On Thursday, September 17, the Art Gallery of Guelph had a beautiful opening reception for four new exhibitions: Of Time and Buildings, The Queer Feeling of Tomorrow, Titled Untitled, and ART/CRAFT. The exhibition will be running from Sept. 17 to Nov. 14 for anyone who would like to see the presentation of the new artwork.
The exposition on the first floor, “Of Time and Buildings,” is the focal point of this season’s presentation. Alison Nordström, who put together the description of the showcase, explains that the collective work of those 45 photographs is both real and digital.
“The photographs in this exhibition present buildings as fact, memory, and metaphor.”
The truly capturing photographs are of a physically non-existent building, but are still capable of creating a truly capturing effect on viewers. The exhibition is a worthwhile experience; each photo of a stand-alone building, starting from small ruins and escalating to towering skyscrapers, fully produces the intended effect.
This particular exhibition was not chosen just by chance.
“The opening of the exhibition on Sept. 17, 2015 coincided with the grand reopening of AGG, following a major renovation at the front entrance of the 1904 red brick building. The philosophical approach to the construction project married a preservation of aesthetics and materials together with an innovative new vision for the contemporary gallery that lives beyond its walls and in the surrounding sculpture park,” said acting director Dawn Owen.
Furthermore, there will be a symposium held Thursday Oct. 15 and Friday Oct. 16 that will complement the exhibition, and will discuss the “photographic discipline to embrace an intertextual and interdisciplinary discourse in a range of contemporary practice.” It will start with a Keynote presentation by the exhibition’s curator, Alison Nordström, and include a panel discussion and much more.
The other three exhibitions take up the second floor of the gallery. The Queer Feeling of Tomorrow reflects on the political uncertainty of the LGBTQA+ community. Six contemporary artists curated by Middlebrook Prize winner Adam Barbu explore the idea of the “post AIDS” era, which is expressed with their humorous and ironic art works.
“Title Untitled” is the third exhibition that is happening in the Art Gallery of Guelph. It is composed of 25 seemingly unrelated artworks that have nothing in common besides the lack of a title. It explores the idea of responsibility behind naming the artworks, as well as the meaning behind the lack of names.
And the last but not least exhibition “ART/CRAFT” is not only an exhibition, but the artwork presented will be sold during the auction on Nov. 14, and has a variety of different works that are not only traditional mediums such as painting and sculptures, but also crafts that are made out of a variety of different materials.
Overall the Gallery had a wonderful atmosphere, and the exhibition is a worthwhile stop for everyone who lives in, studies in, or simply passes through Guelph.
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The Ontarion is the University of Guelph’s independent student newspaper. It began in 1951 as part of the Ontario Agricultural College and then began to represent the entire University of Guelph once it amalgamated in 1964. The Ontarion incorporated in May 1970 as The Ontarion, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation registered with the province of Ontario.