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Exposure 2010: Top 10 to See

Attila Richard Lukacs St Gerome No Date Detail Courtesy of the artist

The sixth annual Exposure photography festival kicks off this week with 30 venues and nearly 40 exhibitions in Calgary, Banff and Canmore. Canadian Art’s top picks for the fest, which is this year themed on perception, include shooters both faraway and close to home, encompassing a range from conceptual group shows to intimate solo offerings.

1. “Counter-Photography: Japan’s Artists Today” at the Triangle Gallery

Yuri Mitsuda of the Shoto Museum of Art in Tokyo brings together 11 leading photographers from Japan for “Counter-Photography,” an exhibition which has toured many parts of Asia and North and South America, but is having its Western Canadian debut at the Triangle Gallery. Featuring work by established stars like Hiroshi Sugimoto as well as prints from lesser-known artists like Tomoaki Ishihara, the show provides a peek into the world of Japanese photography.

2. Attila Richard Lukacs & Michael Morris at Illingworth Kerr Gallery

Attila Richard Lukacs is best known as a painter, but this travelling exhibition puts the spotlight on his thousands of Polaroids, many of which were used as studies for Lukacs' iconic large-scale paintings. Colleague and friend Michael Morris assisted with assembling the images into coherent grids. Though critic Amy Fung noted on Canadianart.ca last year that the show can often be overwhelming, she also wrote, "Each Polaroid photograph is individually stunning, made all the more precious with faded fingerprints in a variety of colours smudged along each border."

3. Nina Raginsky at the Banff Centre

The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa holds a nice collection of black and white portraits by Montreal-born artist Nina Raginsky. But at the Banff Centre, a spotlight is thrown onto Raginsky’s 1970s colour portraits—all of Vancouver and Victoria residents that Raginsky encountered while riding her bicycle.

4. Larry Towell at Canmore Collegiate

Canadian photojournalist Larry Towell, affiliated with Magnum, has produced 13 books and thousands of memorable images over the course of his impressive career. In a talk at Canmore Collegiate on February 19, fans will be able to meet the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award winner and hear him discuss his work, which includes covering war and armed conflict in El Salvador, Guatemala, Vietnam, Afghanistan and other regions.

5. George Webber at the Whyte Museum

Calgary photographer George Webber is known for his sensitive documentary projects on First Nations communities, Hutterite villages and Calgary’s downtown. This show, “Kanai: People of the Blood,” contains selections from Webber’s work on Alberta’s Blood Reserve, where he has been photographing since 1992.

6. Adrian Blackwell, Stefan Canham, Rufina Wu and Ossi Kajas at Pith Gallery

Contemporary-art curator Tomas Jonsson brings Pith, a newish gallery space, into the spotlight with a show themed on “informally organized and contested places.” Featuring work by Toronto’s Adrian Blackwell, Hamburg’s Stefan Canham, Helsinki’s Ossi Kajas and Hong Kong– and Vancouver-based artist Rufina Wu, the exhibition promises to capitalize on Pith’s past incarnation as a bottle depot.

7. Andy Yang and Craig Richards at Paul Kuhn Gallery

It’s a mix of old and new at Paul Kuhn for Exposure 2010, where young Calgarian (and recent BMO 1st Art shortlister) Andy Yang shares the bill with respected Canmore platinum printer Craig Richards. Where Yang’s work focuses on personal perceptions and limits, Richards frames mountains and natural landscapes around the world—bodies of work that are different, but compelling.

8. Daisy Carroll at the Canmore Museum

Archives get the art treatment at the Canmore Museum as the photographs of Daisy Carroll, one of Canmore’s early 1900s-era postmistresses, receive a showing. Working as an amateur photographer, Carroll documented local activities including mining, ice hockey and farming. What results is a picture of life in the Canmore that existed well before its current condo-and-golf-resorts boom.

9. Kent Monkman at the Glenbow Museum

Kent Monkman’s acclaimed touring exhibition “The Triumph of Mischief” arrives in Calgary on February 13, and though many of the works in the show are paintings, Exposure 2010 fans will also likely enjoy archival-seeming photographs and films of Monkman in his Miss Chief Eagle Testickle alter ego.

10. Panels at the Glenbow and ACAD

For those who like to think in-depth about photography—both where it came from and where it is going—a couple of Exposure 2010 panels will be must-sees. On February 20 at the Glenbow, experts tackle “The (Lost?) Art of Photography Books” with a discussion of the impact of online publishing services. Similarly, on February 26 at the Alberta College of Art and Design, the panel “The Internet in Contemporary Art” will unite Jordan Tate, Jeremy Bailey (whose 2007 video Transhuman Dance Recital is shown above), Sally McKay and Penelope Umbrico to consider the ways that the web is affecting image-art practice.

Please note this article contained information that became incorrect after it was originally published. The article has now been updated and corrected as a result.

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