Upcoming Exhibitions

Doug Buis
Incident in the Tree (detail), 2010
mixed media diorama

Rodney Graham
My Late Early Styles (Part 1, the Middle Period), 2007 to 2009
photograph

Kent Monkman
Miss Chief: The Emergence of a Legend, 2006
chromogenic prints on metallic paper
series of 5 portraits; edition of 25

Carol Sawyer
Natalie Brettschneider performs “Oval Matt”, Paris, c. 1920
(detail from the installation Natalie Brettschneider in British Columbia)
photograph

TRUTH or FICTION?

April 6 to May 22, 2010

The group exhibition TRUTH or FICTION? brings together various sorts of contemporary art by five contributing artists from near and far: Doug Buis (Knutsford/Kamloops), Rodney Graham (Vancouver), Kent Monkman (Toronto), Carol Sawyer (Vancouver) and Camille Turner (Toronto). The gathered art works share certain attributes: they refer to history and historical narratives, past, present and future; they include historical figures, but also little known, dubious and perhaps fictional characters; and, despite being about the past, present and future, they are more interested in representation than in mimesis—rather than mimic reality they represent it, with all its ambiguities and uncertainties. Four of the artists in the exhibition appear within their work. Rodney Graham presents himself as a west coast modernist painter. Carol Sawyer introduces us to Natalie Brettschneider, whose mid-century history (including a sojourn in Kamloops) unfolds through a collection of small black and white photographs. Miss Chief Eagle Testicle reappears repeatedly in Kent Monkman’s work, re-enacting history while posing for painted and daguerreotype portraits and, more recently, video clips. In TRUTH or FICTION? we also meet visitors from the future: in Camille Turner’s work, Dogon space travellers return to earth during a time of multiple but interconnected crises, to make us aware of Afro-futurism and The Final Frontier. Meanwhile, Doug Buis offers us localized mise-en-scène with accompanying narratives populated by little known but somehow familiar characters. The narratives in the exhibition and the characters involved in them—independently and in conjunction—invoke a certain uncertainty.

The Centre for innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada (CiCAC) at Thompson Rivers University supported the TRUTH or FICTION? exhibition through an artist-residency for Camille Turner, during which new project components were produced in Kamloops.

Media sponsor: B-100

Book Club

In conjunction with Kamloops Art Gallery’s exhibition TRUTH or FICTION?, the Kamloops Library spring Book Club examines the role of representation in various cultural forms, including visual art and literature. The Wednesday evening Book Club group will read and discuss The Secret River by Kate Grenville and then, on April 7th, view the exhibition. The experiences offered by the book and the exhibition call into question a variety of social constructs and ideologies proposing singular or absolute ‘truths.’

Click here for exhibition events including Panel Discussion, Opening and Evening Soirée/Performance

Camille Turner
The Final Frontier, 2007 (detail)
photograph by Brahm Rosensweig
image from the collection of the artist

Jordan Schwab
Garage Extension, 2009
mixed media

Jordan Schwab

How to Get Things Done

April 3 to May 22, 2010

The Cube

How to Get Things Done explores our constructed environment. Jordan Schwab’s sculptures resemble architectural models, but instead of completed structures they show partially completed projects. The sculptures, drawings and photos in this exhibition capture constructions in progress. The depicted work sites are in transition. Artworks might be plans for future projects or documentation of past endeavours. Other objects are devices temporarily utilised to assist the building process and improve the efficiency of labour. Frame walls stand bare on a garage renovation. The wood shell of a hotel on stilts is not yet completed. Schwab explores the engineering of these labour saving devices and their efficiency in the process of construction.

Emmett Kapeh
Equipment Test #641, 2009
black & white photograph

Kate Garrett-Petts and Emily Hope

Deep Search

April 17 to June 12, 2010

Gallery Under Glass

Kate Garrett-Petts and Emily Hope (also known as Emmett Kapeh) transform the Gallery Under Glass into walls within a submarine, with portholes allowing glimpses of an imaginary deep sea world. Aquatic creatures swim within the space. Elsewhere, specimens from this world are on display. Narratives from this undersea world play out in stop motion animation. With the rudimentary viewing apparatuses available to the viewer and new discoveries in every porthole, the experience recalls the deep sea explorations of Jacques Cousteau. Viewed from within the Kamloops Library, the entire installation is revealed, allowing the viewer to see parts only partially visible from outside.

Sumia Jessica Hamid
Untitled, 2009
pastel on canvas

The Power of My Voice

April 17 to June 5, 2010

BMO Open Gallery

Youths from the Boys and Girls Club of Kamloops—the Inner Voice Girls Group and the After School Youth Drop-In Program—contributed to this collaborative project. The collected mixed media components aim to examine and present the voices of these specific youths as individual and particular, but also as a collective voice—strong, thoughtful and important. The Boys and Girls Club supports these young people by providing a safe space and new opportunities to help them strengthen their sense of self. They celebrate through their art and are proud to share it with the greater Kamloops Community. The group thanks the United Way Youth Council for providing a Youth Initiatives grant to purchase supplies.

Stan Douglas, Spences Bridge, 2006, from the Western Series, chromogenic print, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery

Stan Douglas

Klatsassin

June 5 to September 4, 2010

An internationally renowned Vancouver-based artist, Stan Douglas has often taken British Columbia sites and stories as inspiration for his critically acclaimed cinematic art works. His work consistently and provocatively explores narratives of place in relation to conventional ideas about truth and the singular official historical record.

Klatsassin calls attention to how forces of colonialism and capitalism have marked the land and its stories. The video was shot on location in the Cariboo and Chilcotin districts of British Columbia, and on a studio back lot in Vancouver. In addition the exhibition includes location photographs of sites as diverse as Barkerville, Quesnel Forks, Walhachin and Vancouver, and a series of portraits of the generically identified characters involved in the video’s narrative.

Klatsassin is set in the historical context of the Gold Rush and annexations of land along Canada’s west coast. The work is named after a Tsihqot’in Chief who was accused of murder and of leading an insurrection that led to the Chilcotin War of 1864, offering diverse perspectives on the story’s pivotal event. The scenes in Klatsassin do not unfold in a logical order but in various random combinations, during which each of the story’s players tells his version of events. The relentlessly recombining stories disturb memory, time, perspective and the notion of a single authoritative truth.

Supported by the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Hamber Foundation