Variations on the Picturesque

December 2 - March 19, 2006
Organized by KW|AG

Guest Curated by Karen Henry and Karen Love

Artists: Chiho Aoshima (Tokyo), Sandow Birk (Long Beach), Blast Theory (London), Russell Crotty (Los Angeles), Alan Dunning (Calgary), Beate Gütschow (Berlin), Holly King (Montreal), Mark Lewis (London), Scott McFarland (Vancouver), Helen Mirra (Chicago/Berlin), Dave Muller (Los Angeles), Jorma Puranen (Helsinki), Gerhard Richter (Cologne), Jeff Wall (Vancouver), Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Vancouver).

Curatorial and Artist Discussion: Saturday, December 3^rd, 1 pm

Exhibition Sponsor: Musagetes

The Variations exhibition is also supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council, the Goethe-Institut, and the FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange.

The picturesque has been defined as half way between the beautiful, producing feelings of well-being, and the awe of the sublime. An eclectic style, that incorporates both of these - the picturesque frames nature in a domesticated context, portraying economic and leisure relationships between people and nature.

The picturesque movement began in the 18th century at a time of developing urbanization and the rise of democratic ideals celebrating the common people over the traditional class system. It was a popular style, originating outside of the established academy and thus considered "vulgar" by many. When Kitchener-Waterloo area painter Homer Watson went to England in the mid 1800s, he was influenced by the picturesque style, although he was already committed to painting the rural scenes of his Ontario boyhood. Artist Lucius O'Brien, also from Ontario, established the magazine Picturesque Canada which ran from 1882-84. In Canada, the picturesque as a way of representing the land was superseded in the early twentieth century by the paintings of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, who represented the land as wild and untamed.

In contemporary art, landscape often plays a marginal role in the context of more rigorously conceptual, urban-based practices. Nonetheless, it is used by many artists as a way of situating their production in relation to the life of a place. The work of Jeff Wall, for instance, is identified with the West Coast of Canada. Jorma Puranen is known for his photographs of his Finnish homeland. Other artists represent an idea of landscape rather than an actual place. Alan Dunning and Beate Gütschow use technology to synthesize an idea of the picturesque.

While the artworks in this exhibition retain a degree of the romanticism of earlier landscapes, they also reference the complexities and uncertainties that pervade contemporary society. Landscape in our times can hardly be idealized in a simple manner. The imprint of culture on nature has come to have an unsettling aspect: the contested histories of the land, the tyranny of industry, the ability to simulate life, the pervasive frame of media with its focus on terrorism and disaster, all inflect the view. Variations on the Picturesque grows out of this uneasy context.

The view may no longer be naïve but it can still be said to contain aspects of beauty and even the sublime within an intricate web of relationships between nature and habitation. Mark Lewis's film work captures the grandeur of the Canadian landscape while subjugating it to strategies of film-making. Helen Mirra's fabric pieces are sublime in their conceptual and material reduction. Variations on the Picturesque presents contemporary picturesque landscapes both real and imagined and framed by layers of history and technology. We are grateful to the artists and lenders of artworks for this exhibition.

Read the Variations on the Picturesque catalogue (PDF).