Beethoven's 6th symphony plays softly. On the screen, there's an image of a stout hunter with a rifle slung over his shoulder, with green blazer, trousers and cap. The setting is a green lakeside forest. The visual and music reveal the pastoral ideal. The hunter walks though the landscape occasionally drinking from a flask. He arrives at a small wooden boat, which he rows to the center of the lake. Then he stands and blasts a hole though the boat's bottom. The music abruptly ends with the shotgun blast. Sitting back down, the hunter waits patiently as the water rises. After several minutes the boat and hunter are submerged and all that's left is the hunter's cap, floating on the surface of the water. The screen fades to black.



This is the story told in “The Lake” a short film by Danish video artist Peter Land. Like many of Land's works this film serves as an allegory without moral statement. It is both playful and unsettling. The viewer finds it difficult to reconcile the humor of the situation with the tragic and bizarre suicide. We naturally assume that this apparently happy hunter (played by Land) is out to enjoy nature as any hunter would. The jarring suicide just doesn't fit. Land manages to suggests that beneath the veneer of a beautiful summer day lies the desperation, pain and failure of being human.

Forklift fodder?

Canadian-born Brian Jungen's artwork often reveals itself slowly. Upon initial inspection of this piece, a viewer may see pallets stacked neatly on the gallery floor – almost as if they had been used to transport “the artwork”, carelessly discarded for the visitors to see. But these are no ordinary pallets. In fact, they only common trait they share with standard industrial pallets is their general form. In “Untitled” (2001), Jungen has crafted a set of ten, immaculate red ceder skids. Gone are the rough, unfinished edges, knots, burns, cracks, mixed woods and haphazard nails protruding. These pallets are hand planed and sanded surfaces, pegged together, quite obviously worked over to perfection. Visually, there's something amiss. We see a delicate treatment of an object that is traditionally known for its use, abuse, and eventual destruction. An object devoid of aesthetic value and craftsmanship has been rendered permanent and visually pleasing. And this comes as a surprise. By all means this transformation is absurd but its success is that it's believable. Think along the lines Jeff Koons, if he still cared about art. It is evident that these pallets weren't meant to have goods staked on them, or be fork-lifted around factory floors. They don't need to function, they simply exist and in so doing they spread their message. The pallets make their statement in a quiet and unobtrusive way. They won't speak to everyone, but through execution and concept they can show us that even in the most banal objects, there's potential for beauty.