Spread from Fall 2010 issue of Canadian Art
The first thing you notice is how quiet the trucks are, rolling away down the highway, shimmering in the heat. Slow motion. Their sound is distant, slightly delayed, like the dust that rises after them. A dead kangaroo lies on the roadside under a heavy cover of flies and swelter. The scene feels sticky and static, like melting tar. A figure, black-clad and helmeted (it is the artist Shaun Gladwell), pulls in on his motorcycle. With a slow swing of his leg, treading carefully in his boots, he bends down to sweep the flies away, then brings the dead animal to his chest. Our Mad Max of the badlands is doomed to arrive too late: one time, two times, six. Walking across the red earth, he and the animal make a highway Pietà, suspended between departure and arrival. With each visitation, he exits the frame stage right. There is a moment of darkness before we see another highway, another death. It is a moment of ending, an apology.
Sky Goodden is Canadian Art’s 2010 Editorial Resident. Shaun Gladwell is an artist based in Sydney, Australia. His video work Apologies 1–6 was on view at The Power Plant as part of “Adaptation: Between Species,” which was curated by Helena Reckitt and ran from June 19 to September 12, 2010.
This is an article from the Fall 2010 issue of Canadian Art. To read more from this issue, please visit its table of contents.
