This morning Sheila Butler revealed the superhero's transformation from a regular guy on the street to a man of drama and intrigue, charged with saving us from another dreary wintery grey day on Toronto’s northeast corner of Dundas and Bloor Street West, at the PharmaPlus. The intersection is actually dynamic and busy, with people heading into the subway to the west or to art school to the south, or shopping and strolling. Really, it was fantastic to see how the site resonated with passerby's, many taking out their cellphones from their pockets and purses and school bags to take photos of/with Superman.
The reveal isn't staying past this work week, so I hope you have a chance to see it live and send us your own photo or text.
Sheila has this to say about her installation:
In the days when telephone booths existed as small islands of privacy on busy North American streets, Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter, often took advantage of this private space to effect the change of clothing that transformed him into Superman, the mighty man-of-steel, the heroic crime fighter. Now, in 2012, many of the phone booths are gone, but the magic transformation of Superman remains vivid in the collective imagination of contemporary culture. Superman’s former changing room links the relative disappearance of the phone booth to our changed perceptions of public and personal spaces. Tel.talk provides me with the aesthetic opportunity to stage the transformational coming and going of the ongoing legend of Clark Kent and Superman in a now transformed social context.
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