Lost in the Memory Palace | Home
7 BRUCE GRENVILLE 6 DIRECTOR'S FOREWORD Introduction Bruce Grenville The room, as a site of narrative production, has a long and diverse history in art, but few artists have approached it with the imaginative focus, intensity and persistence of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. While both artists have extensive individual practices, the room is often the place where those practices meet, and in this collaboration they have produced some of their most provocative works. Almost twenty years ago Cardiff and Miller created The Dark Pool (1995), a deeply immersive environment that established a unique and unanticipated narrative space. Despite the relatively sophisticated programming and production of their installation, the user's encounter tends to be simple and direct; we walk through the room, pause and lean in for a closer look which triggers a device or sound that extends the work's narrative. This early work has an "open-world" structure similar to that used in game design in which users plot their own paths within an emergent environment. The room provides a physically determined space, but the narrative of that space seems open and unbounded. Within this exhibition and publication we offer a similar opportunity for narrative within an emergent environment. Since The Dark Pool, Cardiff and Miller have produced a number of remarkable variations on our own imaginations to create a moment of discovery. It is a magisterial achievement. I would like to thank the Lead Sponsor CIBC for supporting our vision of the AGO's presentation of Lost in the Memory Palace: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, as well as Pacart, the Supporting Sponsor. In addition, I extend my gratitude to the generous individuals who came together in support of this publication and its accompanying exhibition: Cecily & Robert Bradshaw, Bill Morneau & Nancy McCain, Gerald Sheff & Shanitha Kachan, and Jay Smith & Laura Rapp. The Art Gallery of Ontario and the Vancouver Art Gallery have joined together to present this first-ever retrospective view of Cardiff and Miller's work. This has been an unprecedented collaboration between the two institutions, and ideally the precursor to future partnerships. Many thanks to Kathleen S. Bartels, Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Bruce Grenville, Senior Curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery for their efforts in making this project a reality. It is a shared ambition of both galleries to advocate for the best of Canadian art on the international stage. To achieve this, both in the exhibition itself and in the realization of our first ever catalogue-app, which will intimate the artists' achievement both on site and at a distance, is deeply gratifying.Matthew TeitelbaumMichael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEOArt Gallery of Ontario