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Past Exhibitions: 2007

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12 January to 25 February

Imaging a Shattering Earth:
Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate

Curator: Claude Baillargeon

Opening reception Thursday 11 January at 8 pm

Intended to reaffirm the urgency of a global response to human-induced ecological threats and damages, this exhibition features 56 provocative testimonies by twelve internationally-known photographers, including Edward Burtynsky, John Ganis, Peter Goin, Emmet Gowin, David T. Hanson, Jonathan Long, David Maisel, David McMillan, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, John Pfahl and Mark Ruwedel. The accompanying catalogue includes stunning visuals and texts by Claude Baillargeon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Maia-Mari Sutnik. For more information visit the exhibition’s website at www2.oakland.edu/shatteringearth.

Co-sponsored by the Meadow Brook Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, in collaboration with CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival.

Songs of Praise for the Heart
Beyond Cure

Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby

Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby’s latest video offers a moving yet relentless experience of contemporary life (human and biological) in the face of moral, physical and environmental degradation. As Emily Jones comments in her accompanying essay, the tape is a collage of snippets of nature, webcam-captured cityscapes, cartoon drawings and descriptions of supernatural creatures conceived in laboratories, pieced together with sweetly-sung hymns to dystopian realities.

John Pfahl
Occidental #75, Niagara Falls, New York
1989
chromogenic print

Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby
video still from Songs of Praise for
the Heart Beyond Cure, 2006
image courtesy of the artists

9 March to 22 April

Material Transfer

Curator: Susan Gibson Garvey

Opening reception Thursday 8 March at 8 pm

Works by Paul de Guzman (Vancouver), Laurie Ljubojevic (Beijing), Kristiina Lahde (Toronto), Linh Ly (Calgary) and Peter Schuyff (Amsterdam), present mundane objects that through material interventions and processes shift from a recognizable mode into one less definable, resulting in objects that tend to sit between classifiable things; De Guzman’s “altered books” and Ljubojevic’s “dotted” newspapers lose their purpose as journals or mediums of news; Lahde’s intricately cut business envelopes, Ly’s “tapestried” snapshots and Schuyff’s baroque carved pencils all acquire new aesthetic roles, while retaining traces of their former more utilitarian lives. The exhibition is curated by Susan Gibson Garvey and organized by Dalhousie Art Gallery.

Affecting Presence

Opening Reception Thursday 8 March at 8 pm

Claire Hodge and Melanie Lowe present an experiment in bio-feedback in this technologically innovative work that requires the viewer’s active participation. The installation, located in the new media gallery, uses an IBVA neurofeedback device that receives the participant’s brainwaves and converts them into numbers that, programmed into a computer, have the capacity to alter a projected image. The exhibition continues to 29 April 2007.

Paul de Guzman
Study for whereabouts, 2005 (detail)
image courtesy of the artist

Claire Hodge and Melanie Lowe
Affecting Presence (installation detail)
image courtesy of the artist

11 May to 30 June

Gerald Ferguson

Frottage Work 1994 - 2006
Ash Can paintings 2006

Opening Reception Thursday 10 May at 8 pm

This comprehensive survey presents selections from each series in Gerald Ferguson’s 15-year exploration of “frottage,” including fireback paintings, clothes line abstractions, rod, rope and hose works, drop cloth paintings, and fence and drain cover pieces, among others, culminating in a focused selection of the most recently finished series Ash Can paintings 2006. Ferguson’s frottage process involves placing raw canvas over various mundane objects and rollering paint across the surface; the resultant images are surprisingly rich and iconic, continuing the artist’s critical dialogue with Modernist painting. The exhibition includes 17 works that Ferguson has donated to the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s permanent collection, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue containing the artist’s commentary on the progress of this series. The exhibition is curated by Susan Gibson Garvey and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

and

A walk in the park
Contemporary work from the permanent collection

This exhibition includes mainly three-dimensional works by contemporary Canadian artists Marlene Creates, Nancy Edell, Michael Fernandes, John Greer and Terence Johnson, selected from the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s permanent collection by Susan Gibson Garvey around the theme of “groomed nature.”

Gerald Ferguson
9 Drain Covers, 2006
acrylic enamel on canvas
Photo: Steve Farmer

Nancy Edell
Gemmaria Gemmosa hydriod, 2003
hooked rug (wool on linen), fabric,
oil paint on plywood
Collection: Dalhousie Art Gallery

17 August to 7 October

Actual

Opening Reception | Thursday 16 August at 8 pm

Suzanne Caines, Laura Calvi, Jeanne Ju, Jon Knowles, Ryan Park, Kevin Rodgers and Aaron Schmidt participate in Actual, an exhibition of work by emerging artists with Halifax art roots. Guest Curator Emily Jones (also with Halifax art roots) selected the works with a statement by Sol LeWitt in mind: “Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.” While LeWitt may have been referring specifically to conceptual art, his maxim could well underpin the apparently logical conventions of the larger world. The artists in Actual imaginatively pursue current public, political, social and institutional realities through the use of bizarre video, tangible installations, photography and conceptual works that occupy the gallery space — and beyond. The word actual means “existing in fact or reality” or “occuring at the time,” while l’actualité means “news.” This exhibition, then, questions our perceptions not only of the systems inherent in art culture but also of the world in general.

Ryan Park
It wanted to teach the world to sing
(in perfect harmony)
2006-07 (detail)
collage and coloured pencil on foamcore

19 October to 25 November

Close to You
contemporary textiles, intimacy and popular culture

Opening Reception Thursday 18 October at 8 pm

Guest curated by Sarah Quinton (Senior Curator at the Textile Museum of Canada), this exhibition examines the use of idioms and images from popular culture in the work of contemporary textile artists from Canada and the US. Participating artists Ai Kijima, Scott Kildall, Allyson Mitchell, Mark Newport and Michèle Provost explore popular myth, comic book heroics and contemporary social and sexual mores through their material practices of knitting, appliqué, embroidery and crochet. Their evident skill and craftsmanship acknowledges traditional craft values even as their cultural and critical sensibilities position them within more recent “neo-craft” practices. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by Sarah Quinton, and is organized by Dalhousie Art Gallery to coincide with the international NeoCraft conference to be held in Halifax 23-25 November 2007 (www.neocraft.ca). Presentations by the Curator and some of the participating artists will take place during the exhibition; please contact the Gallery for more information.

Michèle Provost
I'ts Only Rock 'n Roll, 2005-2007
photo: Steve Farmer

Mark Newport
On Watch, 2005
image courtesy of the artist

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