On Sunday, Shirley Madill, Executive Director at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery hosted a small group of us on a tour of the gallery’s photography collection. This opportunity came through Mark Walton and the Foto:RE posse.
The TL;DR: KWAG has an amazing whack of Edward Burtynsky work that just blows my hair back.
Snovember.
Ironically, but maybe not surprisingly, this tour of photography was fairly limited in opportunities to make photographs.
Down to the vault with us. Assistant Curator Jennifer Bullock (left) talked us through the work. No photos allowed in the vault. In addition to the Burtynsky photos, there is great work by Michael Snow and Michael Flowmen, and my pal Melissa Doherty.
It was interesting to learn how much of KWAG’s collection is donated. Shirley Madill estimated that 80% of the photography collection was donated, with the remaining 20% being purchased by the gallery.
After the vault tour, we stopped briefly in the Lynne Cohen exhibit on the main level and then…
sat down in the community room…
for a…
critique of work we had brought with us. Photographer Stan Rosenthal (left) shows a print of his two roommates in New York City to Mirko Petricevic. Stan started off in the darkroom at the UN and went on to shoot for Life magazine. Mirko worked at The Waterloo Region Record for 28 years as a photographer and copy editor. There’s nearly a hundred years of photography experience right there.
I had to bail out for other duties halfway through the crit, but was glad to have had the opportunity to…
connect at KWAG. Thanks to Shirley and Jennifer for the tour and Mark Walton and Foto:RE for hooking it up.
Alright Waterloo Region, don’t let this cold weather slow down your cultural explorations. Get out there!
DW