galleryDK : Past Exhibitions - 2009
November 7th - December 13th, 2009: PhotoLab2 - galleryDK knew that money was tight for a lot of people - and art can be pretty far down the list of things to spend discretionary income on. With that in mind, they were proud to announce the second annual PhotoLab exhibition. In an art world that can easily be perceived as elitist, galleryDK wanted to show that exhibitions and art can be open to everyone. With amateurs hung next to established artists, the art was hung to appeal to buyer's sense of style, rather than the name affixed to it.
October 16th-31st, 2009: Understanding Gulu - galleryDK offered a glimpse into the life of an internally displaced person with “Understanding Gulu: A look at life within the camps,” the first solo-exhibit from Toronto photographer Andrea Smith. Andrea’s exhibit was the result of a trip to northern Uganda in 2007 and an extensive tour of IDP camps there, which to this day continue to house around half a million people. For the opening reception, Andrea, founder of GuluWalk Adrian Bradbury and member of Toronto’s Acholi diaspora Charles Olango, discussed the conflict in northern Uganda, IDPs, and the future of the region.
October 3rd, 2009: Into Abandon - As part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the DK Photo Group, for the first time took the public with them to behold the isolation, desolation, and beauty found in unexpected places. Over the fences and into a world of abandonment and society's architectural refuse. Through the use of immersive video and sound manipulation, the DK Photo Group's multi-media installation, Into Abandon, offered those who explore the installation an opportunity to accompany the DKPG as they roam the forgotten corners of our world.
September 2009: Marking Time and Place - Felicity Somerset's exhibit at gallery DK explored the surfaces of mature tree barks, rusting metal and old walls of brick and stone. Textural commonalities created ambiguities for the viewer and made the original surface unidentifiable. The surfaces became sites for inscriptions, formal and informal and sometimes multi-layered. These human interventions in the aging materials recorded moments in time and place, reflect personal stories unknown to us. In turn, these markings and sites will succumb to the ravages of time.
July 2009: Lethe / detritus - This exhibit at gallery DK combined two of Vancouver artist Karen Moe's photographic series "detritus: East Vancouver Alleyways" (2004) and "Lethe: a mock metaphysics" (2005). In 'detritus,' Moe documented found objects in alleyways as symbols of what is discarded in society and as traces of memory located in personal histories. The self-portraits of "Lethe: a mock metaphysics" were a response to Moe's own abduction and rapes; the art production and reception extends this personal distress into its societal context. By exhibiting these projects together, social and personal liminalizations echoed each other in tangible ways.
June 2009: Found Worlds - Jerry Riley brought us images as landscapes, continuing his love of landscapes as photographic subjects. Ordinary man-made things often seem to have other lives, unexplored inner vistas. Riley's previous photography looked at the inadvertent reflections of Toronto buildings in each other's mirrored surfaces, changing as the city changes - accidental art made by large, impressive objects. The exploration in Found Worlds looks at the extraordinary creations that occur as unassuming by-products of the artistic process - accidental art made by small, humble objects.
|:| Opening Reception |:| One of Jerry's Pieces |:|
May 2009: Transfigurement - As part of change, old ideas and methods must be left behind. While revolution propels the new and innovative, it abandons the old... leaving ideas, methods and beliefs in its wake. Nothing is immune to this change - and even the firmest institutions are susceptible to transfigurement as part of their evolution. The work of the DK Photo Group explores the often-ignored consequences of revolution, reminding the viewer of the transformative stages thereof. Part of the 13th annual Contact Toronto Photography Festival.
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April 2009: Intersections - Bosnia in the 1990s and the Eastern Congo in the 2000s: both involved relatively small gangs of non-professional soldiers engaged in low-intensity fighting over material resources. These "wars" are basically robberies - coded in flags, religion, and race. Both conflicts adversely affected large civilian populations through displacement, rape, starvation and disease. Alex Henry Moore has taken his camera to these different countries and returned with images of children, women, and men - combatant and civilian acting out their roles on war's stage. While fifteen years and five thousand kilometers separate Moore's photographs, they depict universal and timeless experiences.
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March 2009: Mind's Eye - Tanja Tiziana & Georgia Kristoffersen mounted a collaborative show. Images in the series explored the act of documenting an artist at work, at first taking traditional photos of what is easily visible, and then attempting to take the camera into the mind's eye - to capture what it is they see and where they draw the inspiration for their work.
|:| Show Photos |:| Show Photos |:|
February 2009: At Rest - Chris Hutcheson showed that around us places are at rest - between days, seasons, at the end of their useful life, or in other ways. They were, and may yet again be filled with life and activity, but at the moment of capture, they're silent and still. Quiet, hidden, unused and unnoticed, they have stories to tell, or stir memories in the observer. The images, taken in Toronto, Bruce County, Massachusetts and the UK are part of an ongoing series.
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January 2009: Brown Cities - In the wake of increasing gas prices, emphasis on carbon footprints, and the initiative with recycling - Brown Cities focused on what still needs to be done to reduce the negative impact our habits are having on urban life. It made the taken-for-granted visible. Not only neglect, rust and pollution, but also images of action, hope, remediation and life... Images that represented a need and a call for action.
|:| Akimblog Coverage |:|