New York’s Museum of Modern Art
2. Vancouver artist Scott McFarland has been chosen to participate in the Museum of Modern Art‘s New Photography 2007.
September 30 – January 1, 2008.
The exhibition is the latest installment of its annual fall showcase of significant recent work in contemporary photography. McFarland has been chosen along with US artist Tanyth Berkeley and Berni Searle from South Africa.
More info on Berkeley HERE and Searle HERE
Scott McFarland, Torn Quilt with the Effects of Sunlight, 2003. Image: monteclarkgallery.com
“Scott McFarland – Scott McFarland digitally combines multiple negatives to create exquisitely detailed photographs that subtly record the passage of time. For Orchard View with the Effects of the Seasons (Variation #1) (2003-06), McFarland photographed the same view of an overgrown garden in Vancouver throughout the year as different plants bloomed and faded. He combined elements of these exposures to capture all four seasons within a single picture.
McFarland is interested in environments that are artificially constructed to appear natural. In a series of photographs made at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, a large panorama of the nursery contrasts with photographs of the cultivated areas of the gardens. The inconsistent shadows and impossibly uniform sunlight on some plants give clues to the artist’s digital interventions. Another artificial display is the subject of a photograph McFarland took at the Berlin Zoo, in which a keeper tends to porcupines as a young family looks on.
Scott McFarland, Empire, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com
The work involved in creating and maintaining such displays is mirrored in McFarland’s artmaking. While his photographs maintain a sense of realism, they are composed through artificial means. By manipulating time and space to create a multilayered representation of the world, McFarland reconsiders the conventional notion that a photograph is a depiction of one moment frozen in time.
Scott McFarland was born in 1975 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and lives in Vancouver. He studied at the University of British Columbia, completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1997. Recent exhibitions include The Constructed Image: Photographic Culture, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto (2007); Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre, Vancouver Art Gallery (2007); and Clickdoubleclick: The Documentary Factor, Haus der Kunst in Munich (2006).”
1. Artspeak, Vancouver presents Melvin Moti: No Show
September 8 – October 13, 2007
Opening Friday September 7, 8pm as part of SWARM (an annual celebration of artist-run culture)
Artist Talk Saturday September 8, 2pm
Still from Melvin Moti’s No Show, 2004. Image: artspeak.ca
“Rotterdam-based artist Melvin Moti’s 2004 No Show is a 24-minute film based on a guided tour given at the Hermitage Museum during the Second World War. Until 1944, the museum removed its collection of paintings and other artworks for safe-keeping, and its galleries were bare save for empty frames hanging on the walls. In 1943 a guide showed a group of soldiers through the vacant rooms, describing from memory the paintings in the Hermitage’s collection including works by Rembrandt and Fra Angelico. Moti presents this historic tour aurally, while the camera is trained on an empty gallery, a backdrop for the imagined works.
Moti’s film is a beautiful, spare work that evokes a complex subjective response. The film is accompanied by a small artist book of the same name that provides further research insights into the reconstructed event.”
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...
3 comments ↓
Moti at Artspeak is exciting! I was introduced to his practice two years ago, by my Dutch colleuge Krist Gruijthuijsen.
Hi Johan,
Good to hear from you! I’m sure it will be an excellent show…well worth seeing.
AC
Help; I’m trying to find the name of a Canadian photographer who took photos of people (himself included I believe) suspended in the air, horizontally; then he would cut the photos in half so the torso was on one photo, the legs on the other. MOMA acquired one of his photos a couple of years ago. I think he said he was inspired by a famous Wayne Gretzky photo where he seemed to be floating above the ice. Do you know his name ?
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