Archives 1987 ()

8 - 19 December 1987

(Camera Obscura No.2 detail No.1, 1984)

(Untitled, From the Series Babylonian Journal (Small New York Suite) Detail No.6, 1982)

15 November - 6 December 1987

(The Hon. Grant Devine, 1986)

Unofficial Portraits is an exhibition of 60 political self-portraits produced by Toronto photographer Andrew Danson. The exhibition is both a cultural document of our time and an innovation in the long history of portraiture. With subjects ranging from Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to Calgary Mayor Ralph Klein, from Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa to Yukon MP Margaret Joe, Danson has assembled a compelling look at Canadian elected officials. In the process, he has challenged the “official school” of photography.
The artist described the (self) portrait sessions: “…(I) enter each subject’s office environment and select a revealing section which becomes a biographical backdrop in the portrait scene. When camera and lighting are ready. each subject is left alone with an electronic shutter-release cable attached to a motorized camera. Subjects are given an entirely free rein in the manner in which they choose to photograph themselves. The results have been diverse with many subjects creating self-portraits possessing humour, ingenuity and occasionally outrage.”

27 October - 13 November 1987

Colour Photo Documentary

6 October - 24 October 1987

15 September - 3 October 1987

There is a neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, that has beckoned Nomi Kaplan away from her home in Vancouver repeatedly since 1983. This neighbourhood, bordering Manhattan, is home to an ethnically mixed working class, whose homes, shops and schools are thickly covered with graffiti. Kaplan has been going to Lower Park Slopes to photograph these surfaces, and then, back in her Vancouver studio, to transform them into imaginary tableaux. Her photo-collages combine paintings and sculptures of the past–previous to the 17th century–with graffiti of the present, setting up unexpected affinities between those vastly different cultures, places and times. The ironic undertones comment on contemporary views of politics, religion, love and money. “Brooklyn Illuminations” will be shown at Floating Gallery from September 15th to October 3rd.

25 August - 12 September 1987

When I asked what his concerns were, he said that they were about making pictures. He also said that they were about being photographed. Then he added that it was about doing both at the same time. He was really stating that he wanted to participate in the very difficult.
One evening not long ago, while discussing his mother’s will, he lamented that he had not really known her and this astonished him since he would always hope to know the person whose body he had shared.
His father who was not a detective had left a trail that had produced answers and this made feel better, Half-brother and half-sisters seem better informed.
He continued to struggle with the question trying to convince himself that while photographs had no claim on truthfulness, the resemblance was striking.       -Garry Greenwood

3 - 23 August 1987

(Untitled, 1984)

23 June - 12 July 1987

Diane Boa

Robert Burcher

Manfred Buchheit

2 -21 June 1987

12 - 30 May 1987

(Jealousy, 1927)

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was born in Hungary in 1895. He was primarily a painter, but was also a sculptor, graphic artist, typographer, filmmaker and photographer. He was a designer of stage sets and exhibitions, as well as a commercial and industrial designer, teacher and author. In 1920 he moved to Berlin via Vienna and became involved in the Dadaist and Constructivist movements. When the Nazis forced him to leave Germany, he emigrated to Holland, then to England and eventually settled in Chicago.
Moholy-Nagy began experimental photography by producing photograms. He then began to work on photomontages. Because of their kinship to Constructivism, he called them “Fotoplastiken,” meaning photosculptures. Inspired by Dadism as well as by Constructivism, these photomontages made ironic intellectual statements, often attacking cultural and political issues.
In order to understand Moholy-Nagy’s camera work, one must keep in mind that Moholy-Nagy started using a camera only some time after his work with photograms and photomontages. In fact, the photographs can be considered the result of a ‘realistic’ application of the two other techniques. Moholy’s camera work did not produce ‘pictures’  in the conventional concept of art photography. He used the unexpected and elements of alienation to provoke a particular awareness of the subjective point of view. This psychological perception is brought about by exchanging positive against negative images or, say, by reducing an objective realism to structures composed of light and forms, or through changes in the perspectives by photographing from above, below, or from another unexpected angle, or by making something small appear large and something large appear small. For decades, the visual humor and the wealth of ideas found in Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s photographs have influenced experimental photography.