Current Exhibitions

Stephen Shames

Tear Gas Grenade, Berkeley (detail), 1970, silver gelatin print

Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery

Gift of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft

Bearing Witness

January 14 to March 10, 2012

This exhibition launches a year of programming at the Kamloops Art Gallery that focuses on the re-reading of history, the provocation of power relations and the notion of “bearing witness” to world events through personal and collective narratives. Bearing Witness is the first in four exhibitions throughout 2012 that will be ideologically linked by these common threads.

Socially engaged works of art offer a powerful means of communicating the human experience. They bring attention to political violence, unjust social realities and man’s inhumanity to man. Drawn from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection, this exhibition brings together the work of 27 artists who examine industrial exploitation, large-scale government action, the atrocities of war, the history of slavery, and the representation of women in society. The strategies and aims of these artists are as distinctive as the visual languages they employ. The photographers Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa, for example, saw their role as creating a record through the documentation of unfolding events. The painters Leon Golub and Nancy Spero responded to events with work that incited debate and galvanized communities. Others, such as Barbara Kruger and Magdalena Campos-Pons, are committed to exposing historical invisibility. Provocative and unsettling, the images in this exhibition bear witness to the powerful forces that shape our lives and world.

Bearing Witness is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery with the generous support of The Killy Foundation and Odlum Brown Limited

Curated by Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator, Historical, Vancouver Art Gallery

Sarah Jules

Jorgens Sunset, Copenhagen, 2011

cell phone photograph

Sarah Jules

iPhoneography

January 14 to March 10, 2012

The Cube

The camera phone has created immediacy in photography in a way never seen before in the history of image making and image publishing. Photographers are now able to post their snap shots of events and moments to social media and photo sharing websites within seconds of image capture; subsequently rendering the printed hard copy photograph out-dated and unnecessary. Sarah Jules captures moments of intimacy that hint at greater narratives through her iPhone. She weaves a story from her experiences through these snapshots shown on video monitors and the printed image.

Curated by Craig Willms, KAG Assistant Curator

anonymous cell phone photo, 2011

My Community Everyday

January 14 to March 5, 2012

BMO Open Gallery

This past fall, the Kamloops Art Gallery put out a photo call for students in grades 6 through 12 from the Region (Kamloops and TNRD). Participants were asked to capture their view or perspective of their community. In order to further the idea of documenting a spontaneous moment, the photo call specifically requested cell phone photography, a documenting tool that is increasingly used in social media and online communication. Selected photos will be on display in the BMO Open Gallery.