David Altmejd: The Index

David Altmejd creates powerful installations that, while informed by an understanding of architectural philosophy, teem with sensory excess. In The Index, created especially for the Biennial, Altmejd transforms the helicoid Canadian pavilion into an aviary. Composed of wooden bridges, sections of trees and steel and glass mirrors that are layered and interconnected, the work is inhabited by flocks of stuffed birds, birds fabricated from materials at hand and fragmented bodies of half-men, half-birds - the whole richly ornamented quartz crystals and mirror shards. The imposing sculpture lies in a glass display case with mirrored sides, which exacerbates its formal and material possibilities.