The cause of this interspecies collaboration (and confusion) was Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore), a site-specific work of a Henry Moore replica meant to be encrusted with zebra mussels acquired during a yearlong dip in Lake Ontario. During the first several months of the process, however, the sculpture, based on Warrior with Shield, acquired only green slime, and the exhibition had to be pushed back.
Now, it seems, taking in the completed object resting above shore in the Power Plant, the wait was worth it. Both its sculptural and the shell forms effectively reference processes of natural and cultural accretion in the city. The effect can’t completely escape hints of the Pirates of the Caribbean, but overall it succeeds in representing Starling’s trademark conflations of nature and culture, history and present action.
There are many other Starling works on display worth seeing, particularly the similarly aqua-evocative Island for Weeds. It’s also great to see Autoxylopyrocycloboros, a film of the 2006 performance where Starling and a colleague fed the frame of a wooden boat to its steam boiler engine until the structure capsized. Besides providing a fun slapstick-style moment upon sinking, the work speaks poetically to the cannibalistic machine that is everyday life, that which eats up its own form —time—to drive itself forward into same. (231 Queens Quay W, Toronto ON)
