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Press 33Selected Essays and Reviews |
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Keith MacIsaac
Neil Mulholland October 2005 A Vancouverite in the 'Old World,' MacIsaac is enticed by European heritage that is often brushed off in the rush to live in the future. With their genial repartee and spirited historical nuggets, his filmed travelogues lie somewhere between earnest Scottish hillwalking television series Weir's Way and docusoap satire The Office. The project "Bridgeness" is a thwarted campaign to convince the Museum of Scotland to rehang a distance slab that once lay on the Roman Antonine Wall between the Clyde and Forth. This not being a cultural priority, MacIsaac goes to great lengths to prove its import. A series of collages divulge his attempt to enlist celebrity Celtophile and former Led Zeppelin axeman Jimmy Page to walk the wall. Spurned by Page, MacIsaac hires a film crew and a helicopter from which he expounds the virtues of the slab while flying over the remains of the wall. The clatter of the chopper makes it impossible to hear his oration, yet his animated body language indicates his excitement at the dubious prospect of raising public awareness. Madame Malaussena's home in the south of France was once the Hotel Regina wherein Henri Matisse created his Vance Chapel mural scheme. On a pilgrimage, MacIsaac has a chance encounter with Malaussena and, after some comical translation trouble, gains access to the flat. The resulting film Régina Flat/Studio Practice collages archival footage of Matisse's studio and sketches filmed at his birthplace in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Normandy, with footage of the contemporary 'des res.' Scenes are interspersed by MacIsaac's interview with Donald Kuspit, who enthuses bombastically about the Vance murals. The film ends abruptly with Malaussena's contact details, leaving us thinking that we've been watching a real estate promo. Again, it's very unlikely that MacIsaac's benevolent perseverance will aid Malaussena, but this only intensifies the peculiar blend of humor and humility found in his adventures. Neil Mulholland link to Keith MacIsaac's Exhibition |
