really is.
Hundreds of things? Try thousands. This is a place of gleeful, unabashed entropy, where disorder closes in on you like an enveloping fog: a storehouse of Nicol’s broad-ranging material curiosity that could send a weaker mind spiralling in panic at its sheer volume..." Murray Whyte (Toronto Star). For the full article click here
Ken Nicol at MKG127 - The Globe and Mail, R.M Vaughan, October 21, 2011.
"Ken Nicol is the Canadian art world’s secret weapon.
As the fabricator of choice for many of our international talents, Nicol’s work is almost constantly on view, if only to the informed. (A note of explanation: Sometimes artists hire other artists to actually construct the work in their heads – writers use editors, after all.) And now it’s time to take a good look at what Nicol makes for himself.
Nicol’s new show at MKG127, entitled Hundreds of Things, is a hilariously sweet enacting of obsessive-compulsive habits, via the intertwined acts of collecting and assembling.
Beginning with the number 100, Nicol offers the viewer such off-kilter treats as Sculpture made with one hundred beard hairs, which is exactly what it says it is, and looks like a wire pot scrubber about to meet its last pot. Or, My name written one hundred times by people I’ve never met, a collection culled from addressed-to-Nicol packages, which, when mounted in a single frame, looks as if it was done by someone with dissociative identity disorder – one of whose “alters” has a keen sense of humour.
My favourite work is the set of four photographed sculptures made from Pringles chips – next time you look at a tube, you’ll notice that the label advertises “100 chips in every can” – sculptures that layer the iconic, ovate chip shape vertically then horizontally, thus making a potato product weave, tuber macramé. The sculptures come in Regular, Sour Cream & Onion, Salt & Vinegar and Barbecue colours/flavours; a selection of hues/titles that, oddly, does not combine to equal 100 letters..." R.M Vaughan (The Globe). For the full article click here
Avenue - Questions & Artists: The cups add up, Thursday November 10, 2011, The National Post.
Ken Nicol is a master at divining order out of chaos - particularly chaos of the everydaylife variety. Whether he's carefully sorting swarms of houseflies or arranging potato chips into tidy grids, this Toronto artist distills mathematical purity out of lo-fi dross. With his latest show, themed on the number 100, now on in Toronto, Nicol talks to Leah Sandals about counting, craft and obsessive compulsion. For the full article click here.
Toronto,On
October 15 - November 12, 2011.
Reviews
By The Numbers - The Star, Murray Whyte, October 20, 2011.
"The title of Ken Nicol’s new show is “Hundreds of Things,” and massive as it might sound, it’s actually a very tight edit. At his Niagara St. studio — mind the arc-welder, the steel cutter, the shards of metal that tangle and snarl underfoot — you can see how modest a number it really is.
Hundreds of things? Try thousands. This is a place of gleeful, unabashed entropy, where disorder closes in on you like an enveloping fog: a storehouse of Nicol’s broad-ranging material curiosity that could send a weaker mind spiralling in panic at its sheer volume..." Murray Whyte (Toronto Star). For the full article click here
Ken Nicol at MKG127 - The Globe and Mail, R.M Vaughan, October 21, 2011.
"Ken Nicol is the Canadian art world’s secret weapon.
As the fabricator of choice for many of our international talents, Nicol’s work is almost constantly on view, if only to the informed. (A note of explanation: Sometimes artists hire other artists to actually construct the work in their heads – writers use editors, after all.) And now it’s time to take a good look at what Nicol makes for himself.
Nicol’s new show at MKG127, entitled Hundreds of Things, is a hilariously sweet enacting of obsessive-compulsive habits, via the intertwined acts of collecting and assembling.
Beginning with the number 100, Nicol offers the viewer such off-kilter treats as Sculpture made with one hundred beard hairs, which is exactly what it says it is, and looks like a wire pot scrubber about to meet its last pot. Or, My name written one hundred times by people I’ve never met, a collection culled from addressed-to-Nicol packages, which, when mounted in a single frame, looks as if it was done by someone with dissociative identity disorder – one of whose “alters” has a keen sense of humour.
My favourite work is the set of four photographed sculptures made from Pringles chips – next time you look at a tube, you’ll notice that the label advertises “100 chips in every can” – sculptures that layer the iconic, ovate chip shape vertically then horizontally, thus making a potato product weave, tuber macramé. The sculptures come in Regular, Sour Cream & Onion, Salt & Vinegar and Barbecue colours/flavours; a selection of hues/titles that, oddly, does not combine to equal 100 letters..." R.M Vaughan (The Globe). For the full article click here
Avenue - Questions & Artists: The cups add up, Thursday November 10, 2011, The National Post.
Ken Nicol is a master at divining order out of chaos - particularly chaos of the everydaylife variety. Whether he's carefully sorting swarms of houseflies or arranging potato chips into tidy grids, this Toronto artist distills mathematical purity out of lo-fi dross. With his latest show, themed on the number 100, now on in Toronto, Nicol talks to Leah Sandals about counting, craft and obsessive compulsion. For the full article click here.
