André Martin

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Montreal artist André Martin. Martin has exhibited widely in Quebec and France. He has recently opened an exhibition at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris where he participated in the *Mois de la Photo*. This is his first solo exhibition in Vancouver.

André Martin is both a photographer and novelist. The photographic installation *Darlinghurst Heroes* includes large-scale photographic diptychs, sculptural elements and text. Based on an award winning novel of the same title and authored by the artist, the exhibition is a poetic interpretation of a trip to Australia to research photography and to visit a doctor who works with people living with AIDS, and with whom the narrator had an affair in Paris. The photographs present enigmatic patterns suggestive of constellations, calligraphy, tattoos, mycosis, or braille. These patterns are in fact displaced sand from burrows made by beach crabs as part of a mating ritual which results in their death. Combined with text in the form of excerpts from a letter and crumpled pages from the novel, this installation explores the ways that desire and vulnerability co-exist, and raises questions regarding the nature of faith.

A close-up view of an installation shows three non-representational black figures on the white panel. A collection of small white lights, projected from the ceiling, form a spiral on the panel.

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Four pictures are mounted on the gallery wall. Two of them have identical images, so does another pair. They show abstract figures drawn on sand. Two are silver, and the others are copper-coloured. 

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An installation on the white gallery floor consists of a white panel and a projection from the ceiling. A white spiral shape is projected over the panel. The gallery walls are painted in red. 

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Six short cylinders are visible in this image. They are made of rusted metal. Viewers can peek at the black and white image at the bottom of each cylinder through the hole on top of each cylinder.  

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A face, printed in white and orange-brown, is roughly folded into a shape of a ball. This folded paper is installed in a gallery space. A person’s eye is the most recognizable part of this piece.

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Identical images of a man’s face are installed on the gallery wall. In total 88 of those images, printed in orange-brown and closely aligned to each other, resembles a chocolate bar. 

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Six artworks are installed on the gallery wall. A collection of metal cylinders and two collections of folded paper are installed in between tall rectangular pictures. All artworks are in brown tones.

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Darlinghurst Heroes

Kevin Madill 

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Vancouver artist Kevin Madill. His formal education includes training in both music composition and the visual arts. His photographs have been exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Morris & Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Artspeak Gallery, Access Gallery, and YYZ.

Madill has gained recognition for his photographic murals which explore various facets of the portrait genre. His portraits are not mere likenesses of individuals, but rather, convey a broader psychological presence of the individual in contemporary society. His ideas and experiences find a present summation in the fantasy-portrait, *The Disaffected Hairdresser*, one of three large-scale works in this exhibition that have never been exhibited in Vancouver.

In constructing his images, Madill combines digital technologies with works grounded in the history of art. Technology allows for the manipulation of colour and detail, while his references to art history examine the way we read representation and the portrait.

Two photographs are installed at the corner of the gallery. One on the front wall depicts two women in front of orange curtains, and the one on the back wall shows a person standing on a swing.

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Three large photos on the walls of a gallery space. One is black and grey in a staged salon space, one shows a duo in front of a curtain, and one shows someone standing on a swing, with an open mouth.

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01-KevinMadill-1998.jpeg

Three identical posters align on the gallery wall. The poster contains a black and white photo image of a short-haired person looking at a small flat bottle. The word VUOTO is typed below the image.  

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A black and white photograph is installed on the gallery wall. In this tall rectangular-shaped photo, a man sits on a chair in front of a large mirror. He looks away from the newspaper on his lap.  

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Kevin Madill

Claudia Cuesta

Claudia Cuesta was raised in Colombia, educated in England and Canada, and currently lives and works in Vancouver. In recent years, Cuesta has gained an international reputation through exhibitions in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, London, Birmingham, Bogota, and Rio de Janeiro. Her work is primarily sculptural, minimal in aesthetic, and incorporates common industrial materials that are re-shaped and finished by hand. Her artwork creates highly charged statements about transformation and transitoriness.

*CONFESSION (from a payphone)* is a dramatic installation that consists of eight wall works, a central floor sculpture and an audio component. Each of the wall pieces are boxes constructed from burnished steel that each incorporate elements such as a cross filled with communion wafers, an enclosed cavity of ashes, staring eyes, a burning flame, and a pink zipper. The floor sculpture is a coffin-shaped, human-sized steel box from which the sound of breathing emanates. This installation alludes to the passage from life to death and of the last minute chance to be forgiven for one's sins. While Cuesta draws specifically upon her Catholic upbringing, her ideas are directed more to society's construction of myths that have led to a pervasiveness of the concepts of sin and guilt within the western psyche. However, this work is not without irony and humour: the encased wafers that are consumed as a symbol of spiritual communion promise nothing; the eyes of God that apparently witness of our actions are slightly averted and the closed pink zipper, that with chastity denies the sexual being, is waiting to be unzipped. Cuesta questions the superficiality of confession as a means of assuring salvation and redemption and suggests that it is the result of our fear of the unknown.


Essay: "Confessing What?," Keith Wallace

A square-shaped artwork is installed on the gallery wall. Some oil-stain like patterns are visible on the surface of the work. It’s overall colour is black. A red thin vertical line runs  the middle of the work.

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A large steel-made sculpture is placed in the middle of the dimly lit gallery. It is rectangular and has a tarnished dark grey colour. The sculpture is directly placed on the floor. 

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A large steel-made artwork is installed in a gallery. It’s overall colour is black, and some oil-stain patterns appear on the surface. It is door-like shaped and attached to a gallery wall with hinges. 

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A large steel-made sculpture is placed in the middle of the dimly lit gallery. It is rectangular and has a tarnished dark grey colour. The sculpture is directly placed on the floor. Several other steel-made works are also installed on the walls.

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CONFESSION (from a payphone)

Francis Alÿs

> ...I spend a lot of time walking around the city...An initial concept for a project often emerges during a walk. As an artist, my position is akin to that of a passer-by constantly trying to situate myself in a moving environment. My work is a succession of notes and guides. The invention of a language goes together with the invention of a city. Each of my interventions is another fragment of the story that I am inventing…
–Francis Alÿs

Francis Alÿs is one of the most important young artists working in Mexico today. While Alÿs is known internationally for his collaborative works with sign painters or *rotulistas* and for his performance walking projects, he has been quietly making modest paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations and videos. He recently completed a major project for INSITE97, San Diego and has exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Humlebaek, Denmark and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Alÿs will be representing Mexico in the forthcoming São Paulo Biennial.

His upcoming exhibition entitled *le temps du sommeil* at the Contemporary Art Gallery will feature recent diaristic paintings, sculptures, drawings and a video projection completed in the last two years. Much in these works draws on the artist's previous projects.

*Le temps du sommeil* (1996-98) is an important work consisting of approximately 100 small-scale oil paintings (each 4.33 inches by 5.90 inches [11 by 15 centimetres]) composed of figures (and sometimes dogs) engaged in various actions, some of which the artist has previously performed, such as walking with leaking tin of paint and walking with a rod balanced upright in the palm of the hand, and others that record scenes from performances or actions he has imagined. The figures are often depicted within a landscape circumscribed by a brown undercoat. This other surface holds residues of notes and drawings from the artists' sketchbook together with the date the panel was completed. 

Alÿs's two tiny sculptures *The Modernist* (1998) and *La barbe de Courbet* (1998) appear to have stepped out of the panels into the three-dimensional world. While the video animates one of *le temps du sommeil*’s pregnant moments.

Guest curated by Kitty Scott


This is a close-up view of an artwork placed on the wooden desk. On a small pile of white paper napkins, a water-filled glass is placed upside down. A small white human figure stands inside the glass.

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This image shows two artworks installed in the gallery. On the floor, a desk with a clear glass cup is placed. A collection of small tiles are mounted on the back wall. 

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A wooden desk and small wall tiles are installed in the front space of the gallery. in the back, white and yellow strings are hanging from the ceiling in front of a painted wooden chair on the floor. 

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This is a close-up view of small tiles mounted on the gallery wall. On their brick red surfaces, line drawings of white human figures and coloured paintings of exercising humans are depicted.

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This is a close-up view of small drawings that are taped to the gallery wall. On the sheets of torn trace papers, black line drawings of various human figures and activities are depicted. 

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A small projector is placed on the light blue painted wooden chair in the gallery. The projector, connected to white and yellow codes, projects a blank white rectangle on the white gallery wall.

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A photograph is attached to the beige-painted door. The picture shows a building’s glass facade behind a passing car. A white line drawing of a finger over lips flotes above the car’s rooftop. 

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le temps du sommeil

Teresa Marshall

Teresa Marshall is a Vancouver artist of Mi'Kmaq and Scottish ancestry who has an extensive national exhibition record including the National Gallery of Canada's Land, Spirit, Power. In her artwork, Marshall explores the histories and stereotyping that Aboriginal people have faced in North American culture. She is also interested in the cultural crossovers that exist within these histories, and the continuation of a First Nations sensibility within a contemporary technological era. Marshall achieves this with installations that are welcoming and witty, and which simultaneously bring attention to serious issues embedded within the First Nations political landscape.

*A Bed to the Bones* is an installation that consolidates many of Marshall's interests of the past two years. Using stretched rawhide skins, tobacco leaf mache and materials that mimic bone, she has constructed furniture and everyday objects, many of which can function as drums. The exhibition plays upon both domestic space and archeological finds, and includes a variety of objects that, while not comprising a linear narrative, are associated with issues of residential schools, genocide and the domestication of Aboriginal peoples. The economy of materials and elegant monochromatic colours of these objects create an environment of quietude and contemplation that is disrupted by the potential utility of these drums/objects. With reference to First Nations traditions, these "inanimate" objects become communicators that resonate with a history. Rather than a nostalgic return to Aboriginal history, Marshall places the implications of that history into the present.

This is Teresa Marshall's first solo exhibition in Vancouver. She is a recipient of the City of Vancouver's three year Artist Residency Award.

Essay: "A Bed to the Bones," W. Jackson Rushing III

Various artworks are installed in a gallery space. Five low wooden benches, or ironing boards, are placed in a row. A pair of long wooden poles are laid on the floor some feet away from the benches. 

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Many brown-coloured artworks are installed in a gallery. A wood table, a dressmaking mannequin, a pair of shoes, and a bed are placed on the floor. Ten paintings are mounted on the wall above the bed.

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A Bed to the Bones

Chen Yan Yin

Chen Yan Yin was trained in traditional figurative sculpture at the China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzou. She is currently Director of Sculpture at the Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute. Shanghai is the centre of international trade in China and historically has experienced the greatest interaction with the West in terms of art production. Chen Yan Yin is one of a new generation of Chinese artists from this region who have broken with traditional ways of making art.

In much of her work, Chen Yan Yin explores the psychological dimension of femininity, love, desire, and beauty. *Discrepancy Between One Idea* creates a highly physical environment that reverberates between the subjective and the collective, between the internal and the external, and between the seductive and the disturbing. In a spare yet poignant installation, roses are fed intravenously from tubes connected to infusion bags. Although temporarily sustained by the fluids, the roses, symbols of love and life, gradually whither throughout the duration of the exhibition. This installation is a poetic statement embracing the fantasy of desire, love, and eternity, but it also suggests the impossibility of reviving something that is fated to die.

Chen Yan Yin has exhibited in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Kassel, Copenhagen, and Brisbane. This is her first exhibition in North America. Discrepancy Between One Idea was featured at the 1996 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia.

This exhibition is one component of a series of exhibitions in the project *Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary Art from South of the Yangzi River* coordinated by Hank BulI and Xie Wai which includes fifteen venues in Vancouver presenting historical and contemporary art from the Jianguan region of China. The project is sponsored by the Annie Wong Foundation and the Western Front Society. *Discrepancy Between One Idea* is organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery.


A close-up image of the installation shows fresh red roses piled up on the bed. A translucent medical tubes run among brown and green leaves of roses.

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A person-sized art installation is in the gallery. It is a bed covered by a white sheet. Dozens of red roses, which are tied to the infusion bags hanging from the ceiling, are placed on the bed.

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01-ChenYanYin-1998.jpeg

In the gallery, a bed covered by a white sheet is installed. Dozens of red roses, which are tied to the infusion bags via tubes hanging from the ceiling, are placed on the bed.

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An aerial view of the installation shows the close-up of the infusion bags filled with translucent liquid. The bags are hung from the gallery ceiling and connected to the red roses via tubes. 

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A front view of the installation of a medical bed is in the gallery. Dozens of red roses, which are tied to the infusion bags via tubes hanging from the ceiling, are placed on the bed.

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Discrepancy Between One Idea

Wanda Koop

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by Winnipeg artist Wanda Koop. Having consistently exhibited for twenty-seven years, she is one of Canada's most established and respected artists. Koop's interests revolve around the issues of painting, representation and the process of "seeing."

Wanda Koop traditionally works on large format paintings and for the Contemporary Art Gallery she is presenting five 10 feet by 13 feet paintings. Visual sources for the paintings are derived from video stills that she recorded while visiting Tokyo. Her use of video is comparable to that of an artist's notebook, but its technology allows for immediacy and an ability to zoom in on details. With video, she recorded fragments of things that exist in the real world, of visual experiences that are often located in the periphery of our vision but perhaps not noticed; hence the title for this series is *See Everything/See Nothing*. As the starting point for making the paintings, these video notes are ultimately presented macroscopically thus rendering the content ambiguous. This incongruity is emphasized by the juxtaposition of paintings that appear abstract with those that appear to contain forms that are familiar. And rather than existing as autonomous objects, Koop's paintings are presented as installations in order to heighten a dialogue among the works. Within the discourse of painting, Koop is concerned with the possibility of making a painting today and with breaking our habits of perception.


Essay: "Wanda Koop: See Everything/See Nothing," Robin Laurence

A large painting is installed on a gallery wall. It contains three geometric shapes: above the black triangle at the bottom, two white trapezoids are placed partially overlapping with each other. 

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01-WandaKoop-1998.jpeg

A large painting is installed in the gallery. In the sky-blue background, two gray straight lines form a sharp angle. A navy-coloured shape resembling melting metal is drawn in between the two lines. 

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An unframed large painting is installed on the gallery wall. An orange human head is depicted in the green background. A human face, made of a white web, is drawn over the faceless orange head. 

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A large painting is installed on a gallery wall. Two black circles in the middle, which have organic shapes inside, are depicted in the light-gray background resembling a surface of a marble slab. 

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Four paintings are installed in the gallery. Two on the right side wall depict black geometric shapes. The one on the inner wall shows six orange rectangles. The one on the left side wall is blue.

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Four paintings are installed on the gallery walls. Two of them mainly depict geometric and organic shapes and lines. The one in the middle depicts a human face in the green background. 

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A large painting is installed on a gallery wall. The painting shows a close-up image of a grid made of two brown horizontal lines and one gray vertical line. The cells are painted in light orange. 