Brian Jungen

Brian Jungen is an artist we saw, who took consumer items and recontextualized them for his show.  This included recognizable football jerseys, which he cut into strips and rewove them into blanket-like forms that were reminiscent of native american patterning.  Also on display was his Jerrycan, a used gas canister that he drilled intricate hole patterns into.  The act of taking this item, which litter streets and are generally used in a very crude manner, and turning it into a piece that is displayed on a pedestal in a gallery stretches the mainstream ideas of what makes art.  This use of putting this mass-produced object speaks about the effects of globalization on the environment, and culture; for me criticizing how the individual is overlooked to produce efficient and disposable objects for a large population.  Making an object like this your own through artistic re-interpretation gives an object different meaning, and the relationship he's created with the jerrycan speaks to his own life living on a reserve and frequently reusing discarded mass-produced items for new purposes.