Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture

Leah Sandals talked to Emanuel Licha about his show Striking a Pose in today’s National Post:

Q What started your War Tourist series?

A In 2004, I was living in Sarajevo and documenting a bombed house. A car arrived and one woman and two men stepped out. The men were journalists and started taking photographs. They stayed five minutes, then the woman handed me her business card, and I saw that she was a tourist guide. I was pretty naive then, because I didn’t know there were tourists of war-torn areas, and that there have been for centuries. That night, I decided to abandon my projects. I felt concerned by the war, but obviously, being Canadian and never having been under a bomb attack, I felt it wasn’t legitimate for me to speak about. But the next morning, I called the woman, and that became the first video in the series. It was like, “OK … I’ll be a tourist.” Finding the idea of the “war tourist” was, to me, an answer to this problem of legitimacy, a ridiculous way for me to address my own situation vis-à-vis wars.

Read the full article and then come on down to Latitude 53 (or PAVED Arts in Saskatoon) to see for yourself.

In “How Do We Know What We Know?” Licha does a brilliant job of opening up questions about journalism of such horrors through coverage of the recent political unrest in Syria. His film reveals the production behind a “real” live conflict, jumping between American news footage and video that records its production from the otherwise hidden windy hillside in Turkey. As the American production team leaves, a member of the local camera team asks a telling question: “How will it be when they’re gone?” Licha punctuates this question by showing how journalism makes an event real, alluding to the invisibility of stories that aren’t told in front of the camera.

Carolyn Jervis writes on our two new shows for this week’s Vue Weekly.

On Facebook, Margaret Dragu left us this intriguing question:

I ask this question every few years — of myself and of you.
I do this because my answers and your answers are always different, engaging, inspiring…

QUESTION: what is performance?
What specifically makes it different from existing practices like theatre, agit-prop, etc. ???

You can post your answer on my facebook page—just go to Margaret Dragu—or—you can email me at ladragu@yahoo.co.uk

Merci, thank you, gracias, vielen dunke, mulska meska …

While you’re thinking, remember that our Visualeyez Call for Proposals is open until April 27th.

At wartourist.net Emanuel Licha has posted excerpts from each part of “War Tourist”, a five-part video installation that makes up the largest part of Striking a Pose, so you can whet your appetite for the show—opening tonight and up in the gallery until February 11.

Artist Emanuel Licha (emanuel-licha.com) was living in Sarajevo when he witnessed a car stop in front of a demolished home. Out poured a guide with a group of tourists who furiously snapped photos before heading off to the next viewing spot. The incident sparked the idea for War Tourist, a series of videos shot from the point of view of a tourist seeking postwar conflicts and disasters.

Opening today in Latitude 53’s Main Space, an installation of five 20-minute films shot between 2004 and 2008 will transport you from Sarajevo to Chornobyl, Auschwitz, New Orleans (after hurricane Katrina) and the suburbs of Paris (site of the 2005 civil unrest).

In each location, Licha presented himself as a tourist, hired a guide and asked to see the “worst destruction” and “most dangerous” part of the city.

In the Edmonton Journal today, Janice Ryan talks to artist Emanuel Licha about his show, Striking a Pose—opening tonight with a curator’s talk at 6:00 and a reception following.

On Friday, Gig City published a preview of our two upcoming shows by Emanuel Licha and Nicole Rayburn, as well as an artist talk this Thursday at the Art Gallery of Alberta featuring local artist Dara Humniski in conversation with curator Catherine Crowston. We weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Aside from the headline, “Edmonton visual artists debut shows at Latitude 53, AGA” which gives rather the wrong impression of our two shows (Nicole Rayburn used to live here but is now based in Toronto, and Emanuel Licha hails from Montreal and works in France and internationally), the article mostly focuses on random sentences pulled from our press release, and presumably that of the AGA to try to make a point about how artists are bad at writing.

Well, while we were a bit puzzled, Dara Humniski was writing a response:

Well Ann, this is the second time you’ve taken a swipe at my credibility, so I feel inclined to comment. First by implying that a commission I received by putting forth an application to an open-call & juried selection committee had something to do with my partner (commissioned later for a different project by a different branch of the gallery), and now this causal implication that the meaning of my work is vapid or superficial.

Fluffy? Spacious? Thanks for continuing with the subtle jabs to emerging artists. I’m not sure what your agenda is with the visual art ‘coverage’ your supplying to gigcity. Shrugging your shoulders saying, “Welp! I don’t get it, Artists are pretty superficial aren’t they?” seems like a sloppy attempt at provocation to increase hits on your site, rather than thoughtful criticism or an interest in seeding a dialogue.

She goes on to talk more about her work and the role of ambiguity in her art—and to take author Ann Smart to task for her writing. You can find her full comment below the article.

Also not mentioned in the article: the time of Dara’s talk. It takes place Thursday at 6pm at the Art Gallery of Alberta, and admission is free.

Julian Forrest sends us the call for submissions for his current project, an exhibition at the Peter Robertson Gallery:

In June 2012, the University of Alberta will host the Third Canadian Obesity Student Meeting. The aim of the conference is to provide a venue for research dissemination, education, and professional development among students and new professionals in the area of obesity scholarship. In an effort to engage with the broader community and bring new voices to the table, curator Julian Forrest and the Peter Robertson Gallery are organizing an exhibition of contemporary art that will run concurrently with the obesity research conference.

Artists are asked to respond to issues ranging from the cyborg, the medicalization of the body, the obesogenic environment, the psychological complexity of obesity, body and boundaries or obesity and space, to positions on consumption and consumerism, or the “super-sized”. Artists are encouraged to bring perspectives to the subject that challenge, support, and ultimately broaden the dialogue surrounding obesity.

The deadline is January 31st. Read the full call at the Canadian Obesity Network.