VARIATIONS
January 21 to April 3, 2011
curated by Jen Budney
The photo-based contemporary art in VARIATIONS examines changing social identities, states of being, and perception itself. The subjects in this dramatic collection range from “coloured” women in South Africa, to early 20th-century English criminals, to people living in the Riversdale area in Saskatoon. The global perspectives vary, yet Lee Henderson, Louise Noguchi and Berni Searle reveal common concerns: the importance of symbolism in contemporary life, the instability of identity, and the limitations of dualistic thinking. All three are fascinated by performance, particularly actions emphasizing repetition and endurance.
Henderson, an emerging Regina artist based in Toronto, has been considering the significance of Buddhism in North America. For VARIATIONS, he presents a video, Even the Buddha does not recognize the Buddha (2010), and photographs from a 2006 project. For the latter, the artist photographed Saskatoon residents by candlelight. In these compelling portraits of adults and children, the number of candles equals the age of the subject.
Acclaimed Toronto artist Louise Noguchi proposes the artist as transgressor or even aggressor. Her parents were among 22,000 Japanese Canadians interned by the Canadian government during the Second World War. For Noguchi, this created a legacy of distrust that informs her art. In three photo-based works from her 1995 series, Compilation Portraits, she interweaves her own image with photographs of convicted murderers or victims. The result is an eerie muddle of race and gender, guilt and innocence. Also showing is Crack (2000), a video from Noguchi’s Language of the Rope series. For this series, the artist learned to throw knives and use a bullwhip, violent skills termed “tricks” in Wild West shows. In Crack, she deftly destroys flower blossoms with a whip.
Cape Town artist Berni Searle is renowned internationally for her performances and photo-based work exploring history, memory and identity in post-Apartheid South Africa. Dualities — subject versus object, black versus white — are explored in her double channel video projection, Snow White (2001). Ritualistically, she transforms her body by covering herself with flour. Adding water, she proceeds to make dough. Photographs from Searle’s series of triptychs, One Removed (2008), also reveal issues concerning the self and society.
VARIATIONS was curated by Jen Budney, Associate Curator at the Mendel Art Gallery.
