 |
April 27 - May 4,2003 |
Nostalgia imbedded in the art of daily photographs
Unique exhibition Pop Photographica: Photography's Objects in Everyday Life, 1842-1969 at Art Gallery of Ontario
By Jennifer Febbraro
Originally Published: 2003-04-20
The Art Gallery of Ontario has discovered kitsch! Believe me, this is an exciting improvement in curatorial direction and speaks to the growing movement towards the dismantling of the dead white man's prominence in the institutional space.
With this latest show, Pop Photographica: Photography's Objects in Everyday Life, 1842-1969, we all are able to identify with the creative process, as each of us has snapped a photo or participated in the multitude of photographic practices. We take for granted that recording our lives has almost usurped living them out, and yet technology speeds uncontrollably ahead of the events themselves, as if it had a hidden agenda. Add to the random photoshoot, the personal art object. It could be a vanity mirror in a teenager's bedroom or the fridge, but collaging photos onto surfaces has again become common practice.
So this show, which explores how photographs have been used to adorn and personalize everyday objects seems to come from a familiar origin - that is, nostalgia.
Matthew Teitelbaum, AGO Director and CEO notes that "Photography empowers us to make the everyday intensely personal. This exhibition demonstrates how individuals have used photography to declare 'I am here'." This inherent declaration of being in the act of shooting, harvesting, and displaying photos has taken on a further narrative twist when combined with the contours of an object. It is one narrative layered onto another. These objects appear crafty and consumerish, as if they could be purchased. And yet their very uniqueness and fragile taped-together quality makes the objects glow as only art can.
But unlike so many art shows, the art stars here are the collectors, not the creators. They unfortunately remain anonymous, which lends itself to even further identification between viewer and viewed. What do we feel when we see a mourning bracelet made of woven and braided hair, worn by a daughter, that features a portrait of a father and a miniature of the mother as a young girl on the reverse, while an attached silver charm reveals the tiniest lock of hair?
Page 1/...Page 2
|
| Home / Back to Top |
|
|
 |
|
|
</ td>
