COOPER COLE is pleased to present Canada Goose, a solo exhibition of new sculptural and video work by Fin Simonetti. This is the artist’s third solo exhibition at the gallery.
“Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.” – Isaiah 6:2
“Each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced.” – Ezekiel 10:10
Canada Goose, is a study in sentience hierarchies, examined through our relationships to animals, architecture, and God. Across an immersive installation, Fin Simonetti draws on animal breeding, Gothic architecture, and hostile design to explore overlaps in devotion and cruelty, protection and subjugation.
Central to the exhibition is Act of God (1), Simonetti’s first large-scale video work. This two-channel projection evokes a monumental stained-glass cathedral window: one channel depicts the window itself, while the other simulates light filtering through it, slowly moving across the room to suggest the passage of the sun over a day. Within the implied panes of glass is footage the artist filmed at exotic pigeon competitions across the United States, including Oklahoma City, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. These pigeons have been bred over centuries to select for genetic mutations, often at the expense of their health, comfort, and ability to fly. Fractured across the “glass,” the imagery becomes kaleidoscopic and psychedelic, transforming feathers into swirling abstractions that mirror biblical descriptions of angels in the Old Testament.
Simonetti is interested in animals that humans have metabolized in some way (through domestication, symbolism, or material use), and what these relationships reveal about human social organization. Central to this investigation is the concept of sentience hierarchies, and the subtle violence of assigning value and agency to different species based on human preference. Animals are viewed along a spectrum, from anthropomorphized to objectified. When viewed simultaneously, these two views negate each other, while pointing to the absence at the centre: the actual animal.
The title, Canada Goose, refers to the jacket as both a literal and symbolic protective layer. Down insulation extends human comfort by extracting “material” from another species’ body. The hierarchical objectification that enables cruelty toward animals is the same mechanisms used to dehumanize certain human populations.
Pigeons are assigned low status, either rendered invisible or reviled as extensions of urban decay. In contrast, within the exotic pigeon community these animals are fetishized and revered, genetically beautified for the human eye. In Act of God (1), the men handle and display the birds in gestures that oscillate between tenderness and barbarism. The men who breed these pigeons have genuine affection for their birds, even as their breeding practices deform and disable them. This axis between cruelty and nurturing complicates the anthropomorphized-objectified spectrum.
In recent works, Simonetti has explored Gothic architecture as a mechanism through which authority and power are communicated. In Act of God (1), the artist examines in how Gothic architecture is constructed to induce “awe,” which produces a visceral sensation of our scale within a hierarchy. On the sentience hierarchy, if animals are below us, God is above. The title Act of God (1) invokes both a sublime force beyond human control and humanity’s impulse to dominate nature (such as “playing God” by breeding flight out of a bird), pointing simultaneously up and down within this hierarchy.
Furthering the evocation of a cathedral, sculptural candle works appear throughout the exhibition, a recurring motif in Simonetti’s work. With these pieces, Simonetti is considering the tension between danger and comfort: fire as both threat and source of ritual warmth. Hand-carved in stone, each flame is distinct, some talon-like, others recalling artificial holiday candles. Simonetti is drawn to artificial candles as objects that remove risk, leaving only the symbol of safety and domestic ritual. From cathedral votives to birthday candles, we imbue the small flame with our devotion and secret wishes. Carved in stone, their totemic quality is even more exaggerated.
In Canada Goose, the candles function as hostile architecture, burning through a park bench. With this sculpture, Simonetti is evoking the feeling of an unspecified threat, proposing a world that is imbued with ambient danger. The reference to defensive architecture continues Simonetti’s long-standing interest in how the built environment enforces social hierarchies, while also recalling church pews in the broader context of the installation. There is also a current of humour as the candles penetrate the bench, evoking glory holes. You may notice some candles have a single drip.
The artist acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Fin Simonetti (b.1985 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) works in sculpture and stained glass. Her work examines the entangled relationship between measures of control and desires for security. Simonetti uses imagery that is designed to tap into our visceral fears, and conceptually moves between rendering sculptural forms that represent both protection and vulnerability. The artist’s frequent use of stained glass references its history as a common trade amongst Italian immigrants in Canada, including the artist’s own family.
Simonetti received her BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2009 and has exhibited internationally at Esker Foundation, Calgary; Matthew Brown, Los Angeles; Company Gallery, MoMA PS1, New York; Haynes Court, Chicago; German Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs; Interstate Projects, CLEARING, Brooklyn among others. Her work has been reviewed in ArtForum, The New York Times, Art in America, The New Yorker, Cultured Magazine, Canadian Art, amongst others. She recently released her second album through Hausu Mountain Records. Simonetti lives and works in Queens, New York, USA.
