The Royal Art Lodge .- In the Mourning
13/Sep/2007 - 20/Oct/2007
![RAL0070](https://www.espaciominimo.es/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/RAL0070.jpg)
Espacio Mínimo opens its 2007-2008 season with the Canadian group THE ROYAL ART LODGE’s first spanish solo exhibition. The gaellry already included works by this group, composed of artists Michael Dumontier (1974), Marcel Dzama (1974) and Neil Farber (1975), in its collective show titled Paperview, along with works by Marcel Dzama individually.
THE ROYAL ART LODGE was created in 1996 by Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama, Neil Farber, Drue Langlois, Jonathan Pylypchuk and Adrian Shalon Williams, six artists from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, the purpose of which was to meet up on Wednesdays to work as a group, not only to paint but also to make videos, music, sculpture… The following year the latter two members moved to Los Angeles and Montreal respectively, and the group was joined by Marcel’s sister, Hollie Dzama, and Drue’s brother,Myles Langlois. In 2003 the group was finally constituted by its three current members. Since then they have always created works whose authors – always a minimum of two – have worked as a variable group to generate different results, while each member maintains their own individual practice.
As Pablo Llorca in the catalogue text from the exhibition Arte termita contra elefante blanco (FundaciónCO, Madrid 2004):
In contrast to what each of these artists have to offer separately, where their author ship is much more evident and their style more identifiable, the drawing s of Royal Art Lodge reflect a wonderful, hard to classify diversity. Though they are characterized by being rapidly- executed, small-scale works, their forms are the outcome of the miscellaneous combinations of artists, and, likewise, of their expressive approaches. Consequently, it is easy to find both scathing works and extremely dramatic ones, some with erotic allusions and others with a weighty existentialist tone. Furthermore, in terms of size, and of humour too, their common denominator is that they incorporate devices from children’s media. Notwithstanding that quite frequently children actually crop up in them, this owes more to the fact that the devices employed often come from comic stereotypes (though not always, sometimes they are simply taken from the history of children’s illustrations) One might think, in relation to group work, that it is the outcome of the personality of its members, ut in contrasting amalgams. If we take the work of these artists separately, we notice that most of them have shared interests, or at least similar ones, expressed in a variety of different ways, but one vein runs through them all: a fascination for the bizarre, and the distressing, for black humour and absurd games. And, additionally, a fascination for the ambiguous and the perverse which emanates from the childhood world. world which on the surface seems full of candour and innocence, but has an undercurrent of violence and cruelty.
THE ROYAL ART LODGE has chosen In the Mourning as a for this exhibition made up mostly by small scale paintings on board, and two larger works made up of 20 paintings, that each painting read individually but also create composition to be read as a whole.
THE ROYAL ART LODGE have shown individually at important galleries and museums such as MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), in Los Angeles in 2004, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea y The Drawing Center, New York in 2003, or Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco in 2006. They have taken part in important collective shows in museums (Rendez-Vous 2004, Musee Art Contemporain Lyon, Lyon, Francia) and galleries (Looking at Words: The Formal Use of Text in Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York 2005) and the best contemporary art fairs such as Art Basel where they held a solo project.