HISTORY OF THE PRESENT (SELECTED WORKS 1985-2009)
Jayce Salloum
Central Gallery
October 25, 2009 to January 3, 2010
Curated by Jen Budney
Though Vancouver-based artist Jayce Salloum has been exhibiting his work internationally for over twenty-five years, he is well known in Canada primarily for a single body of work, his provocative and compelling video installation everything and nothing and other works from the ongoing videotape, untitled(1999-ongoing). There are many reasons for Salloum’s relatively low profile in his home country, including the non-commercial and interdisciplinary nature of his work (photography and video practices, collaborative, community-based work, and even curating and writing) and its extremely broad international focus. Yet Salloum is one of Canada’s most widely recognized artists abroad, where his distinctive commitment to the exploration of personal stories and viewpoints within unstable or uncertain geo-political contexts has led him to collaborations with individuals and communities in places as far-ranging as Palestine, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Cuba, Lebanon, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Kamloops, and more.
The exhibition Jayce Salloum: history of the present (selected works 1985-2009) is the first retrospective of this important Canadian artist’s career, and includes a number of early works based on appropriated images, the video installation previously mentioned, and works produced during the two-and-a-half year Native Youth Art Workshop series, a collaborative art-making project for Aboriginal youths in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.
Jayce Salloum was born and raised in Kelowna, British Columbia. He has worked in installation, photography, drawing, performance, text and video since 1975, and has also curated exhibitions, conducted workshops and coordinated a vast array of cultural projects. Salloum has exhibited extensively at local and international venues, from small, unnamed storefronts and community centres to institutions such as the Musée du Louvre and Centre Pompidou in Paris, New York Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Canada, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, CaixaForum in Barcelona, 8th Havana Biennial, 7th Sharjah Biennial, 15th Biennale of Sydney, Museum Villa Stuck in Munich, Robert Flaherty Film Seminars, European Media Art Festival, Biennial of Moving Images, and the Geneva and Rotterdam International Film Festivals.
Jayce Salloum: history of the present (selected works 1985-2009) is curated by Jen Budney, Associate Curator at Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, co-produced by Kamloops Art Gallery, Mendel Art Gallery and Confederation Centre Art Gallery, and supported by the Audain Foundation and the Museums Assistance Program, Department of Canadian Heritage. The exhibition tours across Canada in 2010 and 2011.
A full-colour catalogue on the artist’s work with essays by Keith Wallace, Jen Budney and others is available for purchase in The Gallery Store.
Generously sponsored by Black & Emsland Insurance Services, Simmons, CBC Radio One
Jayce Salloum
remembering you (mute pictures), (detail), 1987-88
Courtesy of Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography
history of the present (selected works 1985-2009)
Jayce Salloum is a Canadian artist whose practice encompasses installation, photography, drawing, performance, text and video. Salloum has also curated exhibitions, conducted workshops and coordinated numerous cultural projects. The exhibition history of the present (selected works 1985-2009) was the first retrospective of his work and includes a number of early works based on appropriated images as well as works produced during the Native Youth Art Workshop series, a collaborative art-making project for Indigenous youth in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.
This full-colour publication includes essays by Keith Wallace and Jen Budney with contributions by Ammiel Alcalay, Dana Claxton, Rawi Hage, Jamelie Hassan, Ali Lohan & Irene Loughlin & Bernadette Phan, Meeka Noelle Morgan, Walid Raad & Farid Sarroukh, Haema Sivanesan and Urban Subjects.
This publication is available in the Gallery Store.