1. TRUTHBEAUTY: PICTORIALSM AND THE PHOTOGRAPH AS ART, 1845-1945

At the Vancouver Art Gallery, February 2 to April 27, 2008

Elias Goldensky [Portrait of three women], c. 1915 George Eastman House Collection.

Image: vanartgallery.bc.ca

This exhibition looks at the artistic movement that transformed photography from a tool of documentation to one of the most exciting means of visual expression of the twentieth century.

With nearly 200 photographs from major museum collections around the world, the exhibition includes a large group of works from the George Eastman House as well as important loans from The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“TruthBeauty presents a rare opportunity to experience a defining moment in the development of photography and the formation of modern photographic practice,” said Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels. “The conceptual, aesthetic and technical innovations of the Pictorialist artists continue to be highly influential more than 100 years later. Vancouver is one of the world’s foremost centres for contemporary photographic art, making the presentation of these masterworks of early photographyespecially meaningful.”Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Pictorialist artists sought to elevate photography to an art form equal to painting. Often compared to Impressionist painters, Pictorialist artists strove for an aesthetic that evoked a distinct mood or emotional response from the viewer.While painters achieved this through new ways of applying paint to canvas, Pictorialist artists experimented with a soft-focus approach, dramatic effects of light and richly coloured tones to create almost painterly works of art. Their compositions opened up a new world of visual expression in photography.The exhibition features work by Alvin Langdon Coburn, Robert Demachy, Frederick Evans, Elias Goldensky, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron and Peter Henry Emerson, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Edward Weston.

2. THE PRESENCE OF PORTRAITS

At Corkin Gallery, TorontoFebruary 2 2008 - March 2 2008

lse Bing, Self-Portrait, 1931. Image: corkingallery.com

The portrait, according to the gallery, deals with issues of identity, explores the dynamic relationship between the artist and his subject and extends this relationship to include the viewer. There’s no doubt that portraits - particularly self-portraits - have always fascinated us.This exhibition features work by Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston, T. Lux Feininger, Germaine Krull, Claude Cahun, Sophie Taueber Arp, Raoul Ubac, Irving Penn, Francesco Scavullo as well as contemporary artists.

3. THE DEATH OF PHOTOGRAPHY

At the Stephen Bulger Gallery, TorontoJanuary 5 – February 2, 2008<

Michel Campeau, Untitled, from the series Humus, 2001. Image: gallery44.org

“from today, painting is dead!” -Paul Delaroche, June, 1839.

When the invention of photography was announced to the public on January 7, 1839 it created a sensation for both its advocates and adversaries. At present, photography is arguably more popular than ever, but it is also at the end of an era. Digital systems are rapidly making analog materials obsolete. This exhibition includes the work of three artists - Robert Burley, Michel Campeau and Alison Rossiter - who are each commemorating this milestone event in the history of art and technology.

Robert Burley - 20, Darkroom #9, 2006. Image: phsc.ca