Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘artist’

The Retired Draft Horse and the Last Pulled Log, Ken Lum, Kings Crossing, G and F Financial Group, Burnaby, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “The Retired Draft Horse …”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2020, Lum completed a sculptural work commissioned by Cressey Properties for its development in the city of Burnaby. “The Retired Draft Horse and the Last Pulled Log” resides at Kings Crossing at the intersection of Kingsway and Edmonds. Lum wrote in his proposal:

“… about a draught horse that is no longer called to work.The horse is a Clydesdale or a Persheron, the largest of draught horses that were commonly employed in British Columbia in the 19th- and early 20th-centuries. The log with chains on the Edmonds street site is meant to be in dialogue with the horse sculpture at the primary site of Kingsway and Edmonds.The larger than life size but not greatly larger than life sized horse surveys the modernity that has transpired since its working days in Burnaby and acts a sentinel of both the past and the future of the site.”

I made the photo above on 16 May 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-llo.

Fotoeins Friday: “From shangri-la to shangri-la”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

These look like wooden shacks along a creek or small river. In 2010, Lum completed a sculptural work commissioned by the City of Vancouver next to the four-star Shangri-La Hotel, as a “reminder of contested local histories.” Meant only as a temporary display, the piece was eventually removed. In 2012, the District of North Vancouver purchased Lum’s piece; a modified smaller version of the sculptural piece is installed at Maplewood Flats, in the very same area where shacks had once populated the mudflats along the northern shores of Burrard Inlet. Represented are houses once owned by artist Tom Burrows, writer Malcolm Lowry, and OrcaLab founder Dr. Paul Spong.

I made the photo above on 3 Jul 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm) with digital teleconverter set to 33/50mm. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-llf.

Monument to East Vancouver, Ken Lum, East Van, VCC-Clark, Millennium Line, SkyTrain, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “Monument for East Vancouver”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2010, Lum completed a large sculptural work commissioned by the City of Vancouver. The work “Monument for East Vancouver” is situated in East Vancouver, standing above a rapid-transit station over the filled-in area of former tidal mudflats. Also informally called the “East Van Cross,” the sculpture situated in the “working class” or east side of the city faces west towards the wealthier parts of the city, including downtown and the west side. The symbolism regarding economic background and the specificity of place will be obvious to people of colour. Lum once said:

“… It’s a crucifix, that’s what it is – a highly charged symbol. Christ suffered on the cross. East Van suffers on the cross. The point (is): someone is suffering. And immigrants suffer the most …”

“Ken Lum”. ed. Grant Arnold, Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2011, p. 123.

I made the photo above on 31 May 2014 with a Canon EOS6D mark1. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lkW.

A Tale of Two Children: A Work for Strathcona, Ken Lum, National Works Yard, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: “A Tale of Two Children”, by Ken Lum

I’m highlighting this month Chinese-Canadian artist Ken Lum: born and raised in the western Canadian city of Vancouver; he began studying chemistry at university before switching completely to art. Today, not only does he continue to make art, but he also comments about the contemporary and historical nature of art and about how art and society continuously shapes and informs each other. All of Lum’s pieces featured this month are located outdoors and freely accessible to the public at zero cost.

In 2005, Lum completed a permanent work commissioned by the City of Vancouver for its public works yard on National Avenue. The work “A Tale of Two Children: A Work for Strathcona” is not only a nod to his formative years growing up in the Strathcona neighbourhood, but provides different views to children and their changing (and precipitous) views regarding self-worth within a society that’s already prejudged them.

I made the photo above on 1 Jun 2021 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28mm). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lkF.

Cindy Sherman, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday at Vancouver AG: Cindy Sherman

Above/featured: Untitled #586 (2016/2018).

The following descriptions are from the Vancouver Art Gallery where the Cindy Sherman retrospective is on display until 8 March 2020.

In 2016, Cindy Sherman was commissioned by the celebrated fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar to create a new series of photographs for publication. Responding to that commission, Sherman photographed herself wearing outfits by Prada, J.W. Anderson, Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Gucci, and Chanel. She augmented these costumes with make-up, wigs, and digitally created backgrounds to create invented characters, based on so-called street-style stars. Her photographs gently lampoon a contemporary trend associated with fashion shows, which are attended by individuals whose ostentatious dress and exaggerated behaviour rival the main spectacle for attention. Nick-naming the phenomenon ‘project twirl’, Sherman explained: “I just loved the description of these people, these characters who go to the fashion shows – and twirl.”

Sherman’s collaborations with fashion are long-standing. Since 1983, she has worked with Dianne Benson, Dorothée Bis, ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ (for the first time, in 1993), Comme des Garçons, ‘Vogue Paris’, and ‘Garage’ magazine. Characteristically, her fashion photographs mock the self-regard associated with haute-couture. However, they have further significance shared with her work as a whole. Sherman observed: “I want there to be hints of narrative everywhere in the image so that people can make up their own stories about them.”

Organized by the National Portrait Gallery London, the current exhibition surveys the work of Cindy Sherman (born 1954), one of the world’s leading contemporary artists. Using make-up, wigs, costumes, and other means to transform her appearance, Sherman photographs herself acting out the roles of numerous fictional characters. Her images of these personae incorporate references to modern cultures, notably cinema, television, magazines, and fashion. By creating enigmatic appearances from various sources, her work critiques our image-saturated society and raises questions about the meanings we assign to the things we see.

•   Cindy Sherman: ‘I enjoy doing the really difficult things that people can’t buy’ – Sean O’Hagan, The Observer (Guardian), 8 Jun 2019.
•   Cindy Sherman review – pain-laced portraits of a shapeshifting enigma (NPG London) – Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 25 Jun 2019.

I made the photo above on 26 Oct 2019 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28) and the following settings: 1/40-sec, f/3.6, and ISO3200. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-fTa.

Lisa Hilli, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday at Vancouver AG: Lisa Hilli

Above/featured: Sisterhood Lifeline (2018).

Lisa Hilli: Gunantuna (Papua New Guinea).

‘Sisterhood Lifeline’ assembles a standard office cubicle in the gallery; large wallpapers feature First Nations vavine (women) in stark white spaces, exchanging discreet gestures of comfort. An audio recording on the office telephone recounts real-life situations experienced by the artist’s friends and colleagues in the workplace, which reveal the in/visibility of their bodies, voices, and agency. This work engages with Indigenous power and presence within the context of Eurocentric cultural institutions wherein vavine – considered here beyond binary constructions of gender – must hold space and make way for their communities. The term “sisterhood lifeline” is borrowed from Areej Nur, a writer and producer at 3CR Community Radio in Melbourne, Australia.

“Transits and Returns” presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists whose practices are both rooted in the specificities of their cultures and routed via their travels. These forces of situatedness and mobility work in synergy and in tension with one another, shaping the multiple ways of understanding and being Indigenous today. Within the exhibition, these dual realities are explored through themes of movement, territory, kinship and representation, with many artworks inhabiting multiple categories. The resulting presentation foregrounds the creative sovereignty of each artist to determine their own articulations of the world, while also exploring the resonances between them.

Featuring artists from local First Nations, as well as those from communities located throughout the Pacific region (ranging from Alutiiq territory in the north to Māori lands in the south, with many mainland and island Nations in between), Transits and Returns traces wide-ranging experiences that are inclusive of both ancestral knowledges and global connections.

The descriptions are directly from the Vancouver Art Gallery where Lisa Hilli’s work is on exhibition until 23 February 2020.

I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2019 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28) with the following settings: 1/100-sec, f/4, and ISO4000. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-g4L.

T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday at Vancouver AG: T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss

Above/featured: K’axwch’k Nexw7y’ay’ulh (Turtle Journeys), from the Sacred Teachings series, 2018.

T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss: Skwxwú7mesh, Stó:lō, Métis, Kanaka Maoli, Irish, Swiss.

The snap above is from a video which shows the artist’s Hawaiian cultural and spiritual mentor, Happy Kahuna Pahia. In the light of dusk at Papa’iloa Beach on the leeward side of O’ahu in Hawaii, we see her lying beside a ‘honu’, a green sea turtle, who’s come to rest on shore and harden her shell after travelling great distances in the ocean.

“Transits and Returns” presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists whose practices are both rooted in the specificities of their cultures and routed via their travels. These forces of situatedness and mobility work in synergy and in tension with one another, shaping the multiple ways of understanding and being Indigenous today. Within the exhibition, these dual realities are explored through themes of movement, territory, kinship and representation, with many artworks inhabiting multiple categories. The resulting presentation foregrounds the creative sovereignty of each artist to determine their own articulations of the world, while also exploring the resonances between them.

Featuring artists from local First Nations, as well as those from communities located throughout the Pacific region (ranging from Alutiiq territory in the north to Māori lands in the south, with many mainland and island Nations in between), Transits and Returns traces wide-ranging experiences that are inclusive of both ancestral knowledges and global connections.

The descriptions are directly from the Vancouver Art Gallery where T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss’ video installation is on exhibition until 23 February 2020. With her work as artist and ethnobotanist, she was named by the Vancouver Public Library as Indigenous Storyteller in Residence for 2018.

I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2019 with a Fujifilm X70. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-g51.

Marianne Nicolson, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday at Vancouver AG: Marianne Nicolson

Above/featured: ‘Oh, How I Long for Home’ (2016).

I first saw this work warmly illuminating the empty concourse late at night in the Academic Quadrangle at my alma mater of Simon Fraser University. It’s great even more eyeballs can see this on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Marianne Nicolson: Dzawada’enuxw, Scottish.

The Kwak’wala phrase “Wa’lasan xwalsa kan ne’kakwe” translates into the English title of this artwork, ‘Oh, How I Long for Home’, while also referencing the dawn. This double meaning could be interpreted as the rising sun ‘returning home’ each day and as a poetic assertion of Kwakwaka’wakw People’s sovereignty over their lands and waters, which includes Nicolson’s home community of Gwa’yi or Kingcome Inlet along the central coast of British Columbia in Canada. Yet the neon sign – which was, at one time, ubiquitous in the streets of Vancouver – is also a marker of urban life, a site of conflicted promise for Indigenous Peoples. Longing for home is an experience with which many can identify, one that’s further complicated when considering the unceded territories upon which British Columbia is built, and the impossibility of returning to a home prior to colonization.

“Transits and Returns” presents the work of 21 Indigenous artists whose practices are both rooted in the specificities of their cultures and routed via their travels. These forces of situatedness and mobility work in synergy and in tension with one another, shaping the multiple ways of understanding and being Indigenous today. Within the exhibition, these dual realities are explored through themes of movement, territory, kinship and representation, with many artworks inhabiting multiple categories. The resulting presentation foregrounds the creative sovereignty of each artist to determine their own articulations of the world, while also exploring the resonances between them.

Featuring artists from local First Nations, as well as those from communities located throughout the Pacific region (ranging from Alutiiq territory in the north to Māori lands in the south, with many mainland and island Nations in between), Transits and Returns traces wide-ranging experiences that are inclusive of both ancestral knowledges and global connections.

The descriptions are directly from the Vancouver Art Gallery where Dr. Nicolson’s work is on exhibition until 23 February 2020.

I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2019 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28) with the following settings: 1/105-sec, f/4, and ISO4000. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-g4n.

Vikky Alexander, Extreme Beauty, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday at Vancouver AG: Vikky Alexander

Above/featured: “Model Suite” (2005 series) from left-to-right, respectively: “Overview”, “Sliding Door”, “Bedroom”.

The following description is directly from the Vancouver Art Gallery where Vikky Alexander’s work is on exhibition until 26 January 2020.

“Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty” is the first retrospective of this notable Canadian artist whose work interrogates the mechanisms of display that shape meaning, beauty and desire in our culture. Comprising more than 80 works in a variety of media, Extreme Beauty examines the major themes that have occupied Alexander for more than three decades of her career, including the appropriated image, the artificiality of nature and the seduction of space.

I made the photo above on 15 Oct 2019 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime (18.5/28) and the following settings: 1/12-sec, f/8, and ISO4000. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-g4h.

Image by mohamed hassan on pxhere (CC0).

18 artists and togs I found in 2018 (IG)

A lot of ink, talk, discontent, and contempt has appeared regarding the uses and abuses on Facebook’s Instagram; see here and here. I discovered on Instagram the presence of the following 18 artists and photographers, some of whom I’d already been aware from print. It’s in many of their images where I’ve found stillness, inspiration, stimulation, and provocation, and that’s why you should get to know some of these people. I’ll continue to admire their work elsewhere when present forms of social media will (must?) inevitably disappear.

( Click here for more )

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