A temporary site work by Cyril Reade
Presented by the Koffler Gallery
Installed June 1995

Minyan, an outdoor sculpture by London, Ontario sculptor Cyril Reade, represents a memorial to the decline of tradition in the community, and a personal reflection on the Holocaust.  The empty wooden chairs, arranged in a circle, signify the Minyan, the ten adults required to perform a ceremony required by traditional Jewish law.  The ground beneath, covered with charred timbers, makes reference to acts of violence and destruction, while the fenced enclosure simultaneously protects, excludes and imprisons.  In this memorial the artist speaks to the question, "How do we give form to absence?"

Created to withstand the ravages of time, the traditional memorial embodies the notion of permanence. It immutable forms fix memory in a specific way, place and time.  In Minyan the artist challenges these conventions.  On view for an extended duration, Reade's memorial invites the weathering of its surfaces - a metaphor for the changing faces of memory and meaning.

The memorial site is often cloistered away from the realities of the present.  In Minyan the act of remembering is brought into the realm of every day life.  Situated between two pedestrian walk ways, Read's memorial beckons our constant engagement, embracing new memories, experiences and meanings we bring to it.

Special funding for the project was provided through the Exhibition Assistance Program of the Canada Council.
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