Thought, outside

Nov 12, 2020 — Jan 30, 2021
Field:

Exhibition

 Location:

Gallery, Western Front

Description:

Thought, outside was an exhibition of lens-based artworks produced between the 1970s and ’90s by Craig Berggold, Marlene Creates, Kiss & Tell, Roy Kiyooka, Laiwan, Ken Lum, and Melinda Mollineaux. The works engage then-emerging frameworks of multiplicity, plurality, and decentering that make the contingent nature of the outside visible. “Outside” is variably expressed as the condition of being out-of-doors, beyond a geographic delineation, without legal recognition or unfamiliar with social custom. It is a position that is sometimes articulated in the negative: by that which is not inside. However, the boundary between the inside and outside is rarely fixed or exclusive; rather, it is relational, durational, and transitory. 

Thought, outside was curated by Amy Kazymerchyk, a candidate for the MA in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia. The exhibition was presented with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia. Her research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Documents:

A projection is cast onto the central wall of the Western Front gallery via a tower of carousel slide projectors. Framed photographs line the walls to the projections left and right, with text below the rightmost photos reading Sungayka.
Framed black and white photographs hang in grid formations along the white walls of the Western Front gallery. A small TV is elevated by a white plinth in the rooms corner with a large hanging photograph to its side and a wooden door to the lobby in the opposite corner.
A black and white photograph hanging from a white wall from behind a glass plate depicts a group of people standing on a truck bed while one person from the group vocalizes into a megaphone.
Two rows of photographs with white backing and light wooden frames are hung against a white wall. The rows are made up of three images on the top and two on the bottom. To the left side, a much smaller photograph is pinned to the wall.
Black and white photographs are arranged in a grid of three by three against a wall. The people in the photographs wear leather and rough denim garments while touching, kissing, and exposing the skin of another under high contrast lighting.
Two rows of black and white photographs with white backing and thin silver frames are hung against a white wall. The rows are made up of three images on the top and four on the bottom. The photographs depict gloves in various poses covered in, surrounded by, and resting on top of dirt.
A black and white image of a glove on the ground is duplicated and scaled within a white border and silver frame. A crease down the centre of the image arrangement indexes a previous fold in the work. The image hangs among other framed images mostly out of frame.
A tower of slide projectors partially obscures an image it projects onto a wall directly behind it in the Western Front gallery. To the projections side, there is a closed white door with a red EXIT sign glowing above its frame. Framed photos decorating the gallery walls are visible at the edge of the scene.
A tower of carousel slide projectors cast a black and white image onto a white wall in the Western Front gallery. The projection depicts outdoor stone walls forming a passageway.
Framed black and white landscape photographs are hung above black text on the white gallery wall. The title below the larger body of text reads Sungayka.
A black and white landscape photograph of a rocky waterfront forest is framed in black and hung on a white wall. The edge of another hung image is visible by its side.
A small TV is elevated by a white plinth in the corner of a white walled gallery. A grid of small framed photographs hang to the TVs right and one large framed photograph hangs to the TVs left. All photos are black and white while the TVs image is tinted a dull green.
Black and white photographs are arranged in a grid of three by three against a white wall with two additional photos hanging to the left. The photographs depict farmers harvesting in fields and rallying at protests with one photograph having a banner that reads CANADIAN FARMWORKERS UNION and another reading HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE?.
A close-up of a black and white photograph within a gallery wall arrangement of other images depicts two farmers bending over to harvest crops.
A small TV with speakers attached to either side of its screen is elevated by a white plinth in the corner of the white walled Western Front gallery. The screen depicts a person standing on a hill beneath an overpass bridge.

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Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.

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