Keith Marchand: "Je me sourvenir" (Famous™ puts a hard edge on the soft sell) Mirror. Oct-Nov 1998

Je me souvenir:
Famous™ puts a hard edge on the soft sell

As far as I'm concerned, the single worst element of museum-going is the shameless marketing behind every show. At the end of even the most mundane exhibition, visitors will find the museum boutique. With prices that fall just short of piracy, these stores peddle items designed to give the consumer a take-home souvenir of the show. Museum marketers try to convince the shopper that they can be a part of the artist's life by buying some crappy commodity with the artist's name stamped on it.

I hate to break it to you, but Gauguin did not originally have "Mahana No Atua" silk-screened onto a golf umbrella. Joan Miro never designed oven mitts. And Van Gogh was not, as is now widely believed, a calendar illustrator.

Toronto-based artist Mitch Robertson is intent on exploring the uneasy relationship between art and commerce. One of his earlier works, Mitch Robertson's Famous Artstars , was a clever bit of commentary on just this topic. Famous Artstars was a series of trading cards featuring up-and-coming artists in the Toronto scene. The cards featured one work from each artist with some bubblegum-card stats. You could collect and trade artists that you fancied and the rest, well... you could stick in your bicycle spokes.

On now at the Dare-Dare gallery is Robertson's latest offering, Famous™. The show deals with a number of our consumer-culture obsessions: fame, beauty, wealth and marketing. Visitors are first greeted by a series of large canvases featuring dolls on painted gold backgrounds. The dolls are recreations of actual advertisements from women's magazines. Featuring oversized porcelain heads, Tammy-Faye Baker eyes and accompanied by saccharine slogans, these are the kind of items that attract the "serious" collector.

One of my favourites is taken from the official McDonald's Collectible Club. The caption reads, "What a treat, his first McDonald's french fries"- part of a series that the burger giant put out "featuring happy babies enjoying McDonald's treats for the first time." Another piece features the "First Ever Shirley Temple Toddler Doll." This grinning death's head in a taffeta dress is supposed to be a young Shirley Temple. At the bottom corner of each canvas, Robertson has supplied the actual order forms to purchase these dolls. So you can call any of the numbers on the paintings and order a precious little friend of your own.

The second section features a wall of shelves lined with small, hand-painted sculptures of Buddha. Displayed as though in a store, the series is accompanied by a pamphlet stating: "While factory-produced, generic Buddhas can be bought everywhere, only a Famous™ Buddha can lead you to personal enlightenment through ownership." Each item is signed and numbered and they sell for $39.95 each. Robertson chose the Buddha to represent the clash between a commerce-driven society and a figure who denounced all earthly possessions.

At the back of the gallery you'll find a kiosque selling souvenirs of the show: Buddha T-shirts, doll's-head candles, colouring books, postcards and the official Famous™ Artstars trading cards.

Mitch Robertson has skipped the wait to get to the merchandise behind an art show. He has moved the souvenir kiosque right into the gallery. Now you can view art and shop at the same time.

- Keith Marchand