May 1 – 31, 2014
Toronto Image Works Gallery
80 Spadina Ave #207
Artist Steven Beckly
Steven Beckly’s Reunions at the Toronto Image Works is based on photographs found at flee-markets and antique stores, dating from the 1880s to the 1980s, and featuring pairs of the same sex, although not necessarily lovers. The artist, drawn by the intimacy that emanates from these images, has been hunting for such photographs for about four years and has gathered over a hundred of them, some of which are now displayed at the exhibition.
Steven Beckly, Untitled, 2013
Beckly explains that he arranged these photographs by two or three and printed them on newsprint in order to create a narrative based on juxtapositions and similarities or differences between the images in respect to gender, race and class. He decided not to perform the standard manipulations that artists usually apply to found images, such as collage or addition of markings, for he felt the need to respect the sensitivity inherent in these objects.
Steven Beckly, Reunions, installation view
With this repossession of photographs, Beckly’s aim was to reference the “impermanence and ephemerality” of the past, a feeling that he reinforced with a display of empty antique photographic frames. The display is designed to “give space” for the viewer to project new narratives, inspired and informed by the pairings.
Steven Beckly, Reunions, installation view
Steven Beckly, Reunions, installation view
Beckly gives the writing on the back of the photographs their own space by retracing them separately and displaying them on a table, transforming them into individual works in their own right. Through the retracing process, the words, some in foreign languages that Beckly does not speak, fade and gain a nostalgic dimension. The viewer is caught in a mesmerizing reflection of meanings between the three components of the exhibition: the found photographs, the empty frames and the almost undecipherable writings from the past.
Text and photo: Elena Iourtaeva
*Exhibition information: May 1 – 31, 2014, Toronto Image Works Gallery, 80 Spadina Ave #207. Gallery hours: Mon–Fri 9 – 7, Sat 11 – 3 p.m.