Insights from animate blankets: Artist Andrew Maize’s ‘fan dancers’ spin in McIntosh Gallery
“There’s this animacy that you get from the wind. The wind fills the sails, livens a tree. I think it’s that sense of animacy we get from these blankets which otherwise are just inert material. It’s seeing that surprise on people’s faces when they first get up. It’s so exciting. There’s a sense of wonder,” says artist Andrew Maize, whose exhibit *(s)twerH is open to the public in Western University’s McIntosh Gallery until May 16. A key feature of the windowless exhibit is a collection of gleaming silver and gold emergency blankets draped over hangers. First created in 1964 by…