City Renewal Project

A City Renewal Project was a brilliant project hatched by Dan Bergeron (Fauxreel) and Gabriel Reese (Specter). This installation collaboration recreates some of their personal landmarks in Toronto with a twist. In the Queen West area near Dovercourt, at Lisgar St, is the wall of a long blue warehouse complex that has been demolished for a yuppie condo project. It’s here that “A City Renewal Project” was installed, in an abandoned building. At street level is a façade of a constructed storefront, “Mr Loogie”., a play on the “dollar store” Mr Loonie, itself a bit of Canadiana since the “loonie” is slang for a Canadian dollar. You enter through the store, to a city street, which is the installation itself. The streetscape is comprised of constructed storefronts on both sides. There are real and fake tags and graffiti on the walls and a real TTC shelter along with a bus stop post. Just past the bus stop is a Viacom billboard advertising “Condos for Babies” on the wall. Washrooms, street vendor stand, park bench and an accountant’s office are at the back of the warehouse. At the back, a wall is covered by an enormous print from car tire tracks made and contributed by artist Matt Janisse.

Some additional features of the exhibit include a zoo preservation sign, leaves, bins and bags of garbage accumulating on the cement floor.  The storefronts inside 39 Lisgar are near life-size scale black-and-white portraits of store fronts of closed or derelict stores from all over the city. The photographic interpretation is by Fauxreel / Dan Bergeron. The stores were constructed from recycled materials including condo placards. The actual signage was constructed by Gabriel Reese an urban artist who installs his work in locations to reinterpret the urban environment. The graffiti on the warehouse walls is by Bergeron, Reese, and countless other street artists and friends who helped with the installation over the four months of construction.

A City Renewal Project was described by Reese as “a work you look at more than once,” because there are “so many little subtle things.”  This warehouse was filled with the images of the city amassed by Bergeron and Reese. Everything in it is material that was used by them. Along with those who helped them was Bergeron’s dad Don who rolled up his sleeves to help in the construction of the space for the installation. . Dan Bergeron is not against that change, but this latest project contains the ambivalence towards a changing city that his recent Luminato project of Regent Park portraits did. His concern is the ongoing life cycle of real estate in the city will keep producing “new ghettos”. Bergeron sees the landscape’s uncontested demolition and reconstruction as proof that “we don’t do anything to ensure we remember our past.”

Gabriel Reese, a low profile artist who uses the nom of Specter has kept his identity secret. He splits time split between New York, working through a Canada Council grant, and Toronto, working on the”City Renewal Project” and believes in “restoration, not destruction” as the way to go. He views A City Renewal Project as a “monument, archive and validation” of the spaces that the two artists have fabricated. This piece provides the work’s name: “we’re renewing spaces using objects and artifacts that are on the street.”The project was made possible, in part, with Red Bull sponsorship and Gallery 381. Some Toronto media have been critical on a personal level regarding the intent of the installation. There was discussion in the press that the project was compromised by corporate sponsorship however the artists’ view is all projects need money so receiving financial support from Red Bull, who provided the only detectable bit of branding, a Red Bull umbrella, at Bergeron’s initiative. They believe it is the same as receiving funding from the L’Oréal sponsored Luminato or Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche.

Bergeron, is capable of navigating the rocky water that is a mix of art and business. His position is the project wouldn’t, have been possible without funding from Red Bull. The show’s other sponsors include Show & Tell Gallery and Grolsch. It should be appreciated that both men poured their own money into the exhibit so there is a piece of them in this commitment. Bergeron and Reese are considering taking this to Vancouver. Bergeron says that he would like this for Vancouver which is undergoing similar changes to Toronto but which are being driven by the upcoming Olympic Games in 2010. A City Renewal Project ran from , November 7—to November 23, 2008 and was taken apart shortly afterwords after the famous closing party where drunk hipsters had the police come out in full force to shut the party down. The building has now sat empty and quiet for a full year, but demolition started in April 2010. As of the summer of 2011, a half built condo stands on the property.

Photos taken by Kathy and Jan.

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