MICHAEL SNOW // Powers of Two
Opening Reception Saturday, January 14th, 2 – 6 pm
exhibition runs: Jan. 14 – Feb. 15, 2017
The Christopher Cutts Gallery is proud to announce a solo exhibition of works by contemporary Canadian artist Michael Snow.
This exhibition brings together works that demonstrate Snow’s long-standing interest in duality and the employment of transparency as a visual apparatus. In the south gallery is a large photographic work, Powers of Two, recently returned to Canada after a decade abroad. The piece is a transparent colour photograph in four panels that together measure 8 x 16 feet and are suspended from the centre of the gallery ceiling. Its placement allows for spectators to easily pass from one side of the transparency to the other, and the reduced opacity means that the room in which it hangs and any visitors present in the gallery space also become a part of the image. Furthermore, the duality and subversion of our perceptual expectations are challenged when viewing the work from alternating sides
In the north gallery is Paris de Jugement Le, 2003, also a newly repatriated large format photograph. The image is printed on canvas and depicts three female nudes as they stand in front of and gaze upon Cezanne’s Large Bathers, 1906 – 1909. As both the painting and the photograph of the painting feature the female figure, the work presents a visual conundrum as one is asked to decide which of the two mediums dominates in the struggle for figurative representation, painting or photography.
Also in the north gallery is an installation of a recently refabricated work titled, Site, 1969. The original work was exhibited at the Isaacs Gallery in the early 1970’s and then mysteriously vanished. Accompanying Site, 1969 will be a selection of early works on paper dating back to 1953 through 1966, including drawings of Snow’s iconic Walking Woman series.
