Join us for the Grand Opening of Reverb at the GM Centre on 1 June at 7:30pm!
Reverb will be installed in the spring of 2015, adjacent to the General Motors Centre (GM Centre), Durham Region’s premier sports and recreation facility, and the venue of the boxing and weightlifting events at next year’s TORONTO 2015 Pan Am Games. The work was purchased with the financial support of the RMG Acquisition Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program.
The sculpture is impactful, standing at 19’ high, and will become a meeting place. The curved form implies a megaphone, an amphitheater and stage, a net or goal, as Reverb reflects the activities that occur in the GM Centre. The ‘blurb’ shapes on the structure represent the fans and are positioned like a rake of seats. Projections of coloured light will be created in the sculpture when sounds inside activate lights within the steel structure. Reverb is full of meaning and references. The laser cut stainless steel references industrial production and the facets align Oshawa’s history as a port city and as an industrial capital.
In addition to celebrating the City’s participation in the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games, the project will reflect narratives that have meaning to the community and the public space that the work will occupy. The work will also respond to the RMG’s statement of purpose: Dedicated to sharing, exploring and engaging with our communities through the continuing story of modern and contemporary Canadian art. This new work becomes the fourth sculpture commissioned by the RMG, and will be added to the RMG’s permanent collection of over 4,500 works. Recent public art commissions include Douglas Coupland’s playful Group Portrait 1957 installed on the façade of the gallery in 2011.
The commission installation is set to take place in early May, 2015 and the RMG will be posting updates about the commission as it develops.
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About Noel Harding
As an artist, Noel Harding produced video art in the 70’s, video projection and installation in the 80’s, kinetic installations and sculpture as theatre in the 90’s. His work for the last 20 years is in public art where landscape and environment are paramount. In general, his work is an engagement in public urban realities: planning, envisioning, and mapping. He has exhibited and lectured internationally and his work is included in collections at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the City of Amsterdam and the Hara Museum, Tokyo.
