Three Must-See Exhibits… And Only Five Days Left!

First of all: Happy New Year! Isn’t it unbelievable how time is passing by?

In Ottawa, three must-see exhibits only run until January 8th – so just four more days to go! Take your last chance to visit these outstanding exhibits:

Ramses Madina, “Road Crew 29”, 2010, Silver Gelatin Print, from the web site: www.facebook.com/Public.Art.Ottawa, copyright by Ramses Madina

Ramses Madina – Night for Day: Road Crews @ City Hall Art Gallery

Ramses Madina’s black and white photographic series “Night for Day: Road Crews” already caught my attention when I visited the “Place and Circumstance” exhibition at the City Hall Art Gallery last June (http://visualencounter.blogspot.com/2011/06/place-and-circumstance-city-hall-art.html). In his stunning night photographs, he draws with light attention to the road workers who labour as the city sleeps enveloped in darkness. We see Ottawa by night in an uncommon way, like captured from an imagined landscape. Occurring in darkness, when most of the citizens are sleeping, these actions seem somewhat mysterious. The crew’s overnight activity ensures that the roads are ready for the morning shift to venture out to start its day. A stunning documentation!

http://www.ottawa.ca/rec_culture/arts/gallery_exhibit/city_hall/index_en.html


Cindy Stelmackowich: Dearly Departed @ Bytown Museum

A bit creepy but also fascinating is the work of Cindy Stelmackowich that examines the highly charged visual and written language of mourning in the 19th century. She draws her inspiration from various historic objects in the Bytown Museum and her own artefact collection.

Stelmackowich’s digital prints and sculptures reconsider and transform traditional mourning objects such as Victorian hair wreaths, bereavement verse and women’s black lace clothing regarding the cult of grief and remembrance. Her findings like jewellery, wreaths and watch fobs were actually made of human hair, some of it most likely clipped from the heads of corpses! The widespread cult of mourning was inspired by Queen Victoria who mourned the death of her husband, Prince Albert, for forty years.

Quiet an amazing show!

http://www.bytownmuseum.com/en/exhibits.html


David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East @ National Gallery of Canada

David Askevold (1940-2008) is recognized as an important contributor to the development and pedagogy of conceptual art. This full-career retrospective exhibition considers the four strains of Askevold’s exploratory journey – sculpture/installation, film and video, photo-text works, and digital images and includes key pieces from each stage of his career.

Like the director of the National Gallery, Marc Mayer points out: “He was a pioneering figure in the development of conceptual art in the 1970s, and continued to be an influential conceptualist throughout his career. […] For me, what’s compelling about Askevold is that he worked hard to maintain an independent artistic perspective in the exploration of new media. He believed in the role of the artist as unique in our contemporary set of professions.” (From the NGC web site)

http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/exhibitions/current/details/david-askevold-once-upon-a-time-in-the-east-66