WHITE-OUT: BETWEEN TELLING AND LISTENING
Esther Shalev-Gerz
Central Gallery
March 24 to June 16, 2012
Curated by Charo Neville, Annette Hurtig
This exhibition brings together two key works by Esther Shalev-Gerz in the first solo exhibition of her work to be organized in Canada. Born in Lithuania, raised in Israel and a resident of Paris since 1984, Esther Shalev-Gerz is internationally recognized for her investigations into the nature of democracy, citizenship, cultural memory and spatial politics. Additionally, her work persistently challenges traditional notions and practices of portraiture; it considers the portrait’s possibilities within contemporary discourses and the politics of representation.
Made in Sweden, WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening, 2002, presents a portrait of sorts—one comprised of fugitive stories, stories that exist fleetingly between the actual and the fictional, between the imagined and the experienced. Like previous works by Shalev-Gerz, it discloses and dwells on the space between telling and listening. Here, the portrait subject is Åsa Simma, a woman who is both Sami (the indigenous peoples of Northern Sweden, Finland, Norway and Russia) and Swedish. These two cultures have traditionally been (and continue to be) separated by Sweden’s myth making and its official histories. Åsa Simma is shown in her home in Stockholm, as she responds to Shalev-Gerz’s off-screen reading of Sami and Swedish texts, which are mounted on the wall of the Gallery. The texts are from oral and written sources—myths, fiction and other literatures, travel stories, historical and archival materials, and articles from newspapers and magazines from Swedish, Sami and French archives—on topics such as nature, war, love, desire, gender and the role and conditions of women and children. Simma responds by providing an intimate account of her experience growing up in these two cultures. In the other projection on a facing screen, filmed in her place of origin in the far north of Sweden, Åsa Simma attentively and silently listens to her own story.
In addition to the video projections and printed versions of the texts read to Simma, the installation includes a series of photographs showing the vaults of the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, which commissioned this work and where it was first presented. The images offer opaque views of crates and storage areas containing the museum’s collections materials.
WHITE-OUT is accompanied by Shalev-Gerz’s1998-2000 video projection Perpetuum Mobile in which a 10 Franc coin spins in constant motion so that both sides merge into one, just as Åsa Simma's dual identity merges in a unified and perpetually evolving sense of self. A study of a currency replaced by the Euro and thus no longer in use, Perpetuum Mobile reflects upon money’s symbolic value and its role among other economic forces that determine and interconnect national and individual identities.
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Annette Hurtig (1946-2012).
Supported by the Consulate General of France in Vancouver.
Generously sponsored by Radio NL
Installation view of WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening
Photo: Kamloops Art Gallery
WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening
Esther Shalev-Gerz was born in Lithuania, raised in Israel and a resident of Paris since 1984. She is internationally recognized for her investigations into the nature of democracy, citizenship, cultural memory and spatial politics. Additionally, her work persistently challenges traditional notions and practices of portraiture; it considers the portrait’s possibilities within contemporary discourses and the politics of representation.
This full colour publication was produced in conjunction with the solo exhibition Esther Shalev-Gerz | WHITE-OUT: Between Telling and Listening at the Kamloops Art Gallery March 24 to June 16, 2012 and includes reproductions of the works WHITE OUT: Between Telling and Listening and Perpetuum Mobile.
This publication is dedicated to the memory of Annette Hurtig (1946-2012).