About – Mark Walton

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COMPLICITY
- The Book
About

Photographer Mark Walton is the editor of foto:RE|VIEW magazine, and founder of the foto:RE collective. He was a director and curator of FLASH: CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY HERE, an award winning festival of photography held in Waterloo Region 2015-2017. He is the curator of The Stanley Rosenthall Collection of photography and the author of COMPLICITY, an autobiographical photographic exploration of the life of a reluctant colonialist. He has also written for foto:RE|VIEW and PhotoED Magazine.

Mark founded and is the director and editor of curated. by The COVERT Collective, a gathering of curators from across the country showcasing the work of fine artists of many disciplines.

Instagram: @mwaltonphoto

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mwaltonphoto

Tank and Hank in St. Jacob’s today. You can seen

Tank and Hank in St. Jacob’s today. You can seen them and get a ride next weekend at Sparkles between 6 and 8.

Taken on FP100C film loaded in a Polaroid back on a Graflex Super Graphic 4x5 camera. Old school. Negative reclaimed, scanned and converted to black and white. #horses #stjacobs #analogphotography #fp100c

@crhba

Sudbury lost a great artist, and I lost a dear fri

Sudbury lost a great artist, and I lost a dear friend this week. Jorge Cueto Herrera was an incredible photographer and storyteller, and the time we spent talking about art and life was something I cherished. @cueto_con_camera @cyclingcovid. Photos were taken in his studio on Durham in Sudbury.

❤️

Wynn Bullock. Photography as philosophy. I don’t

Wynn Bullock. Photography as philosophy. I don’t know much about him as he is somewhat less celebrated than his contemporaries Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. #photography #fineartphotography #wynnbullockphotography #curated @thecovertcollective

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola. He’s offering something a bit different than his usual fare, this time, to privilege the artist.

LAUREN E. SIMONUTTI | 1968 – 2012

An excerpt :

It is somewhat at a remove, but no less sad, to mourn the passing of a person whose artwork comes into your purview and you find it enticing and uncanny and unsettling in the best way ― and then you find out that they passed some time ago. There won’t be anything more than what is already there, and there is a finality there – even a loss, perhaps, though it’s oddly ‘retroactive’, though that word seems inexact – that adds a further tinge of sadness.

Simonutti passed at the age of 44 : her struggle with schizophrenia ‘consumed her until she torn from life’ (to quote one of the many online testimonials to her). It was not stated in any of my research whether she took her own life, but the idea that the darkness swallowed her is not an unconsidered one, nor one that I offer without empathy.

A number of Simonutti’s evocative images appeared in my social media feed, and that led me to research a bit more, and become enamoured of her haunting photographs. Perhaps that’s a dangerous word – ‘haunting’ – to use : she passed over a decade ago, and her images still proliferate appropriately, but there’s that notion of what is left behind and lingers…like a ghost. If you believe in such things, that is.

These are powerful images, and have even more to consider in that the artist died so young, and struggled with mental illness. Often, as a critic, I wonder if my words add more or simply distract : when considering writing about her work, this was a concern, and so I thought it best – most appropriate – to present them with the more resonant words of others that engage in a dialogue with the photos, perhaps in unison, perhaps in a contested manner.

I will say very little, but will try to be like Bruno LaTour’s assertions about what an art critic should be, and try to simply offer a bit of direction while not being overt and overbearing….

Read more here, and more importantly see more Simonutti’s images there, as well : https://curatednow.ca/lauren-e-simonutti-1968-2012/

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

EMMANUEL GEORGES | AMERICA REWIND

I am making final edits on this article on the evening of the day of the incident where Trump was shot at, at a Reichsparteitag in Butler, Pennsylvania. I’ll offer no further commentary on this, as at the time of this writing, rumours and partisan commentary is moving at a speed faster than light, and all I can think of is the Reichstag ‘fire’…..that is the disclaimer I offer, before we proceed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is nigh impossible to consider Georges’ images and solely ‘read’ them as a commentary on the ‘American Dream’ and not be overwhelmed with how it’s a visual essay that is part of contemporary dialogue about the fate, if you will, of the United States, even if some of the images are over a decade old.

When I began considering this series, I was impressed with the way the photographs both inspired and intersected with socio – historical commentaries on the United States. Some of these are older, like de Tocqueville, or Howard Zinn‘s fine People’s History series (I will even admit to revisiting Eric Hobsbawm, and in a peripheral manner rereading parts of Margaret MacMillan’s Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World). But others are more immediate, like Morris Berman‘s series on the United States that seemed to resonate the most with Georges’ images and intent.

More of Gazzola’s response to Emmanuel Georges | America Rewind series can be seen here : https://curatednow.ca/emmanuel-georges-america-rewind/

#EmmanuelGeorges #EmmanuelGeorgesPhoto #Art #ArtistsYouNeedToKnow #Photography #GeorgesPhotography #AmericaRewind #AmericanDream #FallofAmerica #EmmanuelGeorgesAmerica #EmmanuelGeorgesAmericanDream #EmmanuelGeorgesAmericaRewind #History #Activism #Documentary #DocumentaryPhoto

If you don’t follow @gazzolabart , YOU SHOULD! (

If you don’t follow @gazzolabart , YOU SHOULD! (and not just for the shopping carts) • Paterson Ewen, Cloud Over Water, 1979

Ewen was a previously featured Artist You Need To Know from AIH Studios’ continuing series.

You can see that here : https://artishell.com/paterson-ewen/

From curated.’s @mwaltonphoto • Purchased seve

From curated.’s @mwaltonphoto • Purchased several photography books @the_book_barn_on_86 while on vacation this week including Imogen!, an exhibition catalog of work done by Imogen Cunningham from 1910-1973. Check out @imogen.cunningham.trust for more of her work.

Morris Graves in His Leek Garden, 1973 ~ Imogen Cunningham

Purchased several photography books @the_book_barn

Purchased several photography books @the_book_barn_on_86 while on vacation this week including Imogen!, an exhibition catalog of work done by Imogen Cunningham from 1910-1973. Check out @imogen.cunningham.trust for more of her work.

Morris Graves in His Leek Garden, 1973 ~ Imogen Cunningham

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

BARRY SMITH | WHAT’S YOUR STANCE? | 2024

An excerpt :

Smith is not – on social media or in life – shy about his own ‘stance’ and his own political views. I’ve known him for most of my time in Niagara, and the exhibition is a series of images of photographers taking photos that Smith has captured in the act. There’s a voyeurism to the work, but the nature of the installation in the downtown St. Catharines space also allows play and interaction between the ‘characters’ as they seem to be taking pictures of each other, or are looking at people and events unknown and unseen to us.

—----------------

Recently I read an engaging article from ArtForum about the rise in protests in museums and in gallery spaces and the writer – Charlotte Kent – offered a number of ideas and writers that I’ve been researching since I read the piece about how cultural spaces are stakeholders and often consistent – if not eager – manufacturers of alibis for the status quo, whether that status quo be that only one ‘type’ of art is ‘actually art’ or that some people and ideas are simply a denkverbot (to paraphrase Žižek) : of them, ‘we’ are ‘prohibited to speak.’
But, as Kent asserts, ‘Museums [and by extension what fills them, as art] have never not been political.’

…I suspect I told you more about ‘my stance’ with that tangential response to Smith’s work than about his work, but I also suspect Smith would be comfortable with that, in that I ‘answered’ his question.

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/barry-smith-whats-your-stance-2024/

#Art #NiagaraArt #NiagaraArtists #STCArt #STCArtists #Niagara #photography #BarrySmithArt #BarrySmithPhoto #NiagaraPhoto #WhatsYourStance #Photo #STCPhoto #curated #covertcollective #CanadianArt #CandianPhoto #CuratorsPicks

It’s TIME! @photoedmagazine call for submissions

It’s TIME! @photoedmagazine call for submissions.

#fathersday 2 photos of my father who died a few y

#fathersday 2 photos of my father who died a few years back, and my two grandfathers.

Found photo. #vernacularphotography Part of my col

Found photo. #vernacularphotography Part of my collection.

Woman in Grass. Cyanotype from found plate glass n

Woman in Grass. Cyanotype from found plate glass negative ca. 1905 Nova Scotia. #vernacularphotography #cyanotype #photographicprints

I’ve always got my eyes open for interesting old plate glass negatives and cool photographs from 60-100 years ago.

Proper digital capture of the owls in our yard the

Proper digital capture of the owls in our yard the other day. #nikond300

Intersection of Roncesvailles, Queen and King, #to

Intersection of Roncesvailles, Queen and King, #toronto #roncy #analogphotography #mediumformat #filmisnotdead Kodak Tourist @ilfordphoto

Back yard breakfast companions. #owls #waterlooreg

Back yard breakfast companions. #owls #waterlooregion #birds

5 owlets and their mama.

ANOTHER BUZZIE INDIE SESSION!! Posted @withregram

ANOTHER BUZZIE INDIE SESSION!!

Posted @withregram • @tarabutler_dance Can’t wait to share the stage with @mayumi.movement on June 5 th @registrytheatre

Dance Buzzie!

Thank you for the support @patthedogpdc
Link for tickets in my bio

Help out a punk band in need? Posted @withregram

Help out a punk band in need?

Posted @withregram • @bad_egghc Hey Ya’ll! As you saw yesterday, we’re headed back to the UK in just under a month. I think the above writeup says it all, but anything to help offset some of the expenses is mucho appreciated. It’s already been a crazy year for me, finishing up school and (unpaid) placement and while I’m incredibly proud of my accomplishments, there’s some real burn out and so im excited to do something I love a bunch.

Some of the other Eggs have experienced financial setbacks recently (f**k landlords) and it would be great to have a little less stress going into tour. A few ways/options to donate if you’re so inclined - but even a share would be dope. We’re extremely thankful for all the love and support we get from ya’ll!

🖤🥚

Plugging my kids… they’re off to the UK again

Plugging my kids… they’re off to the UK again to play some dates!

Posted @withregram • @bad_egghc It’s time to incubate this bird into existence.

Friends, we are going back to England next month for a quick rip to visit and rock some shows with some friends and family, and to finally meet some new friends we have been corresponding with for awhile now. We are grateful for everyone who had a helping hand in hooking us up with some of these dates on short notice, and at a hilariously busy time. Keep an eye out for more announcements before we head over yonder across the pond.

WORLD EGG DOMINATION CONTINUES.

Come out and meet the author of OH BOTHER and FROG

Come out and meet the author of OH BOTHER and FROG AND TOAD ARE DOING THEIR BEST!

Reposted from @hijennieblair: OH BOTHER book events in Canada! Toronto/Waterloo Region buddies, I would be mind-exploding-levels-of-overjoyed if y’all came out to hang! Come celebrate this gentle, kind book with me!

Toronto: May 28th at @typebooks chatting with the hysterical @geminiholograms
Waterloo: May 30th at @wordsworthbooks in conversation with k-w institution @patthedogpdc (and my MOM! come hang with me and my MOMMA)

.
#book #canadabooks #canadabookstagram #canadianwriter #winniethepooh #ohbother #humor #gift #giftbook #buylocal #bookevent #toronto #waterlooregion #kitchenerwaterloo #ontario

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thecovertcollective

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola. He’s offering something a bit different than his usual fare, this time, to privilege the artist.

LAUREN E. SIMONUTTI | 1968 – 2012

An excerpt :

It is somewhat at a remove, but no less sad, to mourn the passing of a person whose artwork comes into your purview and you find it enticing and uncanny and unsettling in the best way ― and then you find out that they passed some time ago. There won’t be anything more than what is already there, and there is a finality there – even a loss, perhaps, though it’s oddly ‘retroactive’, though that word seems inexact – that adds a further tinge of sadness.

Simonutti passed at the age of 44 : her struggle with schizophrenia ‘consumed her until she torn from life’ (to quote one of the many online testimonials to her). It was not stated in any of my research whether she took her own life, but the idea that the darkness swallowed her is not an unconsidered one, nor one that I offer without empathy.

A number of Simonutti’s evocative images appeared in my social media feed, and that led me to research a bit more, and become enamoured of her haunting photographs. Perhaps that’s a dangerous word – ‘haunting’ – to use : she passed over a decade ago, and her images still proliferate appropriately, but there’s that notion of what is left behind and lingers…like a ghost. If you believe in such things, that is.

These are powerful images, and have even more to consider in that the artist died so young, and struggled with mental illness. Often, as a critic, I wonder if my words add more or simply distract : when considering writing about her work, this was a concern, and so I thought it best – most appropriate – to present them with the more resonant words of others that engage in a dialogue with the photos, perhaps in unison, perhaps in a contested manner.

I will say very little, but will try to be like Bruno LaTour’s assertions about what an art critic should be, and try to simply offer a bit of direction while not being overt and overbearing….

Read more here, and more importantly see more Simonutti’s images there, as well : https://curatednow.ca/lauren-e-simonutti-1968-2012/

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

EMMANUEL GEORGES | AMERICA REWIND

I am making final edits on this article on the evening of the day of the incident where Trump was shot at, at a Reichsparteitag in Butler, Pennsylvania. I’ll offer no further commentary on this, as at the time of this writing, rumours and partisan commentary is moving at a speed faster than light, and all I can think of is the Reichstag ‘fire’…..that is the disclaimer I offer, before we proceed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is nigh impossible to consider Georges’ images and solely ‘read’ them as a commentary on the ‘American Dream’ and not be overwhelmed with how it’s a visual essay that is part of contemporary dialogue about the fate, if you will, of the United States, even if some of the images are over a decade old.

When I began considering this series, I was impressed with the way the photographs both inspired and intersected with socio – historical commentaries on the United States. Some of these are older, like de Tocqueville, or Howard Zinn‘s fine People’s History series (I will even admit to revisiting Eric Hobsbawm, and in a peripheral manner rereading parts of Margaret MacMillan’s Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World). But others are more immediate, like Morris Berman‘s series on the United States that seemed to resonate the most with Georges’ images and intent.

More of Gazzola’s response to Emmanuel Georges | America Rewind series can be seen here : https://curatednow.ca/emmanuel-georges-america-rewind/

#EmmanuelGeorges #EmmanuelGeorgesPhoto #Art #ArtistsYouNeedToKnow #Photography #GeorgesPhotography #AmericaRewind #AmericanDream #FallofAmerica #EmmanuelGeorgesAmerica #EmmanuelGeorgesAmericanDream #EmmanuelGeorgesAmericaRewind #History #Activism #Documentary #DocumentaryPhoto

From curated.’s @mwaltonphoto • Purchased seve

From curated.’s @mwaltonphoto • Purchased several photography books @the_book_barn_on_86 while on vacation this week including Imogen!, an exhibition catalog of work done by Imogen Cunningham from 1910-1973. Check out @imogen.cunningham.trust for more of her work.

Morris Graves in His Leek Garden, 1973 ~ Imogen Cunningham

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

BARRY SMITH | WHAT’S YOUR STANCE? | 2024

An excerpt :

Smith is not – on social media or in life – shy about his own ‘stance’ and his own political views. I’ve known him for most of my time in Niagara, and the exhibition is a series of images of photographers taking photos that Smith has captured in the act. There’s a voyeurism to the work, but the nature of the installation in the downtown St. Catharines space also allows play and interaction between the ‘characters’ as they seem to be taking pictures of each other, or are looking at people and events unknown and unseen to us.

—----------------

Recently I read an engaging article from ArtForum about the rise in protests in museums and in gallery spaces and the writer – Charlotte Kent – offered a number of ideas and writers that I’ve been researching since I read the piece about how cultural spaces are stakeholders and often consistent – if not eager – manufacturers of alibis for the status quo, whether that status quo be that only one ‘type’ of art is ‘actually art’ or that some people and ideas are simply a denkverbot (to paraphrase Žižek) : of them, ‘we’ are ‘prohibited to speak.’
But, as Kent asserts, ‘Museums [and by extension what fills them, as art] have never not been political.’

…I suspect I told you more about ‘my stance’ with that tangential response to Smith’s work than about his work, but I also suspect Smith would be comfortable with that, in that I ‘answered’ his question.

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/barry-smith-whats-your-stance-2024/

#Art #NiagaraArt #NiagaraArtists #STCArt #STCArtists #Niagara #photography #BarrySmithArt #BarrySmithPhoto #NiagaraPhoto #WhatsYourStance #Photo #STCPhoto #curated #covertcollective #CanadianArt #CandianPhoto #CuratorsPicks

From @gazzolabart TODAY is Mark Walton’s birth

From @gazzolabart

TODAY is Mark Walton’s birthday.

A fine photographer, an excellent arts writer & curator and a good friend who makes things happen.

I’ve been privileged enough to be included in some of his plans around platforming artists in our respective communities and in larger spheres, and I have major gratitude to my friend for all the ways he’s helped and supported me, let alone all the artists and creatives he’s supported in the wider sphere.

Together we have helped shape conversations about art and artists in the Canadian art world and beyond, and it all started with Mark and his ideas that he was kind enough to include me within.

I still remember our first conversations during COVID, and his energy and enthusiasm.

#artcriticfromhell hates most people (especially in the Canadian visual arts world), but I’m not ashamed or reticent to say I have a great deal of love for this guy. It is known. Sure, sure, #IGbreathalyzer may be in play, but I say it sober, too.

Learn more about him here : https://curatednow.ca/mark-walton/

I offer a selection of his images and also some fine shots from our curatorial ventures with curated.

Happy birthday, sir. Much love and respect.

@mwaltonphoto

From our very own @gazzolabart Your intrepid #ar

From our very own @gazzolabart

Your intrepid #artcriticfromhell offered some thoughts about Tish Murtha’s fine works that straddle art, history and social documentary for a past Curators’ Pick for curated.

An excerpt :

All we wanted was everything. All we ever got was coal.
(Bauhaus, from the album The Sky’s Gone Out, 1982)

Patricia Anne “Tish” Murtha (1956 – 2013) was a British photographer best known for her images of working class life in Newcastle upon Tyne and the North East of England. Murtha’s work is a raw documentation of these communities – and often youth within these social groups – at a time when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher waged war on her own citizens, embracing a neo – liberal cruelty that is like a virus whose symptoms can be still seen in contemporary post Brexit Britain.

The images captured by Murtha evoke notions of a ‘third world’ country, with the scenes of desolate and despairing youth amidst a wasteland that – being shot in black and white – emit a hopelessness that reaches across the decades. Or perhaps it is simply combining with the contemporary desperation among working class communities in these places right now.

You can read more here : https://curatednow.ca/tish-murtha-elswick-kids-1978/

The BBC recently debuted a film about Tish Murtha’s work and life and you should check it out.

Images :

Paul and Mala, 1978

Newport Tip, 1978

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

RICHARD MISRACH | THE DESERT CANTOS SERIES | 1979 - PRESENT

An excerpt :

You look at landscape, but it’s not really landscape, it’s a symbol for our country, it’s a metaphor for our country.
(Richard Misrach speaking about The Desert Cantos)

If you’ve read my past writing, you won’t be surprised to know that I am a fan of the horror genre, both in terms of books and films. This is an underrated and often unfairly dismissed genre : not all horror is equal, of course, but that can be applied to any genre.

In Clive Barker’s film Lord of Illusions (based upon one of his short stories in the Books of Blood series), the opening sequence of the film has often been one of my favourite scenes in the occult horror tableaux. A cult with a charismatic leader who displays abilities that can only be magic is speaking to an entranced group of followers : their ‘headquarters’ is a long abandoned hotel in the California desert, overgrown and run down, a lone fragment shored against the ruins of a dream of prosperity now left unwanted and desolate, blanched and burned by the unflinching sun and sand. The establishing shots as we approach the derelict buildings are entrancing in their ruination, and the state of the cult members mirrors this sense of discarded abandonment….

If that seems somewhat ‘lowbrow’ then let us consider Cal Flynn’s book Isles of Abandoment | Life in the Post-Human Landscape and her chapter that is titled The Deluge and the Desert : Salton Sea, California, United States.

This is a fine fit as many of Misrach’s images are of the fetid abomination known as the Salton Sea in Southern California.

See more here : https://curatednow.ca/richard-misrach-the-desert-cantos-series-1979-present/

#curated #curatorspick #photography #desertcantos #richardmisrach #photo #americanart #americanphoto

Join us Monday, April 22 at the @registrytheatre a

Join us Monday, April 22 at the @registrytheatre as @photoedmagazine ‘s Editor/Publisher Rita Godlevskis leads our panel of stellar local photographers in a discussion about the importance of photography in print.

It all kicks off at 5:30PM with an open vintage camera sale courtesy of @londonvintagecamerashow.

At 7:00 PM, @colinboydshafer, @robinclairefox and Karl Griffiths-Fulton will join Rita onstage for an in depth discussion about their photography print projects. Books and magazines will be on sale in the lobby.

Tickets for the talk $15 (link in bio) and at the door.

Concessions by @shortfingerbrewing.

This live, in-person evening is curated by @thecovertcollective’s artistic director @mwaltonphoto.

Thanks @patthedogpdc for the opportunity to present at the BUZZIE INDIE SESSIONS!

There’s something cool to see on Vancouver Islan

There’s something cool to see on Vancouver Island.

Lowell Shaver | Process
The Old School House Arts Centre
122 Fern Road West,
Qualicum Beach, B.C.

Lowell shaver is a builder with a secret hobby of darkroom photography processing.

His exhibition at The Old School House (running until May 4th) is a peek into your favorite basement shoebox of old photographs. Hung on clips and mounted onto little boards, silver toned edges foxing from a light sand, his artworks feel like every summer you dreamed you’d had. Woodpiles and work boots on driftwood, sandwiches, children running shrieking in the wind, long stretches of blurry sun, the cacophony of dogs and water and kids. A nostalgia of coastal life. Echoes of car headlights processed in little ellipses- the work feels at home.

Three generations of coastal island living, worth coming to take a look at if you’re in the area- Tuesday through Saturday 10-4.

~ Illana Hester

#photography #canadianart #vancouverisland

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

DAVE GREEN | SELF PORTRAIT IN THE WINDOW OF THE GREENWOOD CEMETERY CHAPEL, OWEN SOUND, 2024

An excerpt :

'Time is nothing. We have our memory. In memory there is no time. I will hold you in my memory.
And you, maybe you will remember me too.’
(J.M. Coetzee, The Pole)

There is a Salvatore DiFalco quality to Dave Green’s photographs. It’s not just the scenes he presents us, but also the deep almost oily blacks and the grain of the film in many of his photographs. There is a physicality to these scenes, even when seen online : unsurprising, as he’s a photographer who is all about the photographic print and not just within the digital milieu of the present day, that has both its advantages and failings….

DiFalco is a writer and literary critic : I first encountered his fiction in a Canadian literary magazine in the early 2000s and this inspired me to seek out his book of short stories Black Rabbit & Other Stories.

These are urban stories, gritty snapshots of people who are frequently flawed and even, perhaps, a bit repellent. They take place in Toronto or Hamilton or even my own territory of the rust belt wonderland of Niagara, and several memorable ones that are situated in the latter two sites are as engaging as they are grotesque. The characters that inhabit DiFalco’s Black Rabbit (from Stories or Outside or Rocco or Alicia) could also populate some of the scenes that Green presents to us. Green’s work is not quite so dire or dour, nor quite as nihilistic, but his photographs do intersect with DiFalco’s world, whether literally (in his choice of places or his on the cuff captures of his immediate world) or through implication, with the unembellished frankness of Green’s photographs.

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/dave-green-self-portrait-in-the-window-of-the-greenwood-cemetery-chapel-owen-sound-2024

#curated #curatorspicks #art #photography #DaveGreen #DaveGreenPhotos #DiFalco #CanadianArt #CanadianPhoto

We’re out her projecting the work of @cedarhillj

We’re out her projecting the work of @cedarhilljackie @sophiecorbart @patriciacsimone @heatherkocsisartist @paint.and.wave for Femme Folks Fest in Uptown Waterloo! @ejfleming2277 is playing up a storm with us on this beautiful March night. Thank you @patthedogpdc , @l_k_photography and @edvideoguelph

A new CURATORS' PICK from co editor Bart Gazzola :

A new CURATORS' PICK from co editor Bart Gazzola :

CLARENCE JOHN LAUGHLIN (1905 – 1985) | SOUTHERN GOTHIC

'I tried to create a mythology from our contemporary world. This mythology — instead of having gods and goddesses — has the personifications of our fears and frustrations, our desires and dilemmas.'
(Clarence John Laughlin)

'Ghosts exist for a purpose. Unfinished business, delayed revenge, or to carry a message. Sometimes the dead can go to a lot of trouble to bring a desperate warning of some terrible thing that’s coming.

Whatever the reason, don’t blame the messenger for the message.'
(Simon R. Green, Voices from Beyond)

Laughlin was a New Orleans photographer : he’s best known for his monochromatic, sometimes uncanny and disquieting images of the Southern United States. Considering the ethereal and dream-like quality of many of his scenes, he’s sometimes spoken of as the father of American Surrealism. In considering his photographs, the ‘original’ definition of Surrealism from André Breton was to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality.” Less pretentiously (Frida Kahlo did refer to Breton as being among the ‘art bitches’ of Paris, whom she disdained, ahem), in the work of Laughlin, one can see that he was attempting to both re interpret and define his own memories and experiences of a site, while also employing the place and people within it, that is rife with contested narratives.

Read more of Gazzola’s response to Laughlin’s work here : https://curatednow.ca/clarence-john-laughlin-southern-gothic/

#curated #curatorspicks #Art #photo #Laughlin #ClarenceJohnLaughlin #ClarenceJohnLaughlinArt #ClarenceJohnLaughlinphoto #AmericanPhoto #SouthernGothic #Surrealism #SurrealistPhoto #SouthernAmericanArtists #AmericanPhotographers #ClarenceJohnLaughlinGothic

A new CURATORS' PICK from co editor Bart Gazzola :

A new CURATORS' PICK from co editor Bart Gazzola :

CURTIS DOHERTY | WHO KNIT YA? | 2024

An excerpt :

Out of these you make what you can, knowing that one thing leads to another. Sometime, someone will forget himself and say too much or else the corner of a picture will reveal the whole.

* * * * *

As the past moves under your fingertips, part of it crumbles. Other parts, you know you’ll never find. This is what you have.

(Timothy Findley, The Wars)

Mining family history in terms of artmaking is both a rich and a dangerous field. On this front, Amy Friends’ exhibition Assorted Boxes of Ordinary Life is a touchstone for me. In her exhibition, the assemblage – the editing, as to what might be revealed – of inherited objects that had significance that might be discerned by a visitor (others of which were opaque to an outsider) and the works that they inspired had a universal appeal. I say this as someone who has been exploring their ancestry in Niagara and found out some things that are also problematic (United Empire Loyalists as ancestors did not please me, ahem. I was comfortable with dissidents and criminals). Perhaps more of the ruminations of Timothy Findley is apropos here : “The occupants of memory have to be protected from strangers.”

In that same manner, Doherty presents a personal story that resonates with many of us, on many levels. Due to the locale – the sites he’s revisiting in paint being referential to Newfoundland, and the diaspora that has often been an experience of the people there, seeking work and economic stability far from home – the works of the late David Blackwood also come to mind, as an expansion of the conversation. One might see Blackwood’s works as one chapter of a story about Newfoundland, and Doherty’s as an addendum, decades later, but of the same ‘families.’

Read more & see more of Doherty’s work here : https://curatednow.ca/curtis-doherty-who-knit-ya-2024/

#art #curated #curatorspick #artist #painting #Canadianpainting #historypainting #Newfoundland #WhoKnitYa #DohertyArt #DohertyPainting #CanadianArt #CanadianArtists

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curators’ Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

KATERINA BELKINA | THE DINNER, 2016 (FROM THE SERIES REPAST)

“God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat.”
(Thomas Tusser, 1524 – 1580)

I will admit that there are certain fascinations – or perhaps less charitably or more directly classified – obsessions that ‘feed’ my interests in terms of artworks.

Meat is one of them. I offered an essay – centered on the fine paintings of Scott Conary – that explored this, but when I was making artworks prior to my exile or migration to Niagara (edit as you will) I often worked with fat, meat, bones and other organic matter, to make works that I described as ‘inappropriately beautiful.’

Sometimes, amidst the cacophony – or idiot choir – of ‘art criticism’ these days, with references pedantic and claiming to be ‘philosophical’ it is good to return to simply a notion of beauty. One of my best teachers, Patrick Traer – a fine artist whose work dealt with these contested, perhaps conflicting, narratives – spoke of this to me years ago, when I was still on the Prairies.

Belkina’s artwork that I share here is gripping, and – again – inappropriately (to some weaker constitutions) beautiful. She offers some interesting ideas about her motivation and ideas that sometimes intersect with my own, but this is an image that is striking and that, frankly, is enough.

See more here : https://curatednow.ca/katerina-belkina-the-dinner-2016/

#curated #curatorspick #art #painting #digital #belkina #belkinaart #femaleartists #femalepainters #digitalart #repast #russianart #russianartists #artists #katerinabelkinaart

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

SANDY FAIRBAIRN | ART, ROAD CLOSED | WELLAND, APRIL 5 2014

An excerpt :

Four years ago, just as Covid – 19 was beginning to move across the world, an exhibition of Sandy Fairbain‘s artworks that I curated at AIH Studios in Welland opened. These selections from the photographer’s extensive archive were focused upon the city of Welland and were collectively titled Welland : Times Present Times Past. Originally planned to run from February 15th to March 15th 2020, lockdowns and access became an issue, but I take joy in a local writer describing it as one of the most important exhibitions in that city, of the decade. There were also works that acknowledged the major role that Welland played in the history of labour rights in Canada, that were more sculptural, but that’s a story for another time (or seek out the book Union Power : Struggle and Solidarity in Niagara that is a fine history of the space, before we acquiesced to the ‘dogma’ of ‘trickle down economics’ and the liars Mulroney, Thatcher and Reagan, ahem).

This image was one of the more unique ones in that show, differing formally from Sandy Fairbairn’s usual straight on shots of buildings and edifices, reminiscent of ‘mug shot architecture’, if you will. But perhaps it might be better described as ‘morgue’ photos, as when we hung the show there were many captures of the same space, from decade to decade, and many times the sites were now demolished and empty….

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/sandy-fairbairn-art-road-closed-welland-april-5-2014/

#curated #curatorspick #covertcollective #art #photo #Fairbairn #NiagaraArt #NiagaraPhoto #WellandArt #WellandPhoto #SandyFairbairnArt #FairbairnPhoto #history #Welland #AIHStudios #WellandHistory #NiagaraArtists #WellandArtists

A new Curator's Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola w

A new Curator's Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola with several haunting images to end 2023 :

JEFF BROUWS | NIGHT WINDOW, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 2000

“In the Far West, where Brigham Young ended up and I started from, they tell stories about hoop snakes.
When a hoop snake wants to get somewhere—whether because the hoop snake is after something, or because something is after the hoop snake—it takes its tail (which may or may not have rattles on it) into its mouth, thus forming itself into a hoop, and rolls.
Jehovah enjoined snakes to crawl on their belly in the dust, but Jehovah was an Easterner. Rolling along, bowling along, is a lot quicker and more satisfying than crawling. But, for the hoop snakes with rattles, there is a drawback. They are venomous snakes, and when they bite their own tail they die, in awful agony, of snakebite. All progress has these hitches. I don’t know what the moral is. It may be in the end safest to lie perfectly still without even crawling. Indeed it’s certain that we shall all do so in the end, which has nothing else after it. But then no tracks are left in the dust, no lines drawn; the dark and stormy nights are all one with the sweet bright days, this moment of June—and you might as well never have lived at all.”

(Ursula K. Le Guin)

When I first encountered Brouws’ work – the primary image in this essay Night Window, Los Angeles, California, 2000 – the quote from Le Guin that opens this meditation on his work came immediately to mind. It’s all about telling stories, some of which are quieter than others, some of which are on the verge of being forgotten and some that we may never have considered. The term ‘into the west’ has connotations both positive and negative, but that is just life, and history, and Brouws’ images encapsulate all these contradictions with an eye for beauty in what might be banal, but definitely resonates with the viewer on multiple levels.

See more here : https://curatednow.ca/jeff-brouws-night-window-los-angeles-california-2000/

#curated #curatorspick #covertcollective #photography #JeffBrouws #JeffBrouwsphoto #IntoTheWest #RoadToNowhere #BrouwsPhoto #AmericanWest #AmericanArt #colourphoto #history

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

ADRIANNA AULT & RAYMOND MEEKS | OHIO FARM AUCTION

An excerpt :

The crops we grew last summer weren’t enough to pay the loans
Couldn’t buy the seed to plant this spring and the Farmers’ Bank foreclosed
Called my old friend Schepman up, to auction off the land
He said, “John it’s just my job and I hope you understand”
Hey, calling it your job ol’ hoss, sure don’t make it right
But if you want me to I’ll say a prayer for your soul tonight
(John Mellencamp, Rain on the Scarecrow)

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. (Ecclesiastes 1:4, KJV)

There’s a memento mori quality to the scenes from the Ohio Farm Auction series. This may be an interpretation informed by several of the other bodies of work by Adrianna Ault (such as her series Levee which led me to the collaborative Ohio Farm Auction series), that are permeated by a sense of mortality and remembrance, as expressed in her writings about those images.

Though these images are not completely empty of people, the more striking and – unsurprisingly – starker moments that stay with you have no figures within them, though their absence and implication is powerful. The line I quote above, in response to this work came to mind immediately upon seeing the Township photos. Mellencamp’s album was a series of laments for a way of life lost (perhaps taken away or relinquished), as the world moves on (this last being closest, I feel, to the artists’ position here, with a gentle consideration of family history and generational change. Township reads more about releasing than resistance..)

See more here : https://curatednow.ca/adrianna-ault-raymond-meeks-ohio-farm-auction/

#curated #curatorspick #covertcollective #art #blackandwhitephoto #photography #OhioFarmAuction #AultPhoto #MeeksPhoto #RaymondMeeks #AdriannaAult #AmericanArt #AmericanPhoto #photo #FarmAuction

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

THE BROTHERS QUAY | STREET OF CROCODILES | 1986

An excerpt :

The Street of Crocodiles was a concession of our city to modernity and metropolitan corruption. The misfortune of that area is that nothing ever succeeds there, nothing can ever reach a definite conclusion. Obviously, we were unable to afford anything better than a cardboard imitation, a photo montage cut out from last year’s mouldering newspapers. Obviously, we were unable to afford anything better.
(Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles, also known as The Cinnamon Shops, 1934)

Inspired by the short story by Bruno Schulz (The Street of Crocodiles) from a book of collected stories, Timothy and Stephen Quay – well known as The Brothers Quay or The Quay Brothers – decided that ‘rather than literally representing the childhood memoirs of Schulz, the animators [would use] the story’s mood and psychological undertones as inspiration for their own creation.’

It’s a relatively short film (approximately twenty minutes) but its brevity doesn’t prevent this work by The Brothers Quay from having a haunting impact on the viewer. There’s something about stop action animation that is unsettling, in itself (perhaps that these are ‘dolls’ that ‘pervert’ our sense of ourselves, in the manner of Hans Bellmer, dark dreams given corporeal forms) and the dark scenes (like degraded wastelands populated by equally damaged characters) where the brothers’ adaptation – or reimagination – of Schulz’ story plays out only augments this unease. Schulz’ words echo in the space : In that city of cheap human material, no instincts can flourish, no dark and unusual passions can be aroused.

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/the-brothers-quay-street-of-crocodiles-1986/

#curated #covertcollective #curatorspick #brothersquay #quaybrothers #stopaction #art #film #cinema #streetofcrocodiles #BrunoSchulz #Quay #animation #thebrothersquay

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

SIBYLLE BERGEMANN | THE MONUMENT | 1975 - 1986

Nothing seems more improbable than what people believed when this belief has gone with the wind.
(Doris Lessing)

I am old enough to remember when the Berlin Wall fell and the end of the Cold War. In a fine inversion – and something that speaks to how history is often a collaborative delusion and how, at its best, art history can be the most direct and yet most subversive form of history – I would be teaching a decade or so later and have to explain to students what both of those events were, and why they still mattered. That was also a time when I reread Doris Lessing (I recommend her award winning – and divisive, to many readers and critics – book The Good Terrorist) : I had disdain for her books when I read them in my early twenties, and was surprised at how much more sense they made to me, as I had matured and gained experiences that resonated with her words, when I was older. At that time, I was able to appreciate her words – and especially the sentiment behind them – that I quote at the start of this essay a little better….

—-------------------------

Enough tangential commentary, let’s have some facts : “From 1975 until 1986 Sibylle Bergemann accompanied the making of the huge bronze of Marx and Engels in Gummlin / Usedom from the first sketches to the installation. The work, which was created by the sculptor Ludwig Engelhardt, is still located near the Alexanderplatz in Berlin-Mitte.” There has been controversy about this monument, as Germany struggles with its past as defined in the present, whether it be the theoretical space of Marxism or that the GDR was one of the most repressive states in the 20th century. Monuments, after all, occupy both physical space and conceptual ground in any national imaginary.

Read more here : https://curatednow.ca/sibylle-bergemann-the-monument-1975-1986/

#curated #covertcollective #art #arthistory #coldwar #sibyllebergemann #femaleartists #femalephotographers #GermanArt #GermanHistory #FemaleGermanPhotographers #FemaleGermanArtists

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola

A new Curator’s Pick from co editor Bart Gazzola :

GERALD SLOTA | HOME SWEET HOME | 2010
(in collaboration with Neil LaBute)

An excerpt :

“Welcome to the midnight America, the one that exists parallel to the “real” world. It’s a dark country, one where men with hooks haunt Lover’s Lane and scarecrows walk on moonlit nights. It’s the place where people go when they slip into the cracks between light and darkness, a world of routewitches and oracles, demons and ambulomancers.

The rules are different here, and everyone’s playing for keeps. Be careful. Be cautious. And listen to the urban legends, because they may be the only things that can save you from the man who waits at the crossroads, hunting souls to keep himself alive.
Welcome to the ghostside.”

(Seanan McGuire from her Ghost Road series)

Home Sweet Home is a collaboration between Gerald Slota and playwright Neil Labute. Introduced to each other in 2008, they began corresponding and working together (via email, for the most part, as they did not actually meet in person until – fittingly – an exhibition of this work in New York City in October 2010.) From the statement about Home Sweet Home : “For the first time Slota’s visual narratives are aligned alongside written narratives. The series title serves as an ironic reference to much of the early material’s dark focus on themes of home and family.”

The world that Slota and LaBute present us with is the descendant – a successor, in some ways – of the sites and landmarks from Michael Lesy’s The Wisconsin Death Trip. Denizens of a desperate world, sometimes leading lives of ‘quiet desperation’ (but not always, as secrets fester and explode, unable to be contained forever, just as some of the ‘narrators’ of these images must share what they have held inside….)

See more here : https://curatednow.ca/gerald-slota-home-sweet-home-2010/

#GeraldSlota #SlotaArt #curated #thecovertcollective #Photography #artists #homesweethome #AmericanArt #AmericanPhoto #curators #curatorspick #documentaryphoto #colourphoto #contemporaryart #art #LaBute

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