Artist talk and Q & A with Ernest Daetwyler
The Boat Project/everythingwillbefine
Virtual opening reception featuring a performance by Guelph based artist/harpist, Leslie Shapiro.
The Boat Project / everythingwillbefine will be on view through spring 2022 at the Cambridge Sculpture Garden, 53 Grand Ave S, Cambridge. The work is constructed of steel and driftwood collected on the shores of Lake Huron. The large boat relates to philosophical notions of passage or journey. The subtitle carries a message, “everything will be fine” that can be read in multiple ways alluding to something that might be encouraging or possibly being read as sarcastic. The artist became aware of this expression in Zurich, Switzerland as graffiti (Alles Wird Gut) on the roof of an occupied industrial building, in the nineties during a time when youth activist movements, demonstrations and interactions between the police and civilians were tense.
The sculptural work has a strong and silent presence. Through the scale, its universal content in the current context, the boat opens a dialogue that asks the viewer to ask questions about time, life in this society and its contemporary moment in a pandemic, memory, flux, uncertainty, and is therefore connecting to histories past and present.
This work is presented by curatorial partner Cambridge Sculpture Gardens.
Image: Ernest Daetwyler, The Boat Project everythingwillbefine, (2020). Installation view: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area (CAFKA) 2021. Photo: David Botros
Ernest Daetwyler studied at the Schule für Gestaltung, Bern, Switzerland, the Centro Europeo in Venice, Italy and received his master diploma from the Schule für Gestaltung, St. Gallen, Switzerland. His multidisciplinary exhibitions and public interventions/art projects are being presented in Canada and internationally. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, Pro Helvetia, Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Presence Suisse, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) 2010 Exhibition of the Year Award, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the Arts Award Waterloo Region in Visual Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, N.Y. Ernest Daetwyler is a founding member, former Artistic/Executive Director of the international, artist-run biennial CAFKA, the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area. As Editor he has produced several publications and has served the non-profit organization on the Board of Directors and in numerous functions for more then fourteen years.
Image provided by artist.