www.kellyrichardson.net

Other Worlds
Confederation Centre of the Arts
June 6 – August 23, 2009

Other Worlds is an exhibition in the form of a fabulatory essay examining the role of the artist as a visual explorer in literal and symbolic dimensions. It brings together painting, photography and video works by Canadian and international artists from the mid-19th century to present day.

The historical thread is drawn from Bernard Smith’s 1960 book European Vision and the South Pacific, a study of James Cook’s three voyages —1768-71, 1772-75 and 1776-79—that explored the Pacific Rim, the northwest coast of North America and the Bering Sea, and Antarctica. It was Smith’s contention that the trained artists Cook enlisted had to develop a visual language in order to record new phenomenon—impressions of light for example—while maintaining the empirical demands of research. This “impressionism” would have a transformative impact on art (and the viewer), bringing together the art of seeing and art as information. The earliest exhibition work is an 1864 painting by Robert Scott Duncanson (the first recorded African-American artist), of Owl’s Head Mountain at Lake Memphremagog, which straddles the Quebec-Vermont border. Two 1899 oil sketches by Canadian William Blair Bruce—then living in Sweden—are of Gotland Island in the Baltic Sea and a view from the coast of Saint Nazaire, France. More than illustrating what appears to the eye, there is an expression of the Sublime, an embodiment of experience of place and thought.

Although the recording role of artist-painters diminished in the 20th century due to photography, there were still remote locales and a lure of the unknown, voyages of discovery, routes of wandering, and an ever-changing frontier of visual language. Examples are paintings of Newfoundland, Alaska and Greenland done between 1914-1929 by American Rockwell Kent, and of Papua New Guinea by Australian William Dobell, who visited in 1949-1950. Their respective painting languages are different, but share a form of the surreal and witnessing for the first time. The continuing fascination with remote locales is evidenced in the photographic work by Lorraine Gilbert of a trek in Iceland, and Rosemary Laing’s use of the Australian desert as a site. Again, there is a surreal quality to both, but achieved by different means. So too for Stacey Spiegel’s panoramic view of mountains from Banff, using digital technology to transform the image and “embed” the phenomenon of freezing, thawing, flow and erosion. It expresses weather and geological time through the eternal mountain (a subject link to the Duncanson and Kent paintings).

“Other worlds” can be generated from the familiar and ready-known. John Massey’s This Land photographs combine the interior of a “freshly minted” car as a framing device for landscapes, which in another age would have been painted. Massey uses a language common to advertising, but from another perspective, it is the new sublime, although intentionally disquieting.

Time-based media lends itself to both pictorial manipulation and a narrative, as in the works by Rodney Graham and Kelly Richardson. Graham constructs an episode from the past in Vexation Island that is both a fairy tale and a fabulation. Rather than the events of the shipwreck, it is looped through causality, the castaway’s attempt (played by Graham) to survive by shaking a coconut from a palm tree. Paradise can be an eternal nightmare. Kelly Richardson’s Exiles from a Shattered Planet, is also a looped video, a continual cascade of flaming debris from the sky—“visitors” from another world —onto a “sublime” landscape (a view comparable to the one in Duncanson’s painting.) There is, however, no cataclysmic end to Earth, and rather than fear, we can “stand in awe.” So too for the floating heads in Laing’s work, a hallucinatory interjection onto the landscape.

Painting as a tool and medium for the exploration of place and thought is by no means exhausted, and hence the inclusion of works by Brian Burke. Failed Experiment #2, has a literal, pictorial quality—a trek into a bleak unknown—but the title suggests a cautionary tale of folly and oblivion, and has as much resonance for the human spirit as does “success.” The nature of the “experiment” is left to our imagination. Dead Man’s Pond #9, brings the “other world” to the local. It is a pond in a Charlottetown, PEI park with several speculations on how it was named. Burke has depicted an “explorer” swimming in the pond, but in search of what? The title and images offers a segue to David Burliuk’s opus painting-mural Surrealist Conception of Life, 1932. Burliuk arrived in the USA from Siberia via Japan in late 1922; the New World was his other world. His painting reduces the Atlantic Ocean to a “pond,” and among its many complex, allegorical pictorial elements of “the savage and the cultured,” is Columbus (most likely) as if a castaway blowing a bubble of the world through a pipe.

The power of art is the possibility of recording information, expressing innermost thoughts, and telling stories. Doors can be opened to “other worlds” as a way of knowing. Every fictional world is based on a reality, which can return to confront “our world” in a cognitive way, and likewise, “other worlds” can feed the imagination. The continuation of mysteries is as important as answers.

Artist list: Rodney Graham, Kelly Richardson, John Massey, Robert Scott Duncanson, Rockwell Kent, William Blair Bruce, Rosemary Laing, William Dobell, Brian Burke, David Burliuk, Stacey Spiegel, Lorraine Gilbert

Further information for Other Worlds at the Confederation Centre of the Arts

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Forces of Nature
April 11 – May 31, 2009

Twilight Avenger

As I watched the water seeping through the concrete floor outside our main temporary exhibition space, it struck me- there is no controlling Nature. Water in an art gallery is a dangerous thing and as the spring thaw approached, a hard decision had to be made: as Nature couldn’t be trusted to stay out of our Gallery spaces, the exhibition of historical prints, paintings and decorative arts from the National Gallery, Lord Dalhousie: Patron and Collector had to be postponed. Well, if Nature was going to be so present in the Art Gallery, it became clear that it must be on display. In Forces of Nature, an exhibition designed to be waterproof, four video works, drawn primarily from the Gallery’s permanent collection, examine artists’ relationships to the natural world.

David Askevold, Katherine Knight, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, along with Kelly Richardson have created works of art that explore mediation, danger, and seduction in both natural and constructed land and seascapes.

David Askevold’s meditative projection, Latrajarg (The Cliff), follows seagulls on a cliff, and provides an exploration of figure and ground. In this early video work Askevold creates a contemplative work of art, delighting in the sea, light and motion created by the birds against sea. In the same way, Katherine Knight layers sound and video in a hypnotic nautical portrait in her work Buoy. Beacons to sailors, the buoys of Knight’s work call to us, their mournful cries almost swallowed by the ever-present sound of the ocean. Knight photographed these buoys in Caribou Harbour, near Pictou, NS, but as the three channel video work bobs, dips and ebbs before your eyes, the scene transcends place and makes a mariner of any viewer.

Emily Vey Duke + Cooper Battersby delve the highs and lows of human of nature in their most recent work, Beauty Plus Pity. Their exploration of innocence, good and evil and the human relationship to the natural world is offered in compiled vignettes and animated stories told through a varied cast, including hunters, young children, and God. In Kelly Richardson’s Twilight Avenger, an eerie green glow engulfs a stag in a twinkling forest landscape… Or perhaps that glow is emanating from the stag. That constructed tension is part of the compelling mystery of Richardson’s work. Richardson has digitally manipulated this bucolic scene, adding twilight, mist, the hoot of owls to trees and grass from different forests. She blurs the real and the surreal, allowing an uneasy vision forest life.

Curated by Sarah Fillmore

Twilight Avenger

Screening
KELLY RICHARDSON
TWILIGHT AVENGER
MARCH 6–APRIL 26
OPENING RECEPTION
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 6–10pm

Equal parts sci-fi myth and forest fable, dreamy nocturne and dazzling special effect—Kelly Richardson’s Twilight Avenger  begins with a fairytale-worthy image of a misty, moonlit forest clearing inhabited by a majestic stag who emanates a luminous green vapour. Quietly grazing amidst the ambient chatter of other forest dwellers (the hoot of an owl may portend an imminent threat) our protagonist occasionally rears his head, shifting his gaze towards us.

Like much of Richardson’s work, Twilight Avenger  poses multiple questions amidst its calculated ambiguities. The scene is at once visually convincing and obviously synthetic, peaceful and disquieting, shifting between stillness and action. As the scene unfolds, questions remain whether the protagonist is some sort of forest sentinel, as the title implies, or perhaps a victim of a man-made mishap.

Ultimately, Richardson leaves such questions unanswered, leveraging our belief in the visual document with the evocative power of the imaginary. Through painstaking application of digital effects to documentary images (Richardson filmed the deer and landscape elements in Canada and England respectively) she invites us to question the integrity of images and perhaps ask viewers to consider our increasingly mediated relationship with nature.

Canadian-born multimedia artist Kelly Richardson lives and works in the UK. With MFA studies in media-arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2003, she has since exhibited internationally at venues including the Busan Biennale (Korea), Hallwalls (USA), Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (UK) and the 2004 Gwangju Biennale. Most recently, her work was featured in The Cinema Effect; Illusion, Reality and the Moving Image at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and at the Sundance Film Festival.

Her work is represented in the public collections of the Albright Knox Gallery (Buffalo), Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Screening is dedicated to the presentation of innovative, challenging and exciting moving images. Screening will exhibit works exploring the ways moving image culture influences how we see ourselves and others.

located just inside Vox Populi Gallery
319 N 11th 3rd floor Philadelphia PA 19107
W-Su 12-6pm Free For more info 267.918.8151

http://www.screeningvideo.org/

Toronto International Art Fair
Special International Video Project
October 2 – 8, 2008

Artists include Douglas Gordon, Mark Lewis, Stefano Cagol, Kelly Richardson, among others. 

BUSAN BIENNALE 2008

Theme : Expenditure
Period : Sep. 6 – Nov. 15, 2008 (71 days)
Opening Event : Sep. 6, 2008
Venues : Busan Museum of Modern Art and others
Number of Artists : 190 from 40 countries

Exhibitions :

Contemporary Art Exhibition
Director : Won-Bang Kim
Curator : Tom Morton, Nancy Barton, Michael Cohen,
Guest Curator : Azomaya Takachi, Francine Meoule
Sea Art Festival
Director : Seung-Bo Jeon
Busan Sculpture Project
Director : Jeong-Hyung Lee
Curator : Cedar Lewisohn
http://www.busanbiennale.org

Busan Biennale 2008 comprises three parts, including the Contemporary Art Exhibition, the Sea Art Festival, and the Busan Sculpture Project. Under the theme ‘Expenditure’, these three different exhibitions manifest each of their characteristics.

The Contemporary Art Exhibition is being held at the Busan Museum of Modern Art and the Busan Yachting Center, showing art works by 92 artists from 22 different countries with the theme ‘EXPENDITURE – as it is always and already excessive’. Audiences will have a chance to feel the overflowing energy of human beings, that is in the risk of breaking down the modern society. The Sea Art Festival is the unique art event that undertakes the feature of Busan. 78 artists from 27 countries comprehend the theme ‘Voyage without boundaries’ with the help of the natural setting of Busan. The Busan Sculpture Project attempts to expand the scope of public art, under the theme ‘Avant Garden’. It will exhibit the works of 20 artists from 10 nations at the APEC Naru Park.

Busan Biennale 2008 also opens accompanying events. Some of the major artists representing Asian contemporary art are invited to the accompanying exhibitions. The audiences will have an opportunity to enjoy variety of contemorary art works from all over the world, as numerous galleries in Busan are having special exhibitions to celebrate the opening of Busan Biennale 2008.

With all these exuberant events happening, Busan Biennale 2008 will certainly be at the center of the international art world’s attention.

Busan Biennale 2008 Participating Artists

Name / Nationality

Eduardo ABAROAE, Maxico
Aehee, Korea
Doo Jin AHN, Korea
Gwangjun AHN, Korea
Jae guk AN, Korea
Richard ANNELY, U.K
Vyacheslav AKHUNOV, Kyrgyzstan
Kriti ARORA, India
David ASKEVOLD, Canada
Nicole AWAI, Trinidad and Tobago
Hernan BAS, U.S.A
In Soek BAE, Korea
Ji Min BAE, Korea
Jonghun BAE, Korea
Seon Chi BAHK, Korea
Jonathan BERGER, U.S.A
Oliver BIRCHLER, Switzerland
Ross BLECKNER, U.S.A
Davin BRAINARD, Netherlands
Jesse BRANSFORD, U.S.A
Bruce La Bruce, Canada
Hua BU, China
Vadra CAIVANO, Italy
Yeo Chee Kiong, Singapore
Wenling CHEN, China
Tae Hun CHOE, Korea
Cody CHOI, Korea
Yea Hee CHOI, Korea
Yeon Woo CHOI, Korea
Sonja Lillebaek CHRISTENSEN, Denmark
Hye Jin CHUNG, Korea
Steven CLAYDON, U.K
Ronald CORNELISSEN, Netherlands
Cesar CORNEJO, Peru
Xian Ji CUI, China
Sue DE BEER, U.S.A
Warn DEFEVER, Netherlands
Chrystel EGAL, France
Doug FISHBONE, U.K
Min Gyeong GAM, Korea
Denis GLASER, U.K
Kenji GOMI, Japan
Wonsuk HAN, Korea
Yota HANAZAWA, Japan
Lyle Ashton HARRIS, U.S.A
Ku Young HEO, Korea
Roger HIORNS, U.K
Christopher k. HO, U.S.A
Hyun Sook HONG, Korea
Myung Seop HONG, Korea
Soun HONG, Korea
Irene HOPPENBERG, Germany
Teresa HUBBARD, Switzerland
Sook Young HUH, Korea
Kenny HUNTER, Scotland
Hea Sun HWANG, Korea
Juliette JACOBSON, U.S.A
Yeo-Ran JE, Korea
Lisa JEANNIN, Sweden
Rob JOHANNESMA, Netherlands
Dong hyun JUNG, Korea
Jaeho JUNG, Korea
Tellervo KALLEINEN, Finland
Kamin, Thailand
Yong Myeon KANG, Korea
Go KATO, Japan
Bharti KHER, India
Bumsu KIM, Netherlands
Chang Kyum KIM, Korea
Dong-Yeon KIM, Korea
Gi Young KIM, Korea
Hea Sim KIM, Korea
Jong Ku KIM, Korea
Kira KIM, Korea
Kye Hyeon KIM, Korea
Mi Ea KIM, Korea
Suk KIM, Korea
Sun Deuk KIM, Korea
Tae Jun KIM, Korea
Tai Kyun KIM, Korea
Pliver KOCHTA-KALLEINEN, Germany
Terence KOH, Canada
Dieter KUNZ, Germany
Surasi KUSOLWONG, Thailand
Philippe LALEU, France
Bei Kyoung LEE, Korea
Hansu LEE, Korea
Hojin LEE, Korea
Jin Kyoung LEE, Korea
Jong Bin LEE, Korea
Jun Yeong LEE, Korea
Kyoung Bok LEE, Korea
Sang Gill LEE, Korea
Sang Woo LEE, Korea
Seung-taek LEE, Netherlands
Soo Young LEE, Korea
Yong-Beak LEE, Korea
Guangxin LI, China
Ligyung, Korea
Ok Sang LIM, Korea
Young Sun LIM, Korea
Ren LIU, China
Wei LIU, China
Long March Project, China
Nate LOWMAN, U.S.A
Lisa LUYTER, U.S.A
Christina MACKIE, U.K
Victor MAN, Romania
Marlene McCARTY, U.S.A
Alex McQUILKIN, U.S.A
Marilyn MINTER, U.S.A
Mioon, Korea
Aiko MIYANAGA, Japan
Sunju MOON, Korea
TV MOORE, Australia
Gen MORIMOTO, Japan
Yasumasa MORIMURA, Japan
Robert MORRIS, U.S.A
Ruriko MURAYAMA, Japan
Myung Kyu NA, Korea
Tetzuya NAKAMURA, Japan
Yasuyuki NISHIO, Japan
David NOONAN, Austria
Eko NUGROHO, Indonesia
Yuki OKUMURA, Japan
Dennis OPPENHIM, U.S.A
Nipan ORANNIWESNA, Thailand
Orlan, France
Jeong Soon OUM, Korea
Christodoulos PANAYIOTOU, Cyprus
Gary-Ross PASTRANA, Philippine
Chong-Bin PARK, Korea
Mi Kyung PARK, Korea
Eun Young PARK, Korea
Adam PUTNAM, U.S.A
Michael RADECKER, Netherlands
Rachael RAKENA, New Zealand
Kelly RICHARDSON, Canada
Porntaweesak RIMSAKUL, Thailand
Stefan RINCK, Germany
Choong-hyung ROH, Korea
Nigel ROLFE, Ireland
Roxlee, Philippines
Aida RUILOVA, U.S.A
Karen RUSSO, Israel
Pinaree SANPITAK, Thailand
Ilan SANDLER, Canada
Larissa SANSOUR, Palestine
Martin SASTRE, Uruguay
Hiraki SAWA, Japan
Sara SCHNADT, U.S.A
Andreas SCHULENBURG, Germany
S.E.A. PROJECT(Team), Vietnam / Laos / Philippines / Thailand,
Joungguk S?, Korea
Fiona SHAW, U.K
Jim SHAW, U.S.A
Jio SHIMIZU, Japan
Moo Kyung SHIN, Korea
Jeoungeun SHON, Korea
Karina SMIGLA-BOBINSKI, Poland
Han Sam SON, Korea
Mong Joo SON, Korea
Blou SOUP, Russia
Sam SU MENG_HUNG, Taiwan
Prateep SUTHATHONGTHAI, Thailand
Koki TANAKA, Japan
Philippe TERRIER-HERMAN, France
THERKILDSEN, Sixten, Denmark
Titarubi, Indonesia
Montri TOEMSOBAT, Thailand
Mitsuru TOKUTOMI, Japan
Jill TRAPPLER, South Africa
Ryan TRECARTIN, U.S.A
Kuang-Yu TSUI, Taiwan
Naoyuki TSUJI, Japan
Guido VAN DER WERVE, Netherlands
Erik VAN LIESHOUT, Netherlands
Alan VEGA, U.S.A
Luyan WANG, China
Marnie WEBER, U.S.A
Andro WEKUA, Georia
Tien Wei WOON, Singapore
Miao XIAO CHUN, China
Fuyuki YAMAKAWA, Japan
Ju Hae YANG, Korea
Qian YANG, China
Tae Keun YANG, Korea
Yeorrock, Korea
Ji Hun YOO, Korea
Seung Jae YOO, Korea
Young-Seok YOON, Korea
Harumi YUKUTAKE, Japan
Ivette ZIGHELBOIM, Venezuela
Liliane ZUMKEMI, Switzerland

For inquiries, contact:

Busan Biennale Organizing Committee
23rd Floor, Busan City
Hall Yeonsan 5-dong
Yeonje-gu, Busan Metropolitan City
Tel. 82-51-888-6691~9
Fax 82-51-888-6693
bbiennale@paran.com
http://www.busanbiennale.org

Contact:

Tel. 82-51-888-6691~9
Fax 82-51-888-6693
bbiennale@paran.com
http://www.busanbiennale.org