I am super-delighted to be exhibiting my photos at the Laurier Library for their LIFT Series.
The TL;DR: the show opens with a Thu/Oct20/7pm-9pm/free-no-pay reception at the Laurier Library (map) on Albert south of University in Waterloo. You are most warmly invited, dear reader, to join us. Free street parking on Bricker. Please RSVP. My stuff is on the 4th floor.
Our most excellent curator, Suzanne Luke, wrote of the show:
f/1.4 features three local artists who explore the landscape of contemporary photography in very diverse, creative and technical manners to ask much wider societal questions. The narratives presented in each body of work invite viewers to re-evaluate their understanding of the meaning and function of the world around us. Together these artists communicate the nature of the photographic – focusing on the making of the image, rather than the taking of a photograph.
That’s right folks, you get three photographers in this one show. Photography is often a solo pursuit, so we gotta band together where and when we can. I am further delighted to be joined by…
my friends/photographers Stefan Rose and Stephen Orlando, exhibiting on the 5th and 6th floors respectively. Stefan shoots large format film cameras and Stephen does long exposures at night with programmable RGB LEDs. Cool stuff on both counts. And they’re both really nice guys.
There’s more! The Robert Langen Gallery was reborn into a beautiful new home on campus inside the Library. You can check out a heavily instrumented (ahem) piano + projected sound-responsive visualization installation by artists Eve Egoyan and David Rokeby. They lit that up just this past week on Wednesday.
I gotta give a shout out to Suzanne Luke who curates the Langen and created the LIFT Series. I first met Suzanne in 2011 when we were helping out with the BOX11 Art Show in Rumpel Felt. She’s a tireless worker in the art-o-sphere here, doing very difficult and necessary work as a curator. I am grateful to her for this opportunity.
I’ll also thank the Laurier Library under the stewardship of Gohar Ashoughian with a great team including Gord Bertrand and Nick Dinka as they extend and evolve the mandate and work of the library. Just a great bunch of folks there.
So please come to the reception on Oct 20. Come hang out with all of us. It’s a party. There will be food and drinks and good conversation. And please please RSVP.
Click through for a very few more pics…
My statement for this show:
I try to keep my feet on the streets of Waterloo Region. I try to pay close attention. Slow attention. My friend Stefan Rose called it “sustained attention”. And I photograph what I see. Of particular interest are the in-between shots when I’m traveling to or coming from somewhere. The world presents these surreal images rooted in the ordinary. I think of them as my B-sides. My misfits. And to me they are terribly interesting.
I’m presenting these prints thumbtacked to the wall. I don’t want the photographs to be precious; I want them to be accessible. No intermediation. Just like the moments in which I captured the images, these prints are temporary. I love the fact that these are mounted outside the elevator (“lift”, get it?) in a common area. I strongly believe that’s where art works best: where the people are. There are 101 photos because quite honestly there’s a lot going on here that I want to reflect back to the community. It’s not all shiny and happy, but it’s fair and if the work sparks a conversation or induces some reflection on the whole of our community, then it has succeeded.
There are no captions. Or I should say: there were no captions. Suzanne wanted me to write at least something minimal near each image. Friends and family who have seen the installed work noted that the stories I would tell of particular photos they pointed out were as important as the images. So, what to do? I’ve dusted off whatever marginal CSS+javascript skills I have and created a virtual representation of the wall with clickable images that pop up some context for each. I’ll post that on Oct 20th beside the piece, so if you’re checking it out and you’re curious you can look this stuff up on your phone.
Above, Suzanne hung out with David G. White (right, thanks brohemus) and I as we mounted the images at the end of August. It takes longer than you think to pin up 101 prints.
Here’s a time-shift back to last year when the inaugural LIFT show launched. This is Nicholas Taylor aka Krown, talking about his painting. That was a great kick-off and I was so glad Suzanne invited me in. I wrote about it here.
Suzanne and Dave swapping phone photography tips.
That’s it. That’s all I got on this one. The rest is on the wall. I’m putting it down. Are you pickin’ it up?
At Albert and University, this is Waterloo.
DW