Sept-October 2010 - Preview

V I G N E T T E S • September/October 2010British ColumbiaBY ROBIN LAURENCEROBERT ADAMS: THE PLACE WE LIVE Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver,September 25-January 16, 2011 This retrospective spans four decades inthe career of one of the original proponents of the New Topographics,an art movement that emerged in the early 1970s to challenge romanticand wilderness-dominated notions of landscape photography. NewJersey-born Adams has focused his camera primarily on the landscape ofthe American West where culture butts up against nature in the form ofexpressways, parking lots, tract housing and other unsightly evidence ofurban sprawl.CONSTRUCTION SITES: IDENTITY AND PLACE Kamloops Art Gallery,Kamloops, October 18-December 21 Many factors, from gender andculture to colonialism and globalization, contribute to the ways inwhich identity is constructed. With its titular play on words,Construction Sites is a group show that asks us to consider, specifically,the relationship between how the place we inhabit affects who weare. Among the local and international works on view, consider KenLum’s poignant photo-text work exploring the idea of home.Robert AdamsKen LumDANA CLAXTON Winsor Gallery, Vancouver, October 7-30 Acclaimednationally and internationally, Vancouver-based media artist Claxtonwill be exhibiting black-and-white and colour photographs andvideos that explore ancient ceremonial sites in her home province ofSaskatchewan, post-colonial social justice issues, and representationsof the aboriginal body. Her images range from broad prairie vistas topowerful shots of ceremonially painted faces.HOT TO COLD/COLD TO HOT Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver,September 17-October 24, 2010 The title of this exhibition of contemporaryMexican artists, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Thomas Glassford,Melanie Smith and Gabriel de la Mora, reflects their use of cool,minimalist surfaces and hot, emotionally-charged content. Oftenemploying everyday materials, from old broomsticks to human hair,these artists work across sculpture, video, drawing and even chemicalreaction (a heat-sensitive bench that registers traces of the peoplewho sit on it). You think you know what Mexican art is all about?Think again.THE INTERTIDAL ZONE: PRINTS BY DOUG GUILDFORD Burnaby ArtGallery, Burnaby, September 14-November 21 Over many years, thisToronto artist has dedicated his practice to the exploration of his physicalenvironment. The delicate etchings and serigraphs on view take theirinspiration from intertidal life around Volger’s Cove, Nova Scotia, whereGuildford maintains a studio. Abstracted, delicately coloured and delineatedimages riff on the ebb and flow of the ocean and the forms and patternsrevealed in-between.Dana ClaxtonRuben Ortiz-TorresDoug Guildfordwww.preview-art.com PREVIEW 53