GUELPH -- The 40th sculpture to be added to the Art Gallery of Guelph’s Sculpture Park is called “The Living Room Suite.”
If you drive past the Art Gallery of Guelph on Gordon Street, you will notice a living set made of bronze, on their lawn.
A love seat, two chairs and an oversized 1950s era television.
Just the way the artist, Gregory Gallant, known of his pen name "Seth," remembers his living rooms as a child.
“When I was a kid, we moved an awful lot. Like every year practically my father moved us into another house and over those years the living rooms of those different houses have all blurred together for me”
He added that the home and the room was always different, but the furniture is what stayed the same.
“In that amalgamation of memory there's always a dark living room, with a television a couch and two chairs.”
Seth is an international cartoonist and graphic novelist who has had works published in "The New York Times," "McSweeney’s Quarterly," "The New Yorker," "The Walrus," and "Canadian Notes & Queries" amongst others.
But Seth dabbles in other mediums of art as well.
The idea for “The Living Room Suite” began years ago, originally meant to be an interactive ode to Seth’s memory.
“The meaning of it actually changed over the last couple of years. We began this before the pandemic,” Art Gallery of Guelph executive director Shauna McCabe said.
McCabe was referring to our time spent at home during isolation and stay-at-home orders.
“Obviously over the course of the pandemic we all spent a lot of time in our living rooms and living spaces," she said. “It actually takes a private space and moves it into public space.”
The newly revealed piece has begun to spark different conversations with those who walk and drive by it, about what our living rooms and homes mean to us now that we've spent such extended time there.
Whether your living space is now an office, a movie theatre, or a daycare you’ve likely developed a new perspective of it.
Seth says beauty and the meaning of his work, is in the eye of the beholder.
“You know the meaning of art is a tricky thing and I don’t really like to ascribe meanings to particular works," he said.
"The Living Room Suite" is now the 40th permanent sculpture that sits in the gallery's sculpture park.
“It also extends the walls of the gallery beyond the building and into the city,” McCabe said.
Although it is art Seth hopes the furniture will also be used for its initial intentions.
“I was happy that it was close enough to the bus stop that people will probably sit there while they're waiting for the bus.”
He says he kept that in mind while developing the piece.
“I was aware that people will want to sit on it.”
The Art Gallery of Guelph will officially be revealing the piece on Saturday Nov. 20 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Registration is required.
