Geoffrey Smedley at CCA

Geoffrey
Smedley's
Sculpture -
Instalation
at the
Canadian Centre
for Architecture

June 6 - August 11, 2013

Geoffrey Smedley is a Vancouver-based artist whose work takes roots in many disciplines such as mechanics and movement, history of science, geometry, philosophy and architecture. He was born in London, England, and for many years engaged in British abstract and constructivist art.

Smedley’s present exhibition at the Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture consists of four sculptures where all four pieces form a one whole. The main philosophical bases of the installation is the mythic figure of the Descartes' Clown, a neurotic and an insecure robot. This offers a critique of the mechanization of man implicit in Descartes’ unfinished treaties The Description of the Human Body, written in 1647.

In addition, the exhibition features a selection of Smedley’s personal notebooks with notes and drawings from the first sketches and through the subsequent illustrated design development. They reveal his conceptual process and practices and the connection to architectural thinking. 

For more information about the exhibition and other activities, visit the Canadian Centre for Architecture website.

http://www.cca.qc.ca/en

List of images 
(From top down and from left to right)

1. Geoffrey Smedley, Logos: The memory - the organ of remembering and forgetting, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

2. Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system - the organ of extension (Head-Brain), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

3. Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system - the organ of extension (3 spine sections), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

4. Geoffrey Smedley, Escapement: The pulse - the organ of endurance, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

5. Geoffrey Smedley, Roulette: The will - the organ of chance, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

6. Geoffrey Smedley, Notebook, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova