Jon Sasaki: Unabashed Enthusiasm/Good Intentions

Jon Sasaki: Ladder Stack, colour photograph (2009): Courtesy the artist and Jessica Bradley Art Projects, Toronto.

Jon Sasaki: ‘Unabashed Enthusiasm’ at Jessica Bradley Art Projects (to Feb. 6) and ‘Good Intentions’ at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto, Scarborough (to Feb. 24)

Although Toronto-based Jon Sasaki  works in a range of media, including video, objects, performances and installations, one thing that comes through in everything he does is a wry, yet optimistic, sense of humour.  His mini-retrospective of work at Jessica Bradley is described as “an exhibition of new and not so new work” by the artist, and the slightly apologetic tone of that phrase should give you a sense of what to expect from Sasaki’s work: scenarios in which hearty attempts often result in failure. There is nothing depressing about this however. Rather, Sasaki’s videos, especially, are utterly charming, reminding one of the kind of situations that comedic film actors like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton got themselves into. The exhibition at Doris McCarthy features Sasaki’s latest video, Crossroads. Produced in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the video documents the Clarksdale Crossroads, where the legendary blues performer Robert Johnson ‘sold his soul to the devil’ in exchange for masterful guitar skills. Sasaki’s message in this video, as in the rest of his work, seems to be ‘never give up, even if the odds are stacked against you,’ and this is refreshing.