RE-STORY: WORKS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION
Central Gallery
June 30 to August 25, 2012
Curated by Charo Neville, Kamloops Art Gallery
Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of human communication. The Kamloops Art Gallery’s summer 2012 exhibition, Re-Story: Works from the Permanent Collection, expands upon notions of witnessing explored in the preceding KAG exhibitions this year and imparts a re-vision, re-telling, and re-dress of dominant storylines. The exhibition features a large selection of significant works from the KAG’s permanent collection as well as works borrowed from other institutions and the studios of local artists.
The stories told by the diverse artists in this equally diverse grouping of works offer a re-telling of both personal and historical narratives. In response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s official apology to former students of residential schools, Rebecca Belmore’s video projection, Victorious(2008), depicts an iconic image of Queen Victoria as a majestic Aboriginal woman constructed with newspaper and honey in a performance that is driven by a blasting “God Save the Queen” soundtrack. Artists from the KAG’s collection, including Jane Ash Poitras and Jim Logan, similarly address historical injustices and offer a voice to often silent, yet pervasive, past wrongdoings. Andy Fabo’s HIV Lists (1992) draws on socially transgressive attitudes associated with an experience that is deeply personal. In this way, works by Barbara Astman, and Linda Jules also examine the formation of the social, cultural, and personal self through their portraits. Photographic work by Jin-me Yoon from the permanent collection is expanded upon with recent video work, as a way of showing the progression of the artist’s practice and a re-consideration of diasporic subjectivity in relation to place and the body. Re-Story offers a unique opportunity to bring together key works from the KAG’s collection in dialogue with important works by other national and regional artists.
Generously sponsored by Simmons, Black & Emsland Insurance Services , Radio NL
Pitseolak Ashoona
Childhood Memories – Snow House of My Youth, 1980
handcoloured etching and aquatint on paper
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, Gift of Glenn and Mary Martin
Photo: Kamloops Art Gallery
