Canadian_Art_2016_S_

134 CANADIAN A RT • SPRING 2016

“I think I will permit you to forget your dreams for a little while.

In reality you place too much importance on them.” Commis-

sioned by Mercer Union, Liz Magic Laser’s new video work Kiss

and Cry ( 2015 ) begins with this seemingly banal quote, the sort

we’ve come to expect when being lectured on what to do with

our dreams. Spoken as a voiceover as 11-year-old figure skater

Axel MacKenzie is seen twirling across the screen, the quote is

lightly adapted from John Ashbery’s 1964 poem “The Skaters,”

a meditation on his solitary childhood, in which he regularly

found himself bored and alone. The video continues Laser’s

longstanding engagement with the construction of performance

and the coaching of personality, approached in Kiss and Cry

through the familial relationship of figure-skating coach and

mother Marie Jonsson MacKenzie with her two children, Axel

and seven-year-old Anna.

Kiss and Cry stages a practice during which Axel and Anna

repeatedly rehearse the basic elements of their routines under

the careful direction of their coach and mother. With varying

degrees of success, the two young skaters wrestle to maintain

their balance as they drill turns, spirals and jumps in preparation

for an upcoming performance. Though the specificity of the

children’s activity initially veils Laser’s intentions, the haunting

voiceovers undermine any apparent innocence. Scored by

the sound of blades on ice, the script decries the construction of

REVIEWS

Liz Magic Laser Kiss

and Cry (production still)

2 015 Single-channel video

13 min 3 0 sec

the mythical child and laments the collective coddling of youth,

adopting the romantic intonations of two revolutionary fighters.

As is true of The Thought Leader and My Mind is My Own (both

2 015), Laser’s other recent video works featuring child leads, the

script of Kiss and Cry is constructed from disparate texts, subtly

shifting in both style and register. Adapted from Richard Farson’s

Birthrights: A Bill of Rights for Children and Lee Edelman’s No Future:

Queer Theory and the Death Drive, and interwoven with excerpts

from Ashbery, Wordsworth and a recent GOP debate, each citation

assumes an idealized view of the child while simultaneously claim-

ing to guard against such projections. In Kiss and Cry this assem-

blage becomes more obscure, as each line is expressed from the

perspective of a child, denying the distance provided in her previ-

ous videos and complicating the sincerity of her actor’s objectives.

Laser’s nuanced critique of this hypocrisy finds its perfect

embodiment on the ice, constructing a view of the child as both

exotic and free, but also familiar and fragile. This concern for the

safety of children above all else is further manifest in the compul-

sion to keep them busy. Extracurriculars increasingly fill the space

where boredom may have once crept in, a preventative measure

against any violent impulses that might have been engendered.

Ultimately, Axel and Anna’s dream of a liberated child-class remains

just that, but in their protest they propose a radically different

future, at a time when just such alternatives are desperately needed.

TORONTO

MERCER UNION

LIZ MAGIC LASER

by Aryen Hoekstra

Reviews_Sp16_15TS_LR.indd 134 02/02/16 6:15 PM