The Art of the Archive: Ryerson Students and Alumni:
Artists: Alyssa Bistonath, Kyle Brohman, Julia Callon, Jenna Edwards, Tara Ernst, Daniel Froidevaux, Elisa Gilmour, Ben Lenzner, Marc Losier, Eugen Sakhnenko, Kate Tarini, Andrew Williamson.
September 29 – December 16, 2012
University Gallery, The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre)
Curator: Dr. Gaelle Morel
The exhibition The Art of the Archive is built on the reoccurring and popular theme of photographic and video archives and is divided into three parts: uses of the archive, representation of the archive and aesthetics of the archive.
The works of the "archival artists" (Hal Foster) gathered for this occasion combine two temporalities, the past and present, through reinterpretation and creative experience. The projects cover topics as diverse as the concepts of genealogy and family experiences, the evocation of childhood, the political history of the United States and the architectural standards of archival repositories. The appropriation of old objects and images, the representation of spaces devoted to these objects, or the playing with visual forms specific to the archive seem to respond to what Jacques Derrida called the "archive fever," an irrepressible desire to create a collective memory.
The works in this exhibition come from current students and recent alumni from the School of Image Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University).
Event(s):
Exhibition Tour
Doina Popescu and Dr. Gaelle Morel
Wednesday, December 12
6:00 PM
Exhibition Tours
Daily 2:30 PM
All events take place at The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre), unless otherwise noted
Jenna Edwards, Accumulated Histories: The Collection of D. Ball & D. Marshall, 2008. Courtesy of the artist
Julia Callon, The Family Archive: A Book, 2011, three books, 6.” x 6.” each, and a box. Courtesy of the artist
Ben Lenzner, This Is Just Batting Practice: A Tale About G.I. Joes, Tomato Boxes, Rivers & Reincarnation, video still, 2011. Courtesy of the artist
Kate Tarini, RYE BSC002, 2011, colour inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist
Curator Bio
Dr. Gaelle Morel
Dr. Gaelle Morel is curator of the exhibition and contributor to the book. Morel is an art historian and Exhibitions Curator at The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre), Toronto, Canada. She received her PhD in the History of Contemporary Art from Universite Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne, France. Her research and recent work deal with the figure of the artist as author in French contemporary photography. She also works on the artistic and cultural recognition of the medium in the United States in the 1930s. She was, until 2013, a member of the board of the Societe francaise de photographie, and a member of the editorial committee of Etudes photographiques, a bilingual peer reviewed journal on the history of photography. She edited Les Derniers Tableaux. Photojournalisme et art contemporain (Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 2008) and co-wrote with Thierry Gervais La Photographie published by Editions Larousse in France (2008, 2011). She was a recipient of a Terra Foundation for American Art Travel Grant in 2007, for her work on the American art dealer Julien Levy who closely worked with Berenice Abbott in the 1920s and 1930s.
Exhibition Catalogue
Front cover of The Art of the Archive
The Art of the Archive: Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) Students and Alumni
Editor/Curator: Gaelle Morel
Essay Translator: James Gussen
The works by students and recent graduates of Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) School of Image Arts in this inaugural exhibition of The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) deal with such varied subjects as the notion of family history, the evocation of childhood, the political history of the United States and the architectural standards of the spaces where archives are housed. More specifically, this diversity of themes reflects a common irrepressible desire: to explore the past by appropriating, reinterpreting and reproducing its emblematic objects in a manner that responds to what the French philosopher Jacques Derrida has called "le mal d'archive" or "archive fever."
By using archival images, depicting the structures that house them and exploiting their aesthetics, the participating artists investigate common notions of time, memory and history. Using their personal experiences as a point of departure, the artists contribute to a collective imagination through their creative experimentations.
Installation Shots
The Art of the Archive (installation view), 2014 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre
The Art of the Archive (installation view), 2014 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre
The Art of the Archive (installation view), 2014 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre
