Geoffrey Farmer. Boneyard, 2013; paper; dimensions variable. Courtesy of Mercer Union, Toronto. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

A commissioned work, Boneyard features figures—sculptures from the canon of art history—in shades of beige, ivory, brown, and taupe arranged on a flat, circular plinth. I was reminded of the Cast Courts at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). At the V&A, the casts are life-size and were used as study objects to train generations of artists and art historians. These casts represent some of the most iconic Western art sculptures, architectural elements, and monuments. Imagine then that Farmer’s installation is the situation in reverse—instead of being dwarfed by the “canon” at Mercer Union, visitors find themselves giants among reproductions.

The cutouts stand assembled, some even elevated on miniature plinths, but all are only a fraction of the actual size of the artwork represented. Farmer is playing here with scale, reproduction, and one art book’s “canon.” The forest of images stand at attention despite their various contortions (see for instance a listing Christ who seems to have been descending from the cross). Farmer’s shears have removed those details.

Geoffrey Farmer. Boneyard, 2013; paper; dimensions variable. Courtesy of Mercer Union, Toronto. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

His mash-up of figures is rich with colliding styles; the wide, staring eyes of early Medieval sculptures gaze at the vividly lifelike drapery of late Renaissance torsos. These collisions problematize the narrative that originally ordered these images in the book used as source material for the work. The beauty of Farmer’s complete disregard of context and linear narrative progression is that these figures are freed from their usual work as evidence for some art-historical stylistic analysis or progression in artistic skill; instead, the viewer can imagine the strange conversations that might take place between a stern knight and an angelical putto figure. Farmer asks us to remix and reimagine how images work when all we have to work with are images.

Mercer’s commission and exhibition are timely. Farmer continues the success of Documenta(13) at Mercer, while the commissioning series demonstrates its ongoing support of key artists. More Farmer will be seen in Toronto at his solo show at the Art Gallery of Ontario—part of his Gershon Iskowitz Prize—later in 2014.

A Light in the Moon will be on view at Mercer Union through January 11.

Charles Atlas. Hail the New Puritan, 1985–86 still; single-channel video with sound. Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc., New York. © Charles Atlas.

The exhibition Stage Presence, curated by Rudolf Frielingfor the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), provides an outstanding exploration of theatrical modes of representation in contemporary visual art. The exhibition posits that visual art possesses the same aim of self-reflective awareness on the part of its audience as epic theater does. The Brechtian concept of epic theater necessitates that an audience is always cognizant of its own being; the illusionary veil of immersion is lifted and the mechanics of watching a performance are revealed. The works included in Stage Presence—which range from film screenings and live performances to multichannel videos, photography, and installations—affect this self-awareness by depicting performances in suspended states of staging and rehearsal rather than fully-realized productions. Moving throughout the exhibition, a viewer becomes acclimated to the disruptions, fragmentations, and repetitions that recur, and one’s attention shifts back to one’s role in these productions and one’s agency in inscribing meaning to them.

It is not accidental that Stage Presence occupies the same floor as the Cindy Sherman retrospective, which functions as a prelude. In appropriating the guises of various female typologies—the ingénue, the aging sexpot, or the society matron—Sherman pushes everything to the surface. A viewer’s translation of these characters relies upon one’s recognition of the mimetic gestures, expressions, and styling that Sherman applies over her inherent traits. Even though garish costuming dominates the photographs, the images become blank slates: we craft histories and psyches for these characters-as-subjects that are untethered from the lived experience of the artist.

Sherman’s engineered blankness finds its counterpart in Geoffrey Farmer’s installation, The Surgeon and the Photographer (2011–12) shown in Stage Presence. Farmer collaged photographic reproductions from books into 365 puppet-like sculptures, each approximately the size of a hand, thirty of which are included in this exhibition. The puppets bristle with multiple identities; each angle presents a new figuration as disproportionate and layered appendages cohere into forms. They are totemic but not possessed of any spirit. Rather, they are waiting for occupation and activation.

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Geoffrey Farmer, Leaves of Grass. Neue Galerie.

Living and working in Kassel during the dOCUMENTA (13) I have been in no rush to see all of the works. My abundance of time lends itself to much alleviation when considering the daunting map of exhibitions and thick program book. I have found the installations, sculptures, and ongoing performances to become part of my daily life. Each morning on my walk to work, I pass at least several art houses in Karlsaue park, the arte povera tree of Giuseppe Penone, Song Dong’s Doing Nothing Garden, and Massimo Bartolini’s Untitled (Wave). On a rainy day the tram takes me past the Neue Galerie and the Weinberg bunkers where visitors approach the hill armed with umbrellas and hard-hats. The works are becoming more and more familiar, exposing personalities and revealing new layers over time.

In a situation such as this, it is interesting to find which works call for a second, third, or tenth look. Aside from the public works, I have repeatedly found myself at the Neue Galerie. Many of the works of the dOCUMENTA (13) are housed in historical spaces reconstituted for the exhibition of contemporary art. The Neue Galerie was originally constructed as a museum for the Old Masters in the late 19^th century. After the destruction of World War II, the museum lost much of its collection and was closed until 1976. The space was reengineered with the intent to house Modern Masters, such as the German Expressionists, along with Romantic and Impressionist painting. The Neue Galerie underwent a major renovation in 2011 and is perfectly suited to showcase the contemporary works of dOCUMENTA (13).

Among the highlights at this particular venue is Leaves of Grass, the compelling sculptural collage of Geoffrey Farmer. I am consistently drawn to revisit the work; it refuses to deny intrigue to myself and to visitors who brave the line for a closer look. Composed of LIFE Magazine cut-outs from 1935 through 1985, the work extends for 124 feet and is an immaculate visual timeline, a jungle of images spanning all realms of popular culture. In the work we recognize politicians, celebrities, advertisements, and products, the layers and stories of American identity and popular world history.

Geoffrey Farmer, “Leaves of Grass”

Based in Vancouver, Geoffrey Farmer is acclaimed for his sculptural collages as well as theatrical narrative works. Leaves of Grass is the completing piece to his trilogy of works in which he combines fragments from magazines, books, and pamphlets to comment on the roll of photography in history recording. While the general narrative of Leaves of Grass is familiar, each viewer may read the work differently, being drawn to unlike characters and evoked memories. Perhaps it is the nostalgia that keeps bringing me back, maybe it’s the well-designed space and natural lighting, but it is undeniable that Farmer’s intricate work beckons time, contemplation, and close observation.

Film has been a participatory medium at the documenta since its beginning in 1955. As contemporary art enthusiasts and gallery-visitors we are likely to be accustomed to pausing only a few minutes for films. With so much art to see, it is difficult to justify the 20 minutes or more of some films. This is not the case for the 31.49 minutes of Wael Shawky’s Cabaret Crusades. Located in the basement of the Neue Galerie, this work is a must-see and is unlikely to put up a fight with a viewer’s attention span. Shawky’s work is a historical chronicle of the medieval Crusades and based on the 1983 book The Crusades through Arab Eyes by Lebanese author Amin Maalouf. 200-year-old marionettes act out the plot. Accompanied by brief and direct dialogue, it is the truly emotive faces of the bouncing puppets that provide animation for the film. The narrative is set against stunning sets, which paired with the expressive puppets create an aesthetically irresistible experience. Shawky is known for his work that involves dissection and reenactment of historic moments through child actors, puppets, and digital animation to remove esoteric lenses and interact directly with history.

Wael Shawky, “Cabaret Crusades”

Back upstairs are the hauntingly beautiful photographs by South African photographer Zanele Muholi. Through a series of portraits entitled Faces and Phases, Muholi describes the homosexual and queer community in South Africa. Through what the artist calls “visual activism,” these direct and intense black and white photographs tell the stories of different characters within the community: “athletes, cultural activists, dancers, filmmakers, writers, human rights and gender activists, mothers, lovers…” The photographs are accompanied by a film that delves into the lives of these women and transmen on an individual and community basis.

Zanele Muholi, Faces and Phases.

The works of dOCUMENTA (13) concentrate on very real subject matter. Alternating from previous documentas in which fantasy and elusive ideas were more pronounced, these works seem to engage directly with history and documentation in order to comment on and understand the human condition.