ON THE NATURE OF THINGS
Central Gallery
October 15 to December 31, 2011
Curated by Patrik Andersson
To many Canadians the title of this exhibition will bring to mind David Suzuki’s longstanding science and nature television series of a similar name. However, in the context of this art exhibition the title is meant to summon up the words and images created by Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in his epic poem De rerum natura. Its purpose was to explain Epicurean philosophy to Roman audiences in the 1st century BC.
THE ART OF THE CELEBRITY PORTRAIT
Edward Steichen // Yousuf Karsh
Central Gallery
October 15 to December 31, 2011
Curated by Ann Thomas
The aim and the art of the portraitist who works with a camera are not merely to produce a likeness but to reveal the mind and the soul behind the human face. When I have had the opportunity of studying those who have left their mark upon our time, I have tried to focus my camera on that quality which has made my subjects stand out from among their contemporaries. I have always been in quest of a secret, for that quality is elusive, indefinable. — Yousuf Karsh in Portraits of Greatness
THE BONES
Tara Look
The Cube
September 17 to October 29, 2011
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
The Cube is transformed into a projection room for Tara Look’s The Bones. Look explores her family history through a digitally recorded performance of herself playing a Celtic instrument called the bones. The instrument was one of the few creative endeavours passed on to the artist by her father who valued hard work and utilitarian skills over creativity and artistry. The movement required to play this instrument and the framing of the work draw the viewer in while the practice of playing the music serves as a reminder of the artist’s father and a way of dealing with grief after his passing in 2009. Look blends traditional with contemporary music playing along to country songs on the artist’s MP3 player.
GLOBAL NATURE
Lorraine Gilbert // Sarah Anne Johnson
Central Gallery
June 11 to September 3, 2011
The unique art of Winnipeg’s Sarah Anne Johnson come into being through personal memories and histories. Pieces in the KAG show include work inspired by a 12-day-expedition to the Arctic Circle. Johnson has been a featured artist at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. In 2008, Johnson’s work earned her the Grange Prize for photography. She is a graduate of the University of Manitoba Fine Arts program and a holds Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale.
SUBLIME MOMENTS
Victor Hamm
Central Gallery
June 11 to September 3, 2011
Curated by Jann LM Bailey
The exhibition of photographs by Kamloops artist Victor Hamm can be scrutinized from many different perspectives—technically, spiritually, politically and aesthetically. They are images of architectural or natural elements which can function on a more personal level as metaphors for subjective experience. Like the cracking and crumbling surface of the work in the Kamloops Art Gallery’s permanent collection, The Men’s Residence, Tranquille, these exquisite and overtly detailed images imply a certain fragility and vulnerability. To those of us living in the Thompson/Nicola region of British Columbia the images are deeply authentic.
CURATOR’S CHOICE
Eric Fagervik
The Cube
June 11 to September 3, 2011
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
Curator’s Choice is the seventh annual exhibition of work by students graduating from Thompson Rivers University. Selected by Kamloops Art Gallery Assistant Curator Craig Willms, Curator’s Choice highlights some of the talent from TRU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts graduating class. Eric Fagervik’s installation is the second version of an actual camper recreated for The Cube at the Kamloops Art Gallery. The work draws attention to sensory experiences and physical awareness of the body’s position in space. Sitting down, opening an overhead compartment and simply entering the space triggers different actions within the camper.
ALMOST EVERYTHING
Karla Griffin
The Cube
March 26 to May 28, 2011
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
Almost Everything is an exhibition of Griffin’s large scale drawings examining the relationship between individuals and the consumer objects they surround themselves with. The drawings function similar to advertisements, isolating the objects and presenting them as goods of want, desire and consumption. Most of the items are common household objects. Others are luxury items connected to status or the desire to satisfy a particular need. The exhibition is an opportunity for viewers to contemplate how they value, respond to and build relationships with the things around them. Whether conscious of it or not, all of these items build on individual and social identity.
THE OPTIMISM OF COLOUR: WILLIAM PEREHUDOFF, A RETROSPECTIVE
William Perehudoff
Central Gallery
March 26 to May 28, 2011
Curated by Karen Wilkin
For six decades, since his first solo exhibition in 1950, William Perehudoff has been regarded as a leading Canadian artist and one of the most influential abstract painters in Western Canada.
FAMILIAR TERRITORY
A.Y. Jackson // Ted Smith
Central Gallery
March 26 to May 28, 2011
Curated by Jann LM Bailey
Visions of our dynamic land are scored deep in the heart and mind of every Canadian. Artists from coast to coast to coast have captured many of those very Canadian images in their work.
RANGE: MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK PHOTOGRAPHS
Mike Andrew McLean
The Cube
March 26 to May 28, 2011
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
The large format photographs presented in McLean’s Range reflect on the Rocky Mountain National parks and their role in shaping the identity of Western Canadians. The Rockies provide a myriad of industrial opportunity, employment and recreation for tens of thousands of Canadians. Every year, it draws more and more admiring tourists from around the world. Canada’s National park system is vital to the protection and conservation of the region. McLean’s work follows in the tradition of historical mountain photography, capturing the natural beauty of these spectacular ranges and documenting human alterations to the terrain. The exhibition looks at our mountain National Parks in an attempt to better understand their complexities and provide a contemporary perspective on the changing roles and usage of these mountain landscapes.
HIS LIFE’S WORK
Bob Boyer
Central Gallery
January 15 to March 12, 2011
In 2004 just before Bob Boyer’s death, Kamloops Art Gallery added one of his most significant works to its permanent collection. The Gallery is honoured that Boyer’s Just Another Indian Cowgirl in Iraq has been selected to be part of the celebrated national touring exhibition Bob Boyer: His Life’s Work.
CONSTRUCTION SITES: IDENTITY AND PLACE
Diyan Achjadi // Rebecca Belmore // Therese Bolliger // Dana Claxton // Allyson Clay // Andy Fabo // Leon Golub // Angela Grossmann // Shelagh Keeley // Jim Logan // Ken Lum // Takashi Murakami // Nhan Duc Nguyen // Manuel Pina // Philippe Raphanel // Brendan Lee Satish Tang // Jeff Thomas // Henry Tsang // Jin-me Yoon // Sharyn Yuen
Central Gallery
October 18 to December 31, 2010
Curated by Craig Willms, Annette Hurtig
The Construction Sites: Identity and Place exhibition presents works by contemporary artists who investigate and reflect on the social construction of identity and the production of social space. Made over the past several decades, the works in the exhibition respond to developments in feminist, gender, queer and postcolonial theories. The exhibition concept takes a cue from Henri Lefebvre’s thinking about alienation and modernity, the nature of society, and social revolution as a revolution in everyday life. In his writing Lefebrve speaks about producing one’s life as one would a work. Might we likewise produce our own identity? Or is identity determined by society? And, with the dramatic mobility of information, goods and people aimed for by corporate globalization strategies, what is the relationship between our identity and the places we inhabit?
HAPA FAMILY
Jana Sasaki
Central Gallery
September 18 to November 6, 2010
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
This body of work by Jana Sasaki explores experiences and memories of ‘mixed’ cultural upbringing in Canada. It reflects upon the experience of being half Japanese and investigates how people of mixed cultural heritage view themselves and are viewed by others, an experience relevant to more and more Canadians.In particular, Sasaki is interested in words such as hapa andhafu that are increasingly used to define mixed cultures. The word hafu is used in Japanese to refer to somebody who is ethnically half Japanese. The label emerged in the 1970s in Japan and is now the most commonly used label and preferred term of self-definition. The word hafu comes from the English word ’half,’ indicating half foreign-ness. Hapa is slang for a person of mixed ethnic heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry.
CURATOR’S CHOICE
Kate Garrett-Petts // Melanie Perreault
The Cube
June 12 to September 11, 2010
Curated by Craig Willms, Kamloops Art Gallery
This summer marks the sixth annual exhibition of work by graduating students from Thompson Rivers University. Selected by Kamloops Art Gallery Assistant Curator Craig Willms, the works in Curator’s Choice highlight emerging talent from TRU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts 2010 graduating class. Students at TRU graduate with a wide variety of specialties, including ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, painting, photography and installation. This year’s exhibition features installations by Kate Garrett-Petts and Melanie Perreault. Like previous Curator’s Choice exhibitions, this is not so much a ‘best of’ show, but rather one united by thematic and aesthetic threads running through the work of these two emerging artists.
KLATSASSIN
Stan Douglas
Central Gallery
June 7 to September 4, 2010
Curated by Annette Hurtig
Internationally renowned Vancouver-based artist Stan Douglas has shown his work at and had it collected by prestigious institutions around the world. His photographs and projections are celebrated not only for their conceptual acuity and formal precision but also for how they continually extend the possibilities of film and video, and art itself. Klatsassin defies the official version of events leading to the Chilcotin War of 1864 by focussing on the story of a Tsilhqot’in chief who was accused of murder, tried and executed. Set in B.C.’s Cariboo-Chilcotin region, it depicts events related to gold rush efforts to build a road through Tsilhqot’in territory to the gold fields and the First Nations insurgency in response. Current events in the region echo those of the earlier conflict between aboriginal and colonialist interests. Klatsassin is composed of three elements: a filmic projection, a series of photographic portraits of characters from the film, and a series of landscape or location photographs.
TRUTH OR FICTION?
Doug Buis // Rodney Graham // Kent Monkman // Carol Sawyer // Camille Turner
Central Gallery
April 6 to May 22, 2010
The group exhibition TRUTH or FICTION? brings together various sorts of contemporary art by five contributing artists from near and far: Doug Buis (Knutsford/Kamloops), Rodney Graham (Vancouver), Kent Monkman (Toronto), Carol Sawyer (Vancouver) and Camille Turner (Toronto). The gathered art works share certain attributes: they refer to history and historical narratives, past, present and future; they include historical figures, but also little known, dubious and perhaps fictional characters; and, despite being about the past, present and future, they are more interested in representation than in mimesis—rather than mimic reality they represent it, with all its ambiguities and uncertainties.
HOW TO GET THINGS DONE
Jordan Schwab
The Cube
April 3 to May 22, 2010
How to Get Things Done explores our constructed environment. Jordan Schwab’s sculptures resemble architectural models, but instead of completed structures they show partially completed projects. The sculptures, drawings and photos in this exhibition capture constructions in progress. The depicted work sites are in transition. Artworks might be plans for future projects or documentation of past endeavours. Other objects are devices temporarily utilised to assist the building process and improve the efficiency of labour. Frame walls stand bare on a garage renovation. The wood shell of a hotel on stilts is not yet completed. Schwab explores the engineering of these labour saving devices and their efficiency in the process of construction.
TWO VISIONS
Emily Carr // Jack Shadbolt
Central Gallery
January 23 to March 21, 2010
Two Visions: Emily Carr and Jack Shadbolt examines the important relationship between two of British Columbia’s most celebrated artists. Carr’s paintings and sketches of west coast forests and First Nations communities have shaped BC’s visual identity and continue to be deeply influential for artists in the region. Jack Shadbolt, who came to Canada as a young child, was among the artists inspired by Carr. He responded enthusiastically to British Columbia’s natural setting, which he rendered according to the modernist trends of twentieth century art. By examining points of similarity and difference between the two artists, Two Visions reveals Shadbolt’s struggle to find a unique artistic voice, while acknowledging Carr’s influential role in the art of this province. The exhibition also celebrates Shadbolt’s significant contribution to Canadian painting on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
ALONG THOSE LINES
Megs Waterous // Myrna Giesbrecht
The Cube
January 16 to March 21, 2010
Megs Waterous
Myrna Giesbrecht
Along Those Lines brings together two bodies of work exploring use of line. Myrna Giesbrecht’s Lingering Lines comprises textile works focussing on the horizontal line. She explores colour, form and texture through various textile techniques and presents the pieces like paintings, mounted on canvas stretchers and hung on the gallery walls. Megs Waterous’ Path of a Line consists of ceramic works in the form of wall-hung tiles and tall sculptural vessels. In these works she emphasizes flowing lines with a vertical orientation. Although both artists utilize materials basic to their individual art practices, they considered each other’s work in the development of this exhibition.
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.