Cars and guns may just be the quintessential signs for America, at least in
the eyes of those outside that particular state. The United States is a
remarkable stew of contradictions and despite its richness and diversity of
culture the rest of us tend to oversimplify the state of their union, and of
their minds. Marshall McLuhan once described Canada as an early warning
system for world culture - a listening post on the most powerful society on
the planet, with a uniquely direct connection to the American zeitgeist. He
had a point. Canadians are often described as the "cousins" of the
Americans, but really the relationship is much more close. We're more like a
little brother - we have the same father, Great Britain, but different
mothers. Our rebellious older sibling was the product of British Imperialism
and Puritan Idealism (think of John Bull as the father and a prim Salvation
Army matron as the mother and you'll get what I'm driving at - who wouldn't
rebel?). Canada on the other hand is the product of a second marriage -
stiff upper lip British- ness and French élan. Awkward, perhaps, but much
more laid back than big brother, with fewer "issues."

David Diviney, as an American in Canada, an immigrant to the north, is very
aware of the conflicted relationship between Canada and our neighbour to the
South, and that awareness plays out as a subtle byplay underlying his work.
Culture, of course, can act as a lens, and a lens can both focus and
distort. That's the catch about Canada's position as a listening post - we
can never be sure just how much noise gets into our readings. Are we really
getting clear signals?

Take David Diviney's "After Hitchcock." On one level, the content - a
seemingly crazed hillbilly pointing a gun at the viewer, flanked by socked
feet - could be read as a metaphor for how the rest of the world often sees
the United States. The hillbilly is an obvious stereotype, and the feet?
Well, perhaps they belong to the body of a victim (there is more than a hint
of a kind of Deliverance style menace in this work - I can hear the banjo as
I type), or simply a sign of that other American icon - the couch potato.
The feet may simply be in repose, on a coffee table, as their owner watches
the tube. Being in "sock-feet" means that one is at ease - at home in your
castle. Sock can mean hit, as in "sock it to ya," and it can mean shut up,
as in "put a sock in it." A versatile word, to be sure, and in Diviney's
hands, a versatile object as well. His sculptures with socks use the
bathetic nature of empty clothing, the sense of loss implied, to grab our
attention, without trying to engage our emotions. We're at a distance from
these socks (proletarian socks at that, mass-produced "work" socks that few
of us wear anymore). Because we're distant, we can look at them with ironic
detachment, and when we're ironic, we're safe. With our armor of irony, we
can't be reached by art; we're able to share in the joke played on other
people. Right? Well, look at "After Hitchcock" again - and realize that
irony doesn't shield us here. Rather, it paints us, in the way that radar
paints a target. Bang! We're dead. Isn't it ironic?

Diviney is playing with these stereotypes, of course, and playing with us,
as viewers. After all, it's our preconceptions that give clichés whatever
impact that they have. Clichés, stereotypes and icons - these all function
because they're habits, as, these days, is irony. And if there's a target
for Diviney's work, it's habit. Habit blinds us, after all. Pre-conceived
notions create worlds, and the most insidious notions are the ones where the
created worlds are so subtle that their inhabitants don't know that they're
in one.

Diviney chooses subject matter that is ubiquitous, but somehow outside of
the concerns of the art world. It's so familiar that it is invisible. His
chosen material is the testosterone fueled world of race cars, hunting,
pick-up trucks and more - the rural world of middle America that, to our
surprise, has become so important to the rest of us. After all, they just
re-elected George W. Bush, an act that the rest of us have treated with
chagrin, and not a little astonishment. So what is it about hot rods,
bullet-hole decals, flames and hunting that so draws Diviney, and by
extension, his audience? I think it goes back to irony, and to how Diviney
uses our detachment to ground us - to make us put up or shut up. The rural
shtick he cites is a language of our prejudices, and no one likes to admit
where we're bigoted. Because about the only target left that is fair game is
the "hick" - the conservative, rural, white, male stereotype of Diviney's
sculptures.

Diviney is no rural advocate, though. Rather, his sculptures spotlight
something at play in all of us - the too easy assumption of knowledge, and
our willingness to don blinders. Too many of our ideas about others have
been conceived on top of a high horse. Of course, it's easy to feel superior
until your pretension is deflated, and deflating pretension is what
Diviney's work does best. There's an anarchic element to this work, a rude
bomb tossed into a polite conversation.

Expectations cut both ways - art is expected to be a certain way by its
detractors, yes, but also by its proponents. Galleries, critics, curators,
and audiences bring with them their own distorting lens of expectation.
That, too, is Diviney's target, and more power to him. After all, we can all
stand to lose a little weight off of our expectations.

Ray Cronin
Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
November 2004