Polo Park Mall

FTLComm - Winnipeg - July 10, 1999

Visiting a shopping mall is a form of late twentieth century recreation. The mall offers a level of display to interest the shopper or visitor and in this atmosphere the process of retail commerce occurs.

On Friday afternoon we strolled around Polo park a sprawling two story shopping place with three major anchors, Sears, Eatons and Zellers. The picture above shows the mirrored wall beside the escalator that gives the impression of vast space while actually being in a somewhat confined area.

The shop on the right is one of the many we see now with decorative objects as the main trade, prints, cast acrylic sculptures and framing. We need to redefine are what this is, for clearly it is not art but

just how else would this pretense of decorative material be classified. Their is an interesting mix of almost originality while this is downgraded with the concept that it is mass produced original material. Sort of Art for the masses.

The raffle of a 1952 or 1953 Ford is interesting. This car is neither an original nor is it a customised hot rod. It is much like the shop selling decorative materials. This car is painted in a colour that in some light looks similar to an early fifties Ford shade of maroon but instead it has a violet touch and of course is a heavy acrylic multicoated finish that gives it a luster no self respecting fifties Ford would have had. The car has chrome wheels and moon hub caps instead of its original ones and the bumpers and chrome parts have all been into a refinishing plant to shine in a completely artificial manner. So what it is this, it is close to the original vintage car, yet fancied up in some odd way to be enhanced yet the enhancement detracts from the fundamental simplicity of this miraculous "L" head V-8 with its short but powerful life. An original car like this one would require its heads overhauled at 60,000 KMs and the engine replaced at 100,000 KM so that its expected service life was half that of a car built now.


*FTLComm - Winnipeg - July 10, 1999*
Visiting a shopping mall is a form of late twentieth century recreation. The mall offers a level of display to interest the shopper or visitor and in this atmosphere the process of retail commerce occurs. On Friday afternoon we strolled around Polo park a sprawling two story shopping place with three major anchors, Sears, Eatons and Zellers. The picture above shows the mirrored wall beside the escalator that gives the impression of vast space while actually being in a somewhat confined area. The shop on the right is one of the many we see now with decorative objects as the main trade, prints, cast acrylic sculptures and framing. We need to redefine are what this is, for clearly it is not art but
just how else would this pretense of decorative material be classified. Their is an interesting mix of almost originality while this is downgraded with the concept that it is mass produced original material. Sort of Art for the masses.

The raffle of a 1952 or 1953 Ford is interesting. This car is neither an original nor is it a customised hot rod. It is much like the shop selling decorative materials. This car is painted in a colour that in some light looks similar to an early fifties Ford shade of maroon but instead it has a violet touch and of course is a heavy acrylic multicoated finish that gives it a luster no self respecting fifties Ford would have had. The car has chrome wheels and moon hub caps instead of its original ones and the bumpers and chrome parts have all been into a refinishing plant to shine in a completely artificial manner. So what it is this, it is close to the original vintage car, yet fancied up in some odd way to be enhanced yet the enhancement detracts from the fundamental simplicity of this miraculous "L" head V-8 with its short but powerful life. An original car like this one would require its heads overhauled at 60,000 KMs and the engine replaced at 100,000 KM so that its expected service life was half that of a car built now.