September 27 – November 16, 2012
A project by Tina Carlisi
With artworks by Charles Gagnon and Gabor Szilasi
Tina Carlisi is interested in the possibility of accessing social histories through modern and contemporary art. For Sightings IV: past/present/future, she selected two photographs by Gabor Szilasi’s series on Québec’s rural communities in the Charlevoix region, and a conceptual silkscreen print by Charles Gagnon, originally part of a project with texts by composer Toru Takemitsu, from the Gallery’s collection. Carlisi attempts to frame the various narratives that unfold in these contrasting works in relation to a selection of silkscreen prints and book works from her ongoing project from film screen to silkscreen. Her project involves re-designing posters for Québécois films produced during the Quiet Revolution in relation to three levels of graphic interpretation (filmic, poetic, literary). Specifically, she considers how art practices during this period reflect the emergence of a new Québécois identity, as it is inscribed in the past and present, and eventually in the future.
Tina Carlisi is an artist-designer whose work often merges art, design, writing and research, focusing on print as a socially engaged practice. She holds a BFA and a Graduate Certificate in Design, and is currently completing her Masters in Art Education at Concordia University. Her arts-based thesis explores how art and design were used as part of the 2012 student movement in Québec, linking contemporary practices of visual rhetoric to the traditions of previous student protests. In summer 2012, she was part of FOFA Gallery’s Summer Programming Collective for Recto/Verso: Manifestation/Demonstration, a summer studio intensive which considered the swelling activism in Québec as a starting point, while experimenting with ways of activating the gallery spaces as sites for gathering, production, and exchange.
tinacarlisi.com
Charles Gagnon (1934-2003), one of the first multidisciplinary artists of his generation, offers important insight into Québec’s and Canada’s art scenes. Born in Montréal, he lived, studied, and worked in New York from 1955-1960, where he pursued painting and photography. Upon his return to Montréal in 1960, he began to produce mix-media collage/assemblage in addition to his paintings, and later worked with experimental film, photography, and silkscreening. Gagnon also taught filmmaking and photography at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) from 1967 to 1975, and film, video, sound, and mixed media in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa from 1975 to 1996. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections.
Gabor Szilasi (1928- ) was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1928. He fled his country after the Hungarian Revolution, immigrating to Canada in 1957, and settling in Montréal in 1959. Largely self-taught, with a career spanning over 50 years, he is long recognized as an exceptional documentary photographer and for his distinctive views of Québec culture. Parallel to his artistic practice, Szilasi taught at Cégep du Vieux Montréal from 1971 to 1980 and at Concordia University from 1980 to 1995. Szilasi has received several awards and his works have been acquired by numerous collections. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and extensively published. He was named a winner of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2010.
The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.