Works by Jeneen Frei Njootli on display at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.Duane Cole/The Globe and Mail
When they dynamited concrete on the Klamath River, which runs from southern Oregon to the Pacific, it represented the largest dam removal project in history. Holes were blasted in four dams built in the early 20th century, and the Klamath was released after a century of human control. American artist Lucy Raven was there, filming the unleashed river from a helicopter as well as using both drones and underwater cameras.
The result is Murderers Bar, a monumental 42-minute video now showing at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto. The video is projected on a curving vertical screen almost six metres high in a darkened gallery for audiences seated on a metal bleacher, producing a physical experience that emphasizes the gigantism of both the dams and the river – or industrialism and nature. Think of the photography of Ed Burtynsky crossed with the effect of an Imax movie, and you get some idea of the power present in the gallery.
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A still from Lucy Raven’s Murderers Bar, a 42-minute video now showing at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.Lucy Raven/Supplied
The remarkable film takes its darkly ironic title from the name settlers gave to a camp on the Klamath where white prospectors had clashed with Indigenous people. It’s the fourth in Raven’s Drumfire series, video works in which the artist explores the violence of industrialism and development.
The film is screening in Toronto thanks to the participation of the Vega Foundation, a Canadian foundation committed to artists’ film and video, and the Power Plant’s frequent collaborator. The foundation co-commissioned the film with the Vancouver Art Gallery, and has shown it previously in Vancouver and London.
Raven’s film shows workers setting charges last year at the site of the massive Copco No. 1 Dam, birds scattering at the blast, water rushing out of what seems like a relatively small hall in a huge structure – it’s actually about five metres high but the dam is monstrous – and the river rushing toward the sea.
It is not simply about the power of the water, however. It’s also a critique of myth and history. The removal of the hydroelectric dams was led by local Indigenous groups: the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath tribes, as well as the Modoc and Shasta nations. It was a project dedicated to river restoration: The plentiful salmon that Indigenous people depended on historically are now returning to the Klamath.
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Using a loud percussive score by composer Deantoni Parks, in which music and explosions are sometimes indistinguishable, and a few touches of animated imagery, the film and its soundtrack have a narrative drive that twists and turns with the river.
The piece explodes the myth of the American West, that relentless push of settlers across the continent, and of hubris more generally – yet simultaneously it celebrates the grandeur of nature. The moment the sediment-stained river waters reach the blue of the Pacific is as emotional as any cowboy riding off into the sunset.
The film is the fourth in Raven’s Drumfire series. In the pieces, the artist explores the violence of industrialism and development.Lucy Raven/Supplied
Taking land at its theme for the fall/winter season, the Power Plant offers a second show devoted to sculptural pieces as delicate as Raven’s film is loud. Abandoning Vancouver for the Yukon, artist Jeneen Frei Njootli lives and works in their Vuntut Gwitchin homeland in Old Crow, where they create installations and performances that evoke relationships with family, nature and heritage.
For example, in one performance, Njootli lay on the ground and photographed their face as falling snow accumulated on their features. The photos are then rendered as high-contrast images on hot-rolled steel, creating a clear tension between the heavy sculptural quality of the medium and the delicacy of both the gesture and the faintly discernible pictures. Another piece features their nephew’s work pants preserved in resin and hanging from the gallery ceiling.
The strongest work delicately records the intersection of nature and culture. In one colour photo, Njootli shows their upper arm with the faint impression of a circle of beadwork pressed into the skin. Art leaves its imprint even after its physical disappearance. In another substantial piece, they have stained a piece of canvas with a smoked caribou carcass, and mounted it like a painting on the wall.
The simplicity and the large scale of that piece make it arresting. However, the giant galleries at the Power Plant, former industrial spaces repurposed for art, are not necessarily friendly to smaller works. In this show of two dozen works, curated by Frances Loeffler and Sarah Edo of the Power Plant, there is a distinct feel of quantity rather than quality trying to pad out the room.
One of artist Jeneen Frei Njootli’s hot-rolled steel panels.Courtesy of Macaulay + Co. and the artist
Some of the small-scale works are touching, such as a single crumpled tissue preserved in resin; the slightest ephemera elevated to the realm of the immortal. But the idea becomes repetitive with a trio of “granny hankies,” floral scarves similarly preserved.
Njootli’s hot-rolled steel panels are among the most dynamic works here, strong examples of cultural themes meeting a minimalist aesthetic. They include a striking abstracted landscape triptych: Dreaming of new futures, greater empires have fallen. And yet, oddly given the size of the space, they don’t have enough room to breathe, let alone hit their visual mark.
Audiences need clues as to the importance of individual artworks, and space and time to appreciate them. At the Power Plant this season, it is the big gestures but also the simpler ones that carry the day.
Murderers Bar by Lucy Raven and The skies closed themselves when we averted our gaze by Jeneen Frei Njootli continue to March 22 at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto.