Carole Saucier: "Artist Takes Unusual Steps to Get Noticed" Times & Transcript. October 14, 1999

Artist takes unusual steps to get noticed:

Mitch Robertson aims for fame one way or another

Mitch Robertson doesn't mind the snickering or the snide remarks. In fact, he kind of enjoys it, because it means he's being noticed. At the age of 24, the Toronto artist figured he should have been famous by now, but life never really turns out the way you envisioned it, or does it? It seems Robertson's creating his own path with a touring retrospective on his life thus far.

Standing in a booth in front of his motorhome peddling souvenirs at Moncton's Aberdeen Cultural Centre, Robertson says he wasn't going to wait around for fame to catch up to him he's building it himself.

Titled Mitch Robertson 1974 -1999 , the traveling exhibition may not necessarily be of great significance to anyone, except himself, but that's not the point.

"I had big dreams of fame and it hasn't happened quite the way I pictured it," he laughs. Inside the 7.2-metre (24-foot) motorhome-turned-museum, 14 photos of himself and his family hang on the white walls, and two glassed-in cases with assorted paraphernalia of his childhood, like trophies, glasses and wisdom teeth, stand opposite each other.

From the blown-up snapshots, some details have been removed, like an unknown child at a birthday party, and the backgrounds are filled with gold leaf a la Byzantine. Sure, it sounds like he's a self-centred child with a "me, me, me," attitude, he admits, but it's an amusing double-edged sword. Here's this museum dedicated to a 24-year-old artist who is unknown, then there's the humbling aspect of having to stand in cold weather hocking borderline-tacky souvenirs.

He's mocking himself and the art world, he concedes, but meanwhile, he's garnering attention.

The 1977 motor home acts as a prelude to his main exhibition inside at  Galerie Sans Nom. Starting tomorrow, Robertson's works, titled Red Bird Paparazzi, will be on display until November 13. Focusing again on the idea of fame, Robertson compares bird watching to the paparazzi - stalking of prey. But without adoration, the prey remains unknown; in the same way a star needs the paparazzi to be famous.

The photos offer perfect landscapes containing fake red birds. The beautiful contrast and flawlessness of the obviously fabricated scenery is a reflection on society's acceptance of the perfectionism of what mass media creates, he says.

Another series, the Envy Series, gives credit to the birds, Robertson says grinning, "as if birds have human qualities."

In one picture, two penguins are glancing skyward at a passing flock of birds and in another, a bird is set apart from a group of birds - as though his peers.

"You won't be famous if you're only known around the art world. You have to hit the public," he say

- Carole Saucier