Michael Poulton: The Togetherness of Things

Curated by Jarret Prescott

In partnership with the Cultural Studies Department, Trent University

Curator Jarret Prescott re-presents the MUSEUM of TEMPORARY ART in a multi-channel projection installation that combines interview and documentation. An appropriate finale to our POP UP series, the show is only open for three days. Make sure you pop up to our temporary location on 420 George Street N, third floor.

The exhibition is accompanied by a small run hand-numbered catalogue with writing by Fynn Leitch, Jarret Prescott, and Michael Poulton.

“In the 17^th century, Dutch travellers returned to Holland with never before seen discoveries from across the continents. They displayed their treasures in great showcases of wonder called the Wunder-kammer. In some ways a prototype of the modern museum, these cabinets of curiosity, designed to astonish viewers, are the long lost ancestors of what might be called the “Wunder-kammer of Victoria Road”, the Museum of Temporary Art (MTA). It is housed in a Victorian general store, located in a small rural Ontario village. Here Michael Poulton, multidisciplinary artist and curator, has created just such a disparate collection of found oddities, coupled with art assemblages and other works in various forms.

In constructing these objects for the MTA, Poulton’s showcase of wonders at first appears to be vague arrangements. Take a closer look, however, and the viewer begins to realize how much they complement one another, ultimately clambering in a whirr of reclassification and realignment. Whether the bones of woodland creatures share a throne, or the face of a clock stares and dares itself out of its traditional category, the MTA is itself a shape shifter. The results are a showcase that slides the contexts between objects, where the redefinition of the magical ephemera of works are grandiose in presentation, the ordinary becoming the extraordinary.” — Jarret Prescott