Jayce Salloum

This exhibition explores the traditional genre of still life and how it is a sustained practice within contemporary visual art making. The number of artists and works is large for the exhibition spaces of the Contemporary Art Gallery, and yet it seems small in relation to the subject. The quantity of works reflects this genre’s continued importance in current art production and discourse, and is conceptually tied to conventional formal aspects of still life, gathering together many objects for contemplation in a constructed setting.

Many of the artworks in this exhibition were chosen because they stick closely to the familiar conventions and typical subject matter of still life. The first part of the title of this exhibition is an appropriation of one of Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s photographs from their Equilibres series made in the mid 1980s. The triumph of the carrot is linked to the success of still life, as well as the genre's formal properties, namely its use of humble objects. The second part of the title is linked to a question first posed by art historian Thomas Crow, who questioned how an archaic and hierarchical system such as the genres can still be important for understanding contemporary art. In bringing together this group of works that spans generations and crosses mediums, the CAG traces the persistence of still life, in an attempt to understand how it operates differently now than it has in the past, examining the current circumstances and naming some particularities.


Detail image of fruits on a plate carved out of wood. The entire sculpture is coloured black.

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Installation image of the group show Triumphant Carrot. Various artworks are installed throughout the gallery. There is a mix of photographs, sculptures and a light box mounted on a freestanding wall.

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Installation image of the group show Triumphant Carrot. Various artworks, such as paintings, framed photographs, a lightbox mounted on a wall, and sculptures, are installed throughout the gallery.

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Installation image of the group show Triumphant Carrot. Various artworks, paintings, framed photographs, a lightbox, sculptures, and a tv monitor on a plinth, are installed throughout the gallery.

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Four framed photographs hang on either side of a corner wall in a gallery. A small table with a brown top and black legs sits in the middle. A smaller object sits on top of the table.

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Two framed photographs hang on one side of a corner wall. Three photographs hang on the other side. A small, skull-like object sits on the floor in the corner. A TV sits on a black plinth to the right.

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A monitor mounted on a wall in a dimly lit gallery displays an image. A black bench sits in the center of the room.

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A bright, projected image appears to lean against the wall of a dimly lit gallery. The image displays several objects scattered on a floor. A black bench sits in the center of the room. 

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A small area under the stairs of a gallery is installed to appear as a living room. A burgundy couch with matching ottoman, a lounge chair, a sideboard, a lamp, and three rugs occupy the space.

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Installation image of the group show Triumphant Carrot. Various artworks installed in a gallery space, from framed photographs on the wall, sculptural objects on plinths to colourful objects on a table.

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Robert Arndt, Eric Cameron, James Carl, Gerald Ferguson, Chris Hanson & Hendrika Sonnenberg, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Rodney Graham, Jay Isaac, Elad Lassry, Evan Lee, Arvo Leo, Kelly Lycan, Liz Magor, Kelly Mark, Damian Moppett, Ron Moppett, Brad Phillips, Jayce Salloum, Erica Stocking, Zin Taylor, Ron Tran, Lesley Vance, Jeff Wall, Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky, Sam Taylor-Wood

Triumphant Carrot: The Persistence of Still Life

Jayce Salloum is recognized for a large body of photography and video production that has been exhibited and screened since 1979. His work has been presented in venues as varied as storefronts in New York and San Diego to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Having lived abroad for numerous years, Salloum now makes Vancouver his home base. 

The title *22oz. THUNDERBOLT* comes from a fragment of advertising represented in one of the photographs in the exhibition. This body of work, presented in an installation format, continues Salloum’s long-held interest in the idea of street photography and documentary traditions, and the ways in which they intersect with the actual experience of the urban environment. He is also a collector of images and considers his artmaking process akin to that of a creative archivist.

Most of the images in *22oz. THUNDERBOLT* are photographed in a seemingly spontaneous manner, evoking the fragmented and peripheral information that one encounters while walking through the city. The syncopated arrangement on the walls accentuates a layered and impressionistic reading of the urban environment. While many of the images capture ephemeral moments — a view from a car window, street scenes and buildings — the exhibition consists primarily of an accumulation of images of storefronts and window displays. These contained yet highly public spaces give emphasis to a relationship between idiosyncratic and subjective modes of display, and the intentions of consumerist appeal, which Salloum points out are “specifically the places in between private and public space.” In this exhibition, the urban environment was filled with signs of diverse identities, desires and needs, and we must find our own space within it.


Four coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on a gallery wall. All images depict paper. One photograph shows signs covering the wall, and the other shows piles of books to be recycled.

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Nine photographs are installed on a white gallery wall. They, placed three by three, are street photographs. Some of the images include bear trees in front of buildings. 

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Five coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on a gallery wall. Four of them are placed closely with each other: two of them show shuttered storefronts and the rest shows mannequin heads. 

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Five coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on white a wall. All photos depict storefronts. Some have handwritten signs that read, “We Got Coffee” and “Match Any Lower Advertised Price!!”

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Four coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on a gallery wall. All of the images show mannequins and small dolls displayed in shops. Some brown mannequins have bronde and brunette hair. 

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Four coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on a white gallery wall. The largest photo among them shows small white sculptures with Disney characters and numbers on. 

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Various coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on white gallery walls. The large-sized photograph at the top includes “22oz. THUNDERBOLT” printed in yellow over the images.

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Various coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on white gallery walls. These photographs are roughly grouped by the subject matter. Some are installed at the bottom of the walls. 

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Many coloured photographs of various sizes are displayed on gallery walls. The photographs are roughly grouped by the subject matter. Some are vertically aligned, and pairs are placed side by side.

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22 oz. THUNDERBOLT

*STILL LIFE* is the second in a series of three publications that used the petit genres of landscape, still life and portraiture to reflect programming at the Contemporary Art Gallery which framed tendencies in contemporary art.

It was published by the Contemporary Art Gallery in 2010 in conjunction with the exhibition *Triumphant Carrot: The Persistence of Still Life*, and contains essays by Evan Lee, Jenifer Papararo and Trevor Mahovsky. Jenifer Papararo looks at the continued relevance of this genre and its relation to the development of the avant-garde. Also included are texts by two of the artists in the exhibition. Trevor Mahovsky draws parallels between recent theoretical interests in the everyday and the value of still life; and Evan Lee uses the dollar store to discuss the complex relations between the consumption of objects and what a still life represents.

#### Other publications from this series:

*LANDSCAPE*

*PORTRAIT*

Purchase all three publications for $25 below.


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petit genres

STILL LIFE

*Birgit* is a limited edition bookwork by Hans Peter Feldmann, published by the Contemporary Art Gallery in 2006 and released in conjunction with Feldmann’s first solo exhibition in Canada at CAG, June 9 – August 20, 2006. The publication is comprised of 72 successive colour snapshots of a woman applying her make-up from beginning to end, and is accompanied by a comprehensive text by the exhibition’s curator, Roy Arden.


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Birgit

Hans-Peter Feldmann

This book was co-published in 1999 by the Contemporary Art Gallery; and the Agnes Etherington Art Center, on the occasion of the exhibitions, *22 oz. THUNDERBOLT* at the Contemporary Art Gallery, March 27 – May 8, 1999; and *NEUTRAL/BRAKES/STEERING* at the Agnes Etherington Art Center, November 12 – December 24, 1998. The publication contains an essay by Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher.


Jayce Salloum

Exhibitions

Publications & Editions