Stan Denniston: "Claims to Fame" C Magazine #71. September 2001

Claims to Fame

Stories for Grandchildren

Published by Mitch Robertson
224 pp hardcover, edition 400, $30.00
Design: Andrew Di Rosa / SMALL

This beautiful book is a translation of an exhibition of the same name, for which Toronto artist Mitch Robertson asked people to tell him their most noteworthy "claim to fame" and recorded their responses. One can't know precisely the manner in which he presented the question, but the replies are notable for their superficiality.

The 200+ responses break down, very generally, into two categories: brushes with celebrity (usually someone else's) and personal achievement or accomplishment. Two examples will suffice to illustrate: "Went to the same high school as Corey Hart," Ryan Statz; "Planted 3250 trees in Northern British Colombia in one day," Mischa Chicoine.

Robertson has worked with the theme of celebrity for a few years now, though always signalling (often using anti-aesthetic or kitsch forms) a little ironic distance, but not here. The elegant simplicity of this book's design foregrounds the inconsequentiality of most of the responses and, at the same time, serves them up in sincerity. Despite the fun of a quick flip through I'm left with an overwhelming feeling of pathos - the sum of all this triviality is something moving and fine. For an artist as young as Robertson to create a work of such pathos is quite an achievement. You might even call it a "claim to fame."

- Stan Denniston