InSight Part II
Opening Reception: May 16, 2013, 7 p.m.
May 16 – 26, 2013
Gallery 1313
1313 Queen St. West 

Another didactic exhibition by members of Gallery 44 opened on May 16 . The warm weather encouraged a large visitor presence boosted by artists.

In this two-part exhibition, 30 members of artist-run Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography use a variety of styles and approaches, including digital and chemistry-based processes, to share their conscious and subconscious understanding of the world around and within.

Dennis Duncan, Shifting Number 3, 2013

Whether seeing into underlying truths or perceiving new associations, the artists in InSight share a unique range of vision.

Staff from Gallery 44 also showed up to help celebrate the reception for these 15 photographers.

Text and photo: Phil Anderson

Banal Baroque by Elizabeth Zvonar
Opening Reception: May 15,2013, 6 – 8 p.m.
May 15 – June 15, 2013
Daniel Faria Gallery
188 St Helens Ave

Banal Baroque is Vancouver-based Elizabeth Zvonar’s first solo exhibition in Toronto, featuring prints of the artist’s collage work, as well as her sculptures.

Elizabeth Zvonar with her work

Blending content from contemporary fashion and science magazines with themes and imagery pulled from historical lifestyle monthlies, Zvonar alters her source material to make images that are strange enough to invite closer contemplation.

Elizabeth Zvonar, Blind Love, 2012

The exhibition engages a conversation about daydreaming and history, the future and metaphysics, light humour, sex, and other complications. Zvonar continues to explore themes of the unknown and the possibility of something more.

The most interesting abstraction leaves room enough for metaphor; or maybe the most interesting metaphor leaves room enough for abstraction.

Photo: Fox Martindale

This past weekend, The Bikeriders at the Stephen Bulger Gallery drew in an assortment of visitors from art consoeurs exploring the fruits of CONTACT, passer byers curious of the hype, and fans of motorcycles and biker culture. According to artist Danny Lyon himself, the photographs in this exhibition were “an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider.” However, this statement is simplifying Lyon’s accomplishments in this body of work. Surpassing mere glorification, Lyon captured the surprisingly humanist nature of the biker counterculture revolution during the 1960s. During this time, Lyon became a member of the Chicago Outlaws motorcycle club and traveled alongside them, sharing their lifestyle. As a result, The Bikeriders encapsulate a more tender side of the rebel group because Lyon was able to get close to the gang in a way others had not been able to. As Martin Parr remarked, The Bikeriders offers an authentic voice about its subjects, “understanding instinctively not only their hopes and aspirations, but also why they were rebelling against all kinds of adult authority.” In this body of work, Lyon exposes the complexity and intimacy within the biker culture by humanizing the individuals in the group and shedding their vicious associations without taking the edge off their badass aura.

Danny Lyon,Funny Sunny Packing with Zipco, Milwaukee 1966. Copyright Dektol@wordpress.com Courtesy of Etherton Gallery, Tucson

In each image, Lyon demonstrates that the general presumptions surrounding biker gangs are not as clear cut as most would believe them to be. Funny Sunny Packing with Zipco, Milwaukee (1966), depicts a Hell’s Angel biker enthusiastically riding on the same bike as an Outlaw driver. Popular culture would lead many to believe that these two gangs were rival gangs. Many viewers attending the opening began questioning their own knowledge of biker culture upon seeing this image, wondering if they were mistaken or if special circumstances allowed this encounter. No simple answers were provided in the gallery, leaving the visual message that in this moment that Lyon captured, their comradely exceeded any bad blood which may have existed.

Danny Lyon, Racer, Schereville, Indiana, 1965. © Danny Lyon / Courtesy of Etherton Gallery, Tucson, and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

Another triumph in this series was Lyon’s ability to successful reveal the underlying innocence within many of his subjects. Racer, Schereville, Indiana (1965) features a young man holding his bike after having ridden through a muddy terrain. At first glance, the black and white image creates the illusion that the mud on the man’s face are splatters of blood – similar to the gruesome images found in so many Hollywood films about bikers. Upon further examination, details within the photograph demonstrate that this is a rather wholesome scene. The man’s white smile shining through his dirtied face shows his boyish charm, playful features, and sincere enjoyment through riding.

Danny Lyon, Route 90, Alabama, 1964. Copyright Dektol@wordpress.com Courtesy of Etherton Gallery, Tucson

As the only work in the exhibition that doesn’t feature a human subject, Route 90, Alabama (1964) possesses many symbols that offer insight towards Lyon’s idea of biker philosophy. The photograph depicts the wide open space that many have dreamed of with majestic clouds rolling in the sky and a light gleaming from over the horizon. In the corner, bikes stand as a celebration of freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture and unity within the group. The silhouettes of the electrical poles that adorn the American landscape resemble rows of crosses, suggesting that this lifestyle is their religion and salvation. The lack of human presence further suggests that this evocative and sublime landscape represents something larger than the individuals within the culture.

Stephen Bulger Gallery owner Stephen Bulger (left) and artists Danny Lyon at the Reception. Photo: Shellie Zhang 

Much like Hunter S. Thompson’s Hells Angels, The Bikeriders explores the seductive realm of the biker subculture with a different conclusion than those depicted in popular culture. Lyon offers a romantic insight towards the classic American outlaw and maintains their integrity with signs of compassion. In many ways, Lyon acts as a spokesman for his friends and comrades. By documenting their journeys and re- presenting their way of life to the public, Lyon brings forth evidence that perhaps these individuals do not deserve the negative image that they have been affiliated with.

Shellie Zhang

*Note: The exhibition runs from May 11 – June 15, 2013 at the Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen Street West. Hours: Tue – Sat 11 – 6 p.m.

Installation view. Photo: Alice Tallman

Distilling a digestible exhibition from such an extensive archive is a daunting task, but Prus bravely approaches the dizzying diversity by working with it rather than against it. The 198 photos hang on rich, aubergine walls, divided into clusters of as few as four and as many as over two dozen. Avoiding any obvious chronological organization, each grouping is a mix-and-match of images from various periods, sometimes loosely linked by technique or style, other times by theme. The photos in each cluster are arranged in a free-form salon style, spurring the eye to dart playfully and spontaneously from one picture to another.

Bertha Jaques (American), Plant Study, Cyanotype, c. 1910 (left) and Dorothy Wilding (British), Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Silver Gelatin Print, c. 1954 (right)

The exhibition places each archival photograph in a fresh context, side-by-side with images from other times and other places. The meaning of an image is never stable, its signification always dependent on its context. This show stages a wealth of chance meetings between pictures of remote subjects, reanimating the images and making them signify in unexpected ways. In one grouping, Bertha Jacques’ plant study cyanotypes (c.1910) appear next to society photographer Dorothy Wielding’s picture of Queen Elizabeth (1954). In another cluster of photos, a texturally captivating shot of lentils by Aleksandr Khlebnikov (c.1930) is shown near a somber picture of fellow Russian Kasimir Malevich’s last moments (1935).Each of these imaginatively grouped clusters of photos is a fountainhead of associations and clashes – between the mundane and the extraordinary, between nature and technology, and among divergent times, places, and peoples.

Maxwell R. Hayes (Australian), Duk-Duk members, Silver gelatin print, 1964

The AMC declares as its task to engage with and constantly reassess the legacy of the incoming photographic stream – but it does just as well engaging with and reassessing the nature of photography itself. A photographic image is partly the result of a mechanical process that makes an indexical recording the world beyond the viewfinder. But the photograph is also an interpretation of reality by the photographer, who chooses, frames and manipulates that outside world. The indexical quality of photography makes it an appealing medium for objective record-making for diverse purposes, from judicial to scientific. Paul-Émile Miot’s Mi’Kmaq woman, Newfoundland (c. 1859) places emphasis on the factuality of the photographed subject, conceiving the photograph as objective material for ethnographic knowledge.

Paul-Émile Miot, Mi’Kmaq woman, Newfoundland c. 1859

But hanging nearby is Frank Coster’s Spirit photograph(1890), in which three ghostly busts hover over a seated portrait of a woman. This manipulated photograph deviates from factual recording, moving toward an image-making that makes the agency of the photographer more visible. As a reflection on the nature of the photographic medium, this exhibition makes evident the tension between objective recording and subjective interpretation that characterizes photography, which never escapes its indexical essence but which is also boundless in creative possibilities.

Frank Coster (American), Spirit photograph, Cyanotype, c. 1890

The immersive environment of this exhibition produces a hyperawareness of time and its relentless drive forward. Susan Sontag called the photograph a memento mori, a reminder of the mortality and mutability of the depicted subject. The photograph foregrounds the captured moment as something that has passed and no longer is; but it is paradoxically also a slice in time preserved, each viewing bringing the past back from the dead into a confrontation with the present. This is evident in a picture of two Nepalese women taken in 1890 by an unknown photographer. Though the image documents a historical moment that has long passed, the gaze of the two women stare out at the viewer and creates a connection that sustains the subjects’ presence in moment of encounter with the image. This provocative tension between presence and absence pervades the viewing of many of the photographs in this exhibition, lending the experience an eerie but poignant uncanniness.

Commissariat à l’énergie atomique DAM (French), Atomic trial on Mururoa atoll, Tahiti, Colour print, 1970

The show comes to a vivid close with a bang, culminating in a group of photographs linked by the themes of fire, burning, eruptions, and explosions. Taking in the last of the pictures, no neatly packaged grand narratives come to mind. What surfaces instead are myriad stories of diverse peoples and the worlds they live in and create around themselves. And whether the exhibition’s self-reflexive look at the multi-faceted nature of photography has complicated or clarified our understanding of the medium, we’ll likely start looking at photographs a little differently after. Collected Shadows makes for a mind-jogging primer to the CONTACT festival, before one gets cracking on the other one hundred plus photography shows.

Amy Luo

Sebastião Salgado, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska, 2009, © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images

This exhibition, a primary exhibition for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, marks Salgado’s first exhibition in Canada. Although some of the photographs in the show were taken in Canada, the opening of the exhibition marked the photographer’s first visit to Toronto. Salgado thinks Canada is a marvelous country; however, what he finds most marvelous about Canada are places that are foreign to most Canadians living in the country’s major cities.

Sebastião Salgado, Iceberg Castle between Paulet Islands and the South Shetland Islands on Weddeil Sea, 2005, © Sebastião Salgado

The exhibition is divided into two gallery spaces. The first gallery displays the themes of Sanctuaries, Amazonia and Pantanal, and Northern Spaces. The walls are painted green, blue, and grey, calling to mind the earth, water, and ice that these images depict. The second installation contains work from the southern hemisphere, and the other is dedicated to photographs of Africa. The photographs in Planet South are set against slate grey walls like that of the rock of the Patagonian mountains. Africa is emphasized by red, like the harsh sun on the Sahara desert.

Viewers move about this exhibition in the kind of silence one experiences walking through a Gothic Cathedral. The sublime scenes and moments Salgado has captured overwhelm all visitors. All of his photographs are black and white, yet they have the same richness of the most vivid colour photograph. With the absence of colour, the viewer’s eyes are entranced by the rich textures and minute details of the landscapes, people, and animals.

Sebastião Salgado, Bay Madagascar, Baobab Tress. Bay of Moramba, 2010. © Sebastião Salgado

Salgado’s photographs of remote, unspoiled landscapes are far beyond what we think the world looks like. His photographs of landscapes take the viewers across mountains and deserts, through lush rainforests to the artic tundra. Salgado brings together an excellent survey of the beauty of the planet. In many cases these landscapes appear to be alien and surreal places. When looking up close, some photographs appear to be a haze of dust, but when standing back, one sees all the pigments come together to create to the most detailed scenes.

Sebastião Salgado, South Sudan, From Africa, the Dinkas, 2006. © Sebastião Salgado

Salgado’s landscapes are illuminated with the most incredible light. He uses the natural light to emphasize the beauty of the landscapes. The light is used like a carving tool creating fantastic depth and allowing the viewer’s eye to travel as if for miles through the photographs.

Sebastião Salgado, Yali women at rest, West Papua, Indonesia, 2010, © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas images

Salgado executed many photographs of people. When searching for people who embodied the ideas behind Genesis, Salgado was looking for people “where they live unhurried lives in communion with nature.” During the eight years creating Genesis, Salgado spent time with and photographed a multitude of communities in remote places and followed their ancestral traditions. These photographs are not representations of “others” or primitive societies, but rather a presentation of an alternative to the western capitalist way of life and thinking. Salgado shot both portraits of individuals and from the daily lives of those people. With his portraits, the detail is so exquisite one feels as if they could stroke the feather headdresses, feel the paint on their faces and bodies, or touch the soft fur.

Sebastião Salgado, The Upper Xingu Indians. Brazil, 2005 © Sebastião Salgado

While Salgado has already won a number of awards for his photographs of people, animals are a new subject in Salgado’s work. After so many years of capturing the beauty of people, Salgado has captured animals with an elegance that is equal to that in his photographs of people. In his study of animals from around the world, Salgado captures their sensibility and intelligence.

Working back towards Genesis is the most progressive thing our society can do for the planet, yet the likelihood of this occurring is remote. With modernization, industrialization, and globalization, photo records such as Salgado’s are stark reminders of how much we have to lose if we don’t protect what is truly important.

Alice Tallman

*Note: The show is open till September 2, 2013 at the Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park. Hours: Mon–Sun, 10 – 5:30, Fri, 10 – 8:30 p.m.

This is the first time his work for Contact has been assembled as a retrospective, displaying over a decade of his work. Bonnie Rubenstein, the artistic director for Contact, curated Penumbra.

Adrew Wright, in front of his work After Kurelek, 2013

The experience of Wright’s work is delightfully disorienting. The eye travels through incredible photographic details, out of focus hazes, and flat, non-reflective surfaces. Upon entering the space the viewer is struck by Nox Borealis, a freestanding photographic sculpture. Wright studied sculpture before turning to the photographic medium. This work has departed from the traditional domain of the wall and has entered into the direct vicinity. The work challenges viewers to maneuver around and through these two representations of an inverted artic sky. Wright has created a unique perspective of a landscape. This work is separated into two prints placed on plywood and standing freely within the gallery space. The shape of Nox Borealis, as well as Still Water resembles that of minimalist sculpture. Despite this likeness, his play of the crisp white snow set against a flat black sky set in an elongated space, has a more stupefying effect upon the viewer.

Andrew Wright, Nox Borealis, 2012

 Wright has used a range of photographic technologies that expand across the history of photography, from the sixteenth century device of the camera obscura to the iPhone Apps of today. Although Wright has used both traditional and contemporary photographic technologies his works are not photographs in our traditional sense of the medium. He makes direct reference to proto-photographic techniques, he then appropriates these methods and interfaces them with modern technologies. The artist’s historical investigation of photography illustrates ways in which technology has changed how we view the world. This reference to the history of photography is made in works such as When Buildings Take Pictures Themselves, created using a camera obscura, the first photographic apparatus conceived in the Renaissance.

When Buildings Take Pictures Themselves, 2013

The works entitled Photogenic Drawings XXI, XXII, pay homage to the roots of photographic techniques, but were made using an Iphone app. Aided Drawing 1;2, are drawings created by using the 19^th century device the camera lucida.

Visitor looking through a Camera Lucida

The apparatus was incorporated into the exhibition for visitors to look through, offering many ways of seeing. Wright plays upon the historical conventions of photography and turns them upside down.

Andrew Wright, Photogenic Drawing, Antique Clouds, Prairie,2011

Wright’s work effectively raises the questions: “where is the photographer? Where is the photography?” His response is through ambivalence to the subject matter of his work. He removes himself as photographer when creating the camera-less images Coronae 1;2.

Andrew Wright, Coronae 2, detail, 2011

They are created by puncturing old film. These works have the appearance of astronomical specimens. Box of Fifty are works made from expired film that have been left on a windowsill for a number of weeks. The works were then printed on out of production photo paper. The viewer feels uncertainty to what they are looking at with many of these pieces.

Installation view with Andrew Wright, Tree correction series, 2013 (right)

Wright’s work challenges its viewers to make sense of what they are looking at. His work asks its viewers to rummage through their visual vocabulary to make logical sense of these new ways of looking. Wright describes his work as “multi-tiered inquiries into the nature of perception, photographic structures, and technologies.” Wright’s work reflects his “interest in what makes a photograph and what makes a photographic experience.” In pursuit of the answers to these questions, the artist has abstracted and isolated the principles of the medium, and presented new ways of thinking about photography. 

The show is open till June 29, 2013 at UTAC, 15 King’s College Circle. Hours: Tue – Fri, 12 – 5, Wed, 12 – 8, Sat, 12 – 4 p.m.

Text and photo: Alice Tallman

The Girl Document by Edith Maybin
Opening Reception: May 10, 2013, 6 – 9 p.m.
May 11 – June 8, 2013
O’Born Contemporary
131 Ossington Ave

From left to right: Artist Edith Maybin, O’Born Contemporary founder Donald E. O’Born and Assistant Director of the O’Born Gallery Rachel Anne Farquharson.

O’Born Contemporary created a magical escape on a cold and rainy Friday evening. The large, and diverse, crowd hovered around the photographs with enthusiasm. Departing from her previous series, The Garden Document, The Girl Document displays an abstract space between girl/woman, mother/daughter.

Installation view with Edith Maybin, The Girl Document, Untitled #4, 2013 

With vibrant eye-catching colors, and a variety of textures (hair, glass, cake, skin, flowers, rocks/minerals, etc) the photographs are undeniably captivating. Maybin’s work leaves her vulnerable to her audience because she is giving us a window into her life/family; however, she gives her audience room to gain an understanding of themselves as a result of experiencing her work.

Edith Maybin, The Girl Document: Untitled #2, 2013, C-Print, 27 x 36 inches.

Personally, I had several visceral reactions to Maybin’s work and it conjured up memories I had of my growth from a girl into a woman. I could relate to the themes of fear, pain, excitement, and wonder. Each time I looked at the photographs I discovered (and sometimes startled by) new elements I had initially missed.

Edith Maybin, The Girl Document: Untitled #1, 2013, C-Print, 60 x 90 inches.

She leaves her audience with not only visually stunning photographs, but a space for exploration and inquiry.

Text and photo: Leanne Semaan

I Was Already Lost by Botto + Bruno
Opening Reception: May 8, 6 – 9, 2013
May  8 – June 29, 2012
Pari Nadimi Gallery
254 Niagara Street

Installation view. Photo: Fox Martindale

For their exhibition at Pari Nadimi Gallery, internationally acclaimed Italian duo artists  Botto+ Bruno present an installation of a large wallpaper, as the center piece of the exhibition, made out of A3 sized photocopies.

Photo: Veronica Scarpati

The photocopies start with a text (a text cut up from Ballard’s Kingdom Come) and then develop into drawings and finally in black and white photography.  A number of small works with grey background and white framed, made of a drawing and a photo collage, are placed over the wallpaper.

Botto + Bruno, Lost Time I., 2013,  graphite, white pencil, photographic collage on cardboard collage, 12 x 13 inches. Photo: Fox Martindale

The installation also includes 3 large photographs. Every A3 and large photographs contains Botto + Bruno’s investigations of marginal places that are photographed, selected, archived, assembled, photocopied by the artists to make the final collage. 

Pari Nadimi Gallery owner Pari Nadimi (right) with a visitor in front of the  larger images. Photo: Veronica Scarpati

Unfottunately the artists didn’t attend the opening reception but many photography lover attended it, Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, among them.

Phot0: Fox Martindale

I Shop / David Hlynsky
Opening Reception: May 4, 2013, 3 – 7 p.m.
May 4 – June 1, 2013
De Luca Fine Art Gallery
217 Avenue Rd N

Between 1986 and 1990, Canadian-American artist David Hlynsky made four photography trips to regions still within the Soviet sphere of influence. During these final years of the Cold War, he sought to document the similarities between people living under powerful yet opposing political ideologies.

De Luca Fine Art Gallery owner Corrado De Luca, artists David Hlynsky, gallery assistant Laura Keeler-Lavin and gallery co-director Walter Willems

If we believe only the propaganda produced by Washington, Hollywood, and Moscow, the Cold War was a battle over fundamental freedoms and the rational distribution of wealth. In Hlynsky’s view, the battle was also about differing versions of our human connection to the material world.

David Hlynsky, Three loaves of bread, Krakow, Poland 1988

David Hlynky, Military Shirts, Moscow, 1990

This exhibition illustrates a lost alternative to the unfettered marketplace. Depicting stripped-down window displays and simple graphics, the advertising photographed by Hlynsky uses a visual language reduced to its most bare function: the labelling of merchandise for its utility.

Photo: Alice Tallman

SCHATZBERG by Jerry Schatzberg
Opening Reception: May 4, 12 – 6 p.m. Artist present 2 – 4 p.m.
April 29 –June 2, 2013
Nikola Rukaj Gallery
384 Eglinton Ave W. Hours: Mon – Sat, 10 – 6, Sun, 12 – 6 p.m.

Installation view. Photo: Veronica Scarpati

This exhibition highlights the photographic work of Jerry Schatzberg from the 1950s – 70s. Schatzberg’s early career began in the 1950’s.  His rise as a iconic portrait photographer was marked by his intimate and emblematic images of emerging talents and thinkers of the 1960’s, including Bob Dylan, Fidel Castro, The Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve and many others.

Opening remarks by Nikola Rukaj, owner of Nikola Rukaj Gallery (left) with Jerry Schatzberg (right). Photo: Veronica Scarpati

Jerry Schatzberg reinvented the conventions of his time.  Influenced by New Wave films from Europe, this body of work conveys a cinematic atmosphere with an emphasis on location, wide shots and odd angles to convey action, scale and mood.

Jerry Schatzberg, Wall Street (Betsy Pickering), 1958, 40 x 40 inches. Photo: Claudette Abrams

Through engagement with his notable subjects, he builds character and story through gesture and presence.

Jerry Schatzberg, Rolling Stones, 1966, 40 x 40 inches. Photo: Claudette Abrams

Jerry Schatzberg is signing his catalogue. Photo: Veronica Scarpati

Arnaud Maggs, André Kertész, 144 Views, detail, 1980 © Estate of Arnaud Maggs, Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery

Upon entering the exhibition, a monumental display of André Kertész: 144 Views (1980) astounds the senses. Assembled into a large-scale grid installation that is synonymous with Maggs’ practice, this never before exhibited work grants a glimpse into the artist’s working process with the sequential portrait. Maggs’ persistence and attention to detail is demonstrated as Kertész gradually turns and lets his guard down. In certain images, Kertész appears to have fallen asleep on camera and in others he smiles as if he had just heard a witty joke. Although Kertész’s appearance and personality is portrayed in a multi-faceted light that appears to capture every facial twitch, every freckle, and every hair, Maggs’ unyielding focus towards his subject does not shift, highlighting both his and Kertész’s character as photographers.

Arnaud Maggs, Kunstakademie, detail, 1980 © Estate of Arnaud Maggs, Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery

In the main gallery space, two long works contrast each other on opposite sides of the room with a partial wall extruding from the center. Kunstakademie (1980) is a series of 148 black-and-white frontal and profile-view portraits of students at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany. In this piece, Maggs establishes a timeless quality through social connectivity. Although this group may have played a part in fabricating the history of conceptual art, Maggs portrays each individual in a humanizing light that exceeds their historical relevancy. Each individual is highly reminiscent of everyday people that one may have known, passed, or briefly encountered. In many cases, it is hard to not fall in love with the individuals that Maggs has chosen because their gaze towards the viewer is so intimately seductive, yet distanced enough to maintain intriguing.

 Arnaud Maggs, The Dada Portraits: Marcel Duchamp, detail, 2010 © Estate of Arnaud Maggs, Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery

At first glance, The Dada Portraits (2010) appears to be representational portraits of seminal Dada artists. In actuality, they are based on architectural drawings of staircases from 1850. The comparison between this piece and Kunstakademie (1980) is quite curious. In one, Maggs creates the impression that mug shots of strangers possess the capability to generate an intimate connection, while in the other, Maggs defaces and defamilarizes the famous. By using architectural lines and shapes along with names, The Dada Portraits evokes presumptions towards the lesser known names, and reiterates the personalities of the more popular artists.

Arnaud Maggs, After Nadar: Pierrot Turning, detail, 2012 © Estate of Arnaud Maggs, Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery

The final work in the exhibition comes as a surprise behind the wall from the center of the space. After Nadar: Pierrot Turning (2012) is part of the larger After Nadar series of self-portraits. In particular, this series alludes to a Nadar self-portrait from 1864 and Charles Deburau the mime. Maggs once commented on another image in the larger series which depicts himself holding a black banded envelope by confidently stating, “It is me playing with death.” Perhaps this is why After Nadar Pierrot Turning is such a difficult piece to confront. During my first encounter with this work, it was difficult to emphasize with Maggs because unlike his more romantic pieces, here his assertiveness is intimating. The other three works in the exhibition feature delicate frames, ivory backgrounds, and stark subjects. The visual elements of this piece are the exact opposite of the others with thick black frames, a black velvet backdrop, and the artist himself in costume as Pierrot. Maggs applied his meticulous nature to document and collect towards himself, pirouetting for the camera just many of his own subjects had done for him.

The work is morbidly optimistic as Maggs boldly stares ahead without any hesitation or fear in his expression. Yet at the same time, although we see all 360 degrees of Maggs, the work still possesses a hint of coyness and mystery. Firstly, Maggs is in costume wearing layers of caked makeup and secondly, the camera focused on the details of his face and his rounded spectacles slightly obscure the focus of his eyes. As the eyes are often considered the window into one’s soul, Maggs maintains a veil of playful secrecy and demonstrates that nothing is as clear as it seems. One of Maggs’ unique talents was photographing individuals without dissolving their mystery.

This exhibition offers insight towards Maggs’ adoption of photography as an artistic tool to document people and grants a glimpse of the photographer himself.

The exhibition runs till June 2, 2013 at the Ryerson Image Centre.

*Thanks for Ryerson Image Centre Docent Tyler Webb

Shellie Zhang

Opening Reception: May 2, 2013, 7 – 10 p.m.
Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St W

Thursday night, Gladstone Hotel was home to CONTACT’s photo shows, In the Playroom by Jonathan Hobin , Queer Portraits by JJ Levine and Maclean’s Face to Face. The shows were abuzz with Toronto’s art goers, who could be found either pushed up against the 100 year old walls of the hotel or getting some air on the beautiful south facing balcony.

In the Playroom: Photographs by Jonathan Hobin
Opening Reception: May 2, 2013, 7 – 10 p.m.
May 2 – 31, 2013
Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St W

In the Playroom is photo-based artist, Jonathan Hobin’s ongoing series of large-scale, colour photographs that depict children re-enacting significant world events such as the attack on the World Trade Center,  the murder of child beauty-queen JonBenét Ramsey or torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Jonathan Hobin, The Twins, 2010, C-print, 42 x 54 inches

Just as children make a game of pretending to be adults as a way to prepare and ultimately take on these roles in later life, so too do they explore things that they hear or see, whether or not they completely understand the magnitude of the event or the implications of their play.

Jonathan Hobin, A Boo Grave, 2010, C-print, 42 x 57 inches

Most of the images are very creepy but in an interesting, engaging way.

Photo: Fox Martindale

InSight
Opening Reception: May 2, 2013, 7 – 10 p.m.
May 1 – 12, 2013
Gallery 1313
1313 Queen St. W 

Gallery 44 members once again displayed their works for Contact at Gallery 1313. They have been exhibiting at the gallery for 15 years now and there is always a variety of diverse works.

Annie Sakkab, From the Series ‘Washing Men’, archival giclee print, 18 x 12 inches, 2012

This exhibit was Part One with fourteen photographers showing. Part Two follows with another fifteen photographers.

Gallery 44 Director Lise Beaudry with photographer Jonathan Groeneweg

The reception was a lively one with lots of visitor traffic and a few sales. Kelly Lamorie sold her series of 8 prints to arts critic David Jager, of Now Magazine and Linda Briskin also sold a print.

Linda Briskin

Larry E. Glazer’s print which was used on the invite was front and centre to the exhibition.

Larry E. Glazer with his work

The works were consistently professional and the reception a fun event.

Text and photo: Phil Anderson

Marriage Bureau by Victor Helfand
Opening Reception: May 2,  6 – 9 p.m.
May 3 – 31, 2013
Aroma Espresso Bar
500 Bloor St W.  Hours: Mon – Fri, 7:30 – 11, Sat – Sun, 8 – 11 p.m.

Aroma Espresso Bar with Helfand’s work

It may initially seem out of place to have photographs of American newlyweds in an espresso bar in Toronto; however, it sheds light on a diverse facet of life we are not readily exposed to. The photographs feature a variety of unconventional brides and grooms in unconventional wedding attire (converse shoes, red umbrellas and parasols, timberlands and jeans, bowler hats etc.) posed against the characteristic NY City Hall backdrop.

Installation view

Since 1916 the marriage bureau in lower Manhattan has been uniting couples under the law. Victor Helfand, a welcoming face upon entering the seating area in the back of the espresso bar, tells the story of his inspiration and his desire to represent and give a voice to non-traditional couples, of different social and economic backgrounds.

Victor Helfand with his work

Although Helfand was kicked out of the bureau by several policemen, and unable to continue this project, what he leaves us with is a challenge to our preconceived notions of what a wedding looks like.

Victor Helfand, Bowler Hat, 2012

This project ended abruptly when Helfand was escorted out by a police officer.

Text and photo: Leanne Simaan

Here is Where / Heather Fulton, Catherine Jones, Michael Mills, Annette Seip
Opening Reception: May 1, 5 – 8 p.m.
May 2 – 25, 2013
Workman Arts
1001 Queen St W and Gordon Bell Rd. Hours: Thu – Sat, 12 – 6 p.m.

By setting the tone for the rest of the show with a live musician, playing mellow tunes, all four artists intermingle the evolution of the architecture of the CAMH grounds and the human body/stigma of mental illness.  

Michael Mills, Memory 4, 2013

Mills and Annette Seip integrate the grounds with the elements of human body. Mills does so by layering the male body (inpatients from CAMH), while Seip uses the archival and recent (2011) photographs of the architecture to create 3D portraits of volunteers at CAMH.

Annette Seip, Volunteers

Catherine Jones’ work illustrates the stigma surrounding mental illness through visual metaphor. On the other hand, OCAD graduate Heather Fulton chose to photograph the last two 19th century buildings that remain on the CAMH grounds at 1001 Queen Street West. The intimacy she aims to achieve by developing the film with household items, like instant coffee, is complimented by her choice of framing the photographs with used books.

Catherine Jones with her work

Overall, all four artists’s work ask of their audience to attempt to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness in our community by considering the history of the CAMH grounds and, even more, a history of neglect and alienation.

Text and photo: Leanne Simaan

Sebastião Salgado
Opening Reception: April 25, 6 – 9 p.m.
April 25 – May 25, 2013
Nicholas Metivier Gallery
451 King St W. Hours: Tue – Sat 10 – 6 p.m.

Installation view

Sebastião Salgado, Iceberg Castle between Paulet Islands and the South Shetland Islands on Weddeil Sea, 2005, gelatin silver print, 50 x 68 inches

Nicholas Metivier Gallery presents Salgado’s inaugural exhibition in Canada, which includes influential photographs from Workers (1986–1992), Migrations (1993–2000), and Genesis.

Sebastião Salgado, Barrancos, Gold Mine, Serra, Pelada, State of Para, Brazil, 1986, gelatin silver print, 24 x 35 inches

He describes his style as “inside the circle,” often living with his subjects, immersed in their environments. Salgado’s black-and-white images are infused with empathy and respect for the people, wildlife, and nature he encounters.

Photo: Fox Martindale

PHIL ANDERSON, publisher:

Looking Forward, Looking back / Lynne Cohen
May 4 – 28, 2013
Olga Korper Gallery
17 Morrow Ave

Lynne Cohen, Untitled, 2012

Xpose / Presented By Capic
May 22 – June 2, 2013
Todmorden Mills
67 Pottery Rd

Schatzberg / Jerry Schatzberg
April 29 – June 2, 2013
Nikola Rukaj Gallery
384 Eglinton Ave W

Jerry Schatzberg, Bob Dylan, 1965

THe Hard Way / Vitas Luckas
May 1 – 31, 2013
Studio 7 – Charlotte Hale & Associates
588 Markham St

Structure and Photo / David Trautrimas
April 24 – May 21, 2013
Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre
750 Spadina Ave

EMESE KRUNAK-HAJAGOS, publisher:

Genesis / Sebastião Salgado
May 4 – September 4, 2013
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen’s Park

The Mute Book / Janieta Eyre
May 16 – June 9, 2013
Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects
1082 & 1086 Queen St W

Janieta Eyre, Mute Book 4, 2009

In-Between Worlds / Meryl McMaster 
April 27 – June 1, 2013
Katzman Kamen Gallery
80 Spadina

The Girl Document / Edith Maybin:
May 10 – June 8, 2013
O’Born Contemporary
131 Ossington Ave

Edith Maybin, Untitled, from the series The Girl Document, 2013

In the Playroom / Jonathan Hobin
May 2 – 31, 2013
Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St W

STEVE ROCKWELL, publisher:

Structure and Photo / David Trautrimas
April 24 – May 21, 2013
Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre
750 Spadina Ave

Architecture of Empty / Shane Fester and Kevin Morris
May 1 – 31, 2013
Evergreen Brick Works
550 Bayview Ave

No Cameras Allowed! / Steve Mann
May 1– June 30, 2013
Deconism Gallery
330 Dundas St W

Steve Mann, Maktivism: The wearable camera and Fare Witness as a Praxistemology of Veillance, 2012

Penumbra / Andrew Wright
May 2 – June 29, 2013
University of Toronto Art Centre
15 King’s College Circle

In-Between Worlds / Meryl McMaster
April 27 – June 1, 2013
Katzman Kamen Gallery
80 Spadina

AMY LUO, intern:

The Viewing of Six New Work / Michael Snow
May 2 – June 2, 2013
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen St W

Michael Snow, The Viewing of Six New Works, 2012, Photo © National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

FOX MARTINDALE, intern:

Unreleased / 2Fik
May 2 – 30, 2013
strong>gallerywest
1172 Queen St W

2Fik, Picnic sur l’étang [Picnic on the swamp], 2009

ALICE TALLMAN, intern:

Genesis / Sebastião Salgado
May 4 – September 4, 2013
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen’s Park

Sebastião Salgado, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska, 2009, © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas Images. Royal Ontario Museum, May 4 – September 4, 2013

LEANNE SIMAAN, intern:

Marriage Bureau / Victor Helfand
May 3 – 31, 2013
Aroma Espresso Bar
500 Bloor St W

Bonnie Rubenstein, Artistic Director of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in front of Bill Sullivan’s Down, 2012. Photo: Nicholas Liang

A.L: CONTACT is the largest photography event in the world. As Artistic Director, you must have put in a tremendous amount of work and time in preparation for this year’s festival. What has been most exciting for you this particular year? And what has been most challenging?

B.R: It’s difficult to define the most exciting aspect of a large event that includes so many different artists and exhibitions. The festival is the sum of its parts and we work year-round to create a dialogue between presentations throughout the community. Every year is a new challenge, and an enormous amount of work for all of us at CONTACT as well as the people we collaborate with. The most exciting part is seeing the whole thing come together.

A.L: Each year a thematic focus guides the curatorial direction of the festival’s exhibitions. This year’s theme is “Field of Vision.” How was this thematic idea conceived? 

 Sebastião Salgado, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska, 2009, © Sebastião Salgado / Amazonas Images. Royal Ontario Museum, May 4 – September 4, 2013

B.R: The thematic programming extends through our primary exhibitions and public installations. We present these projects with a range of partner organizations so a broad theme works best for us. In the past, the theme has been subject based but we have moved towards a process and practice oriented approach. Last year’s theme was “Public,” and while this was interpreted in a variety of ways, street photography was the emphasis of our programming. The starting point for this year’s theme, “Field of Vision,” was Sebastião Salgado’s project Genesis  and the discussions to present this exhibition began about two years ago. Salgado travelled to 32 countries for his expansive project, which took 8 years to complete, and it shows us many aspects of our world that few would have the opportunity to see in reality. While Salgado’s work raises global issues, and there is much to explore within this subject, we made the decision not to focus on this concept in particular, in part because we’ve done so before and aim to present a different theme each year. For this year we wanted to orient the theme based on a perceptual or conceptual approach to photography, and how photographs function, rather than on any one subject in particular.

Scotiabank Photography Award, 2012, Arnaud Maggs (1926 – 2012), After Nadar: Turning Pierrot, detail, 2012, Estate of Aranaud Maggs, Courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery. Ryerson Image Centre, May 1 – June 2, 2013

A.L: To me, “field of vision” is broadly applicable to potentially any photographic image. We often think of the photograph as a record of a fleeting moment within the photographer’s field of vision. What questions or ideas does “field of vision” evoke for you and how has the theme guided your curatorial process?  

B.R: There are a number of ways to think about “field of vision” with respect to photography as a medium and a technology; it is in itself a field of vision, so to speak. But essentially, vision is understood in terms of sight and the ways in which we perceive places, people, events, and so on. Photographs structure the ways we see and comprehend the world around us, and the lens of the camera extends the eye’s field of vision. “Vision” of course also evokes the idea of artist as “visionary,” and this year we present several solo exhibitions of works by truly exceptional artists.

A.L: The Primary Exhibitions showcase both dated, historical works and contemporary works. For example, MOCCA will have an exhibition of archived images from the Archive of Modern Conflict alongside an exhibition of Michael Snow’s recent body of work. What relationships and dialogues do you see the older images having with the contemporary images in the Primary Exhibitions?  How does the inclusion of archived works inform our understanding of contemporary works and photography as a practice?

 Charles Henry Turner (American), Sand dunes, c1890, Cyanotype, Courtesy of the Archive of Modern Conflict. Museum of Contemporay Canadian Art, May 2 – June 2, 2013

B.R: Our approach to programming this year was experimental in several ways, so it will be interesting to see how the audience responds. The unconventional pairings of historical works within unexpected contexts will challenge viewers to reconsider the meaning and inherent message of the photographs. The Archive of Modern Conflict exhibition, Collected Shadows, includes recent images from 2011 while the earliest works are from the 1850’s. The AMC has an enormous collection with millions of photographs that trace the history of the medium, and this show is another example of an expansive project that inspired the theme. It also stimulated the idea to include exhibitions that activate the history of the medium and create a dialogue between photographs from the past and the present; Sara Angelucci’s exhibition at the Art Gallery of York University is a great example of this.

Sara Angelucci, Aviary (Female Passenger Pigeon/extinct), 2013. Art Gallery of York University, April 10 – June 16, 2013

A.L: CONTACT began as a grassroots initiative based on open calls for photographers to participate. Today the Open Exhibitions still operate on an open-call method and actually make up the majority of the festival – this year there are over 1500 artists exhibiting their work at over 124 venues this year. What do you think is significant or beneficial about including a combination of curated programming and open-call exhibitions?

B.R: CONTACT was founded seventeen years ago and has always been completely open to anyone that wanted to participate. The founders of the festival were committed to the idea of making it an accessible, community event and the first year proved to be very successful, with many more participants then they had originally anticipated. When I was hired by CONTACT in 2002 it was with the ambition to develop a curated program for the festival, which was nonexistent at the time. I first created the public installation program, and a few years later the primary exhibitions, and we continue to expand both the curated and the grassroots streams of the festival. CONTACT provides the opportunity for artists and photographers to show their work and be part of a high profile public event that engages a large audience. Like many things in life, there’s strength in numbers, and each part of the festival enhances and supports the other. The primary exhibitions provide inspiration for emerging artists, and the emerging artists support the thematic programming through engagement with them and the exchanges that emerge are instrumental to our success.

Michael Parr / Magnus Media. Metro Hall, April 30 – June 2, 2013

A.L: You will be a reviewer for this year’s CONTACT Portfolio Reviews. Can you tell me more about this initiative and what participating photographers can expect to get out of the opportunity?

B.R: Each year we bring in experts from around the world  to provide artists and photographers with the opportunity to  have their work professionally reviewed. The idea is not unique to CONTACT and many photography festivals offer this type of program, but we deliberately created ours on a more intimate scale. It’s an incredible opportunity for emerging artists to meet and exchange ideas but it also promotes established artists who may not be known by our international guests. Within three twenty-minute one-on-one sessions, participants show their work and receive feedback, and as a result many have obtained exhibitions and had their work published in magazines and books internationally. Each year we select one participant who receives the Portfolio Reviews Exhibitions Award and a solo exhibition of their work at the CONTACT Gallery.

A.L: Can you share with us a few personal favourites among this year’s exhibitions or particular bodies of work that resonate most with you?

Andrew Wright, Untitled Photography #4, 2013,Courtesy of the artist and Patrick Mikhail Gallery, University of Toronto Art Centre, May 2 – June 29, 2013

B.R: This year the most intense curatorial project for me has been the survey exhibition of works by the Canadian artist Andrew Wright at the University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC).  I had seen several exhibitions of Andrew’s work in Toronto over the years but they had always been strongly focused on one project, so I really wanted to see his work from the past and the present together. I am quite excited to see how they resonate with each other!

A.L: The disorienting number of participating venues can be intimidating and overwhelming for the average Torontonian hoping to check out some photography. Do you have any recommendations for ways of approaching and navigating the festival?

Erik Kessels, 24 Hours in Photography. Installation at Foam Amsterdam, 2011, Photo: Gijs van den Berg. Contact Gallery, May 1 – June 15, 2013

B.R: There are many ways to navigate the festival, either by the type of show, for example one could focus on all the public installations, or by choosing a neighbourhood and going out to  everything in the area. The CONTACT website lists all exhibitions and has an interactive calendar and planner, or you can use the CONTACT magazine or brochure – both have maps as guides. They are available at any of the CONTACT venues as well as our office and gallery at 80 Spadina Avenue, where we also have an incredible installation of literally hundreds of thousands of photographs by the Dutch artist Erik Kessels, which is certainly meant to be overwhelming!