July 6, 2022

Winnipeg
19° C, Partly cloudy

Full Forecast

Contact Us Subscribe Manage Subscription Chat with us
Log in Create Free Account Help Chat with us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • My Account
    • Manage my Subscription
    • Change Password

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
    • Log in
    • Create Free Account
    • Help

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
  • Coronavirus Coverage
  • Replica E-Edition
    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West
  • Above the Fold
  • Front page
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Book Club
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • Canada
  • Local
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • World
  • Reader BridgeNEW
  • WFP EventsNEW
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
  • Archives
  • Free Press Community Review
    • All Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Classifieds
  • Contests
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • LifestylesNEW
    • All Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Homes
    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Newsletters
  • Obituaries
  • Puzzles
  • Photo and Book store
  • More

©2022 FP Newspaper Inc.

Close
  • Quick Links

    • Coronavirus Coverage
    • Federal Election
    • Above the Fold
    • Home
    • Local
    • Canada
    • World
    • Classifieds
    • Special Coverage
    • Newsletters
    • Obituaries
    • Photo and Book store
    • Archives
    • Contests
    • Publications
    • Sponsored Content
    • Privacy Policy

    Ways to support us

    • Pay it Forward program
    • Subscribe
    • Support Faith coverage
    • Support Arts coverage
  • Replica E-Edition

    • About the E-Edition
    • Winnipeg Free Press
    • Community Review East
    • Community Review West

    Business

    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
  • Arts & Life

    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Cannabis
    • Celebrities
    • Diversions
    • Puzzles
    • Environment
    • Events
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Your Health
    • Life & Style
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Science & Technology
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Sports

    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Auto Racing
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • Golf
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Horse Racing
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Olympics
    • Soccer
  • Opinion

    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor

    Media

    • All Media
    • Photo Galleries
    • Videos

    Homes

    • Property Listings
    • Featured News
    • Renovation and design
    • New homes
    • Resale homes
  • Canstar Community News

    • All Free Press Community Review News
    • East Edition
    • West Edition
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Contact Us
    • E-Editions
  • Coupons

    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print Coupons
    • Ripley's Aquariums Coupons
    • The Bay Coupons
    • Staples Canada Coupons
    • Altitude Sports Coupons
    • Nike Coupons
    • Tuango Coupons
    • Ebay Canada Coupons
    • Sport Chek Coupons
    • Roots Coupons
  • About Us

    • About Us
    • Advertising
    • Contact Us
    • Carrier Positions & Retailer Requests
    • FP Newspapers Inc.
    • History
    • Internships
    • Job Opportunities
    • News Café
    • Privacy Policy
    • Retail Locations
    • Staff Biographies
    • Terms and Conditions
The Free Press
Articles Read
Your Balance +tax
Day Pass Till
Day Pass
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising Contact
    • Report an Error
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
    • Staff Biographies
    • Submit a News Tip
    • Subscribe to Newsletters

    • Finding your
      information

    • Log in
    • Create Account
    • Help
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate
    • My Account
    • Manage My Subscription
    • Change Password
    • Chat with us

    • Grid View
    • List View
    • Compact View
    • Text Size
    • Translate

    • Log Out
Log in Create Account Contact Us
Contact Us Manage Subscription
  • Sections
  • Local
  • Arts & Life
    • All Arts & Life
    • The Arts
    • Autos
    • Books
    • Diversions
    • Environment
    • Faith
    • Food & Drink
    • Health
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV
    • Travel
  • Business
    • All Business
    • Agriculture
    • Personal Finance
    • Manitoba's Top Employers
  • Sports
    • All Sports
    • Amateur
    • Blue Bombers
    • Curling
    • Football
    • Goldeyes
    • High School
    • Hockey
    • Winnipeg Jets
    • Manitoba Moose
    • WHL
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • Soccer
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send a Letter to the Editor
  • E-Edition
  • Homes
  • Classifieds
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Automotive
    • Careers
    • Garage Sales
    • Merchandise
    • Pets
    • Real Estate
    • Rentals
    • Services
  • Lifestyles
    • Business Hub
    • Community
    • Drink & Dine
    • Life
    • Manitoba’s Top Employers
    • Wellness
    • Whiskers & Wings
    • Sponsored Articles
  • Coupons
    • All Coupons
    • Staples Copy & Print
    • Ripley's Aquariums
    • The Bay
    • Staples Canada
    • Altitude Sports
    • Nike
    • Tuango
    • Ebay Canada
    • Sport Chek
    • Roots
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe$1.50 for 5 months
Home Arts & Life Arts & Entertainment The Arts

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Artist's work speaks louder than words

Minimalism makes powerful, painful impact

By: Alison Mayes
Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Print
  • Email
  • Save to Read Later

When artist Lani Maestro first walked through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside three years ago, she was shocked by the neighbourhood's poverty, racial strife, homelessness, prostitution and drug abuse.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 1/11/2011 (3899 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

WAYNE GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Manila-born artist Lani Maestro with her neon installation at Plug In ICA.

WAYNE GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Manila-born artist Lani Maestro with her neon installation at Plug In ICA.

When artist Lani Maestro first walked through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside three years ago, she was shocked by the neighbourhood's poverty, racial strife, homelessness, prostitution and drug abuse.

No pain like this body, the title of a raw 1972 novel by a Trinidadian immigrant to Toronto named Harold Sonny Ladoo, suddenly came to her mind.

Maestro, an immigrant from Manila, Philippines, knew she had to address the suffering of the Downtown Eastside in the installation she'd be creating for Centre A, a gallery in the heart of the troubled area.

"My work always tries to have a conversation with where it's going," she says. "It embraces and talks to its context."

Maestro, 54, designed two red neon signs that cry in stark text: NO PAIN LIKE THIS BODY and NO BODY LIKE THIS PAIN.

Installed on a sage-green wall, the signs were plugged in 24 hours a day and were visible from the street. Inside, during gallery hours, visitors could sit down and quietly contemplate them.

Evocative of nighttime advertising in seedy downtowns, of blood throbbing through veins, of tattoos, of electrical torture, of spirituals like Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen (the second phrase can be read as starting "Nobody"), the signs are deliberately poetic, meant to have a visceral and emotional impact rather than an intellectual one. Their scarlet reflection in the concrete floor suggests a stain.

They're part of the site-specific exhibition Maestro created last year for Centre A, called her rain. The show, newly expanded in response to its Winnipeg exhibition space, is on view until Jan. 8 at Plug In, the free gallery at the corner of Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard.

The soft-spoken Maestro came to Canada at age 25. She lived here for about 20 years before moving to France, where she is now based. A former instructor at Montreal's Concordia University and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, she has a background in book design and is interested in text-based art, poetry, language, translation and "non-translation."

She has exhibited internationally, from China, Japan and Korea to Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Spain and Cuba.

Her works are often so minimalist, the artist says, that what first strikes the viewer are emptiness, silence and the architectural space. "People come in and say, 'Where's the artwork?' I play with minimalism. It encourages the importance of the viewer. It speaks about your presence."

Maestro says she likes nothing better than for ordinary people to engage with her work. No Pain Like This Body can be seen by passersby through Plug In's windows facing The Bay.

The show her rain includes two other installations. A new one titled she laughs has two elements. In one, the seated viewer meditatively watches a monitor on which three un-translated Tagalog syllables eventually appear. In the other, which uses looped animation, a four-word poem briefly projected high on a wall breaks up into letters that go sliding down like rain or teardrops.

The effect is that language is inadequate to capture experiences, and that, as Maestro says, printed words often seem to betray human tragedies by reducing them, making them surreal.

Many immigrants to Canada have experienced war, extreme poverty and catastrophes such as typhoons and earthquakes, she notes.

There are hints of such disasters, as well as race-based experiences, sexism and urban pain, in the show's fourth element, brenda console, named in memory of a Downtown Eastside homeless woman. Consisting of six video monitors that continuously show fleeting text phrases, it's installed in the entryway at Plug In and can be seen from the sidewalk.

The phrases that slip by include "you look fantastic underneath that veil," "when the earth trembles in China it gets here a few breaths later" and "you have been crying all night and your purse is all wet with tears."

"Who is the speaking voice?" Maestro asks. "What is our relationship to whoever is speaking?"

In Vancouver, the same text was projected on a window facing gritty Hastings street.

A number of times, Maestro saw lone women taking it in, their faces full of emotion. And one night, a woman soaked in the rain peered in at the searing neon of No Pain Like This Body and spoke the words as she read them.

The Free Press | Newsletter

Applause

A weekly review of the Winnipeg arts scene, delivered every Thursday.

Sign up for Applause
Sign Up

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca

Art Preview

her rain

Plug In ICA

To Jan. 8

Admission free

If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism.
BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

  • Report Error
  • Submit a Tip
  • Refund
  • The Free Press is certified by

The Winnipeg Free Press invites you to share your opinion on this story in a letter to the editor. A selection of letters to the editor are published daily.

To submit a letter:
• fill out the form on this page, or
• email letters@freepress.mb.ca, or
• mail Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R2X 3B6.

Letters must include the writer’s full name, address, and a daytime phone number. Letters are edited for length and clarity.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Top