The Globe and Mail

In the 1960s, when the conceptual art movement was in full swing, one of its leading practitioners, artist Sol LeWitt, wrote: "The idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art." Today conceptual art is commonplace, though it still requires that the viewer understand the idea from which the work arose. The most successful works unite concept with form while managing to say something - beyond the work itself - about human nature. Several pieces achieve this in Paulette Phillips's new exhibition called History appears twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, on view at Diaz Contemporary. The idea here involves architecture, specifically the famous modernist villa E 1027, built on the Côte d'Azur by the Irish architect and designer Eileen Gray in collaboration with her lover Jean Badovici in 1929. For this show, Phillips has created a number of thoughtful sculptural works, some photographs and a video. Each piece takes an element from the house and reworks it to convey the tensions of the relationships that mark this iconic building. In doing so, she has managed to fill the space with imagination and elegance, not to mention some highly covetable works.