Gareth Moore: Uncertain Pilgrimage

The invitation for Gareth Moore’s new solo show at Vancouver’s Catriona Jeffries Gallery looks like a reproduction of the frontispiece of an antique book. Yellowed with a tear along one side, there are no images of the works being shown, only a description of the artist’s travels over the past three years and a promise that the exhibition will illustrate “a narrative of a journey taken” to places as divergent as London and Amarillo, Florence and Old Schoolhouse Road.

“Gareth Moore” 2009 Installation view Courtesy Catriona Jeffries Gallery

It seems fitting, however, that such a cryptic description should announce new work by an equally enigmatic artist. From early projects like St. George Marsh, a hybrid art gallery, video store, self-made museum and corner shop run in collaboration with fellow Vancouver artist Jacob Gleeson, to his more recent performance and installation for “The Wizard of Oz” at the CCA Wattis where he was blindfolded and deposited in an unknown location with only the clothes on his back, some pocket money and a camera to find his own way back to the gallery, Moore’s work has long conflated performance, documentation, installation and sculpture, as well as everyday activities normally considered outside the realm of contemporary art.

“Gareth Moore” 2009 Installation view Courtesy Catriona Jeffries Gallery

This blurring of art and life continues in Uncertain Pilgrimage, an ongoing project that is the basis for Moore’s current exhibition. Using his unplanned and often happenstance travels through North America and Europe over the past three years for inspiration, Moore collects found objects and discarded materials and transforms them into handmade, multipurpose tools and eccentric sculptures he can carry with him on his journey. While some objects clearly have a function—like the Cane that also doubles as a wallet, cigarette holder, pocket knife and fishing rod—others, such as the convoluted Der Landloper Ruck Sack, look more like elaborate props from a Brothers Grimm fairytale. By using materials collected from his previous travels to create new objects that he will take with him on future journeys, Moore’s inventions create a continuously evolving story of his pilgrimage where past narratives can be manipulated and transformed into new tales of exploration and ingenuity. (274 E 1st Ave, Vancouver BC)