JONI MITCHELL MAY BE A "CELEBRITY" ARTIST - BUT GREEN FLAG SONG IS GOOD

GREEN FLAG SONG runs to March 29
Mendel Art Gallery

At the opening of the renovated AKA and Paved galleries a while back, local artist Rowan Pantel approached me and mentioned that she'd read a recent article of mine - and that it was happy and positive. She then enquired about my mental health.

Why the digression? Well, take a deep breath, and sit down for a moment. Okay, here we go: Joni Mitchell's exhibition currently at the Mendel, Green Flag Song, is pretty good. Everyone okay? No one's burst a blood vessel, or had a stroke? Good - but I'm sure some of you want to take away my art critic's card, and the line-up starts over there: it's the same one as for free kicks in the ass.

The side gallery is painted a dark grey, and the images are massive - nearly floor to ceiling - with each one divided into vertical triptychs of equal sizes. They're greenish yellow, a sickly effect in the gallery lighting that may make you somewhat ill if you spend too much time in there. This is partly a result of the fact that Mitchell photographed images on her malfunctioning television, and partly due to some later manipulation, but I don't care too much about the formal process - suffice to say the images are alternately sexy or sickening, provocative or somewhat putrid.

The images are numbered, seeming to imply that these are not all of them. Displaying images of the war in Iraq mixed with others, the works seem reminiscent of the surrealist works of Alejandro Jodorowsky, such as his LSD-influenced "The Holy Mountain," or of the insane, aimless and murderous aspect of Apocalypse Now.

The mix of images - including a shot of Jesus on the cross, soldiers in the field, flags, "war zone" sites and (my personal favourite) a solider obviously sucking on a big joint - dominate the viewer. In terms of the words present, Mitchell has chosen to appropriate and rework the words of William Butler Yeats - specifically his best-known work, "The Second Coming," using passages such as "What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?", "The center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world", and "The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity." Sounds like the past few years of the war in Iraq, to me, or the previous U.S. administration. But Mitchell's words aren't the equal of Yeats: she falls down when she tries to rework him, and frankly, I chose to ignore this to spend more time with the images.

Of course, with an exhibit such as this, the issue of "touristing" must be spoken to. After all, Sylvester Stallone paints, too, and everyone thinks they can sing (I'm looking at you, Paris). As such, it's been suggested to me that the reason I'm positive about Green Flag Song is because I had very low expectations, having seen Mitchell's previous work at the Mendel. (Self-portrait as Van Gogh? Back to second-year painting with you. Don't do it again - just step away from the brush.)

But let's consider a few things: if we want celebrity, the RBC painting show before this was just as guilty, garnering two (!) articles in the Globe and Mail yet displaying work nowhere near as resolved as Mitchell's. (Very good, Ms. Riddle, bastardizing Ellsworth Kelly, from the '70s. Very good, Mr. Murray, aping Rauschenberg, from the '60s - it was the artistic equivalent of karaoke. But I digress.) Moreover, if we look at that side gallery, over the past few years it has seen a number of exhibitions by artists whom were either unprepared, or undeserving, of a solo show in a space that many people in this community covet - including me. If Mitchell is a tourist here, then so are some of these artists who dropped unresolved, unfinished and generally poorly executed works, that they then justified with excuses of "process" or "experimentation." Like I said, the line to take away my art critic's card is over there.

From there, we come to the pretentious dogma of the art world, which denies its own existence like any good hegemony. Sure, we can all "tut tut" about the invasion of the Mendel's space by such a "low brow" idea as a celebrity artist - all the while conveniently forgetting that the Mendel serves communities that are not only different, but often disparate. If an exhibition of Mitchell's work can lay the groundwork for the purchase of Rebecca Bellmore's "Blood on the Snow" - which belongs in this community, as part of our history, as much as Mitchell does - then so be it.

In the end, isn't it about the work, anyway? Of course it is - and Green Flag Song is a damn site more engaging than the RBC show or some of the other "installations" we've seen in this same space.