Outside the Palace of Me

Hidden behind a set of blue velvet curtains at the Gardiner Museum is a doorway that leads to an immersive new exhibition, Outside the Palace of Me, by multidisciplinary artist Shary Boyle. This is the first solo Canadian museum tour for Boyle since she represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Through a mix of drawings, ceramics, animatronics and a coin-operated sculpture, Boyle invites visitors to become a part of the performance, questioning how we see each other and ourselves. 

Internationally renowned, and a familiar name at the AGO, Boyle was the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2009 for her outstanding contribution to visual arts in Canada. In 2010, her work was showcased at the AGO in a solo touring exhibition titled Shary Boyle: Flesh and Blood. Boyle works in sculpture, installation, drawing and live performance. Her creations are often strange, subversive and politically charged. She was an early innovator in live-drawing techniques using overhead projectors and collaborates often with artists from other disciplines. In Outside the Palace of Me, Boyle worked with a scenic designer, costume artist, robotics engineer, amusement park innovator and acrylic nail artist. 

Shary Boyle, Judy (details), 2021, Wax, electronics, ceramics, and mixed media. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

Parts museum, carnival and theatre, the installation at the Gardiner Museum begins in the “Dressing Room”, where visitors can take a playbill that guides them through the exhibition. To the left are a two-way mirror with three ceramic busts that immediately blur the lines between the observer and the observed. A darkened passage leads to a stage flanked by ten small ceramic sculptures in vitrines as you take center stage in the middle. At the end of the runway, a coin-operated pottery wheel topped by a sequined baluster, fittingly titled Centering (2021), commands the spotlight with its glitz and glamour. As you head offstage, a medley of works inspired by the artist’s lived experiences, historical imagery and imagination awaits.

You’ll encounter a life-size animatronic puppeteer framed by a series of works on paper that explore themes of gender, racial awareness and classism, as well as a procession of more than twenty ceramic figures, a celebration of protest and collective action.

As you continue to weave through the room, you will find a listening station where you can select a song from the artist’s playlist, assembled to score the exhibition.

Whiteness. Installation View of Shary Boyle: Outside the Palace of Me at the Gardiner Museum. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid

Along the left wall of the gallery, White Elephant (2021), a distorted white female figure looms over the exhibition – stopping visitors in their tracks. Encouraging conversation on the complex subject of whiteness, the artist speaks directly about colonialism, racial identity and white privilege, whether intentional or unintentional, noticed or unnoticed. Diving further into the meanings behind its name, Boyle explains in her artist statement, “White Elephant is the ‘elephant in the room’, as racism is difficult to acknowledge and talk about especially amongst White people. The title also refers to a “White Elephant” sale: a yard sale where the owner places more value on the object than its worth.” 

The installation ends with the visitor on the other side of the two-way mirror. Designed as an invitation to lean in and look closer, you are now peering out from behind the busts, experiencing the world through someone else’s eyes. Just as in theatre, the experience ends with the visitor leaving through a darkened passage, past the blue curtains once again and back out into the light to ponder what you have just experienced.

Outside the Palace of Me is on view until May 15, 2022. The exhibition is organized by the Gardiner Museum and curated by Sequoia Miller, Chief Curator and Deputy Director.