The Dad Tapes/the Mom Photographs: Kim Waldron

C: International Contemporary Art, Autumn, 2008 by Jean-Michel Ross

THE DAD TAPES/THE MOM PHOTOGRAPHS: KIM WALDRON

Co-production of Galerie Werner Whitman and Articule Special Projects, Montreal

After being shown at, the Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John s, Newfoundland, Kim Waldron's exhibition The Dad Tapes/ The Mom Photographs leaves the traditional gallery space in favour of the Werner Whitman Gallery--a young, independently funded artist-run centre established in 2006 in a Montreal apartment by its current director, Willie Brisco. Co-produced by Articule as part of the gallery's special projects, this exhibition could not have found a more appropriate venue than this site, which exists on the border between public and private space. We can rightly ask: is it a gallery, or an apartment, or both at the same rime? This ambiguity influences our reading of the artworks and is fully exploited by the artist in presenting her work here.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Since the 2003 series Working Assumption, Waldron's work focuses almost exclusively on the self-portrait, while mixing real subjects and fictional situations to make us think about the different contemporary social dynamics she carefully stages. With her most recent project, she continues to self-represent, though this rime it's through the eyes of her parents by using family film, video and photography archives. The exhaustive visual documentation extends from the artist's birth to her graduation party. Her parents, both born outside Canada, produced these images to serve as memories, but also to share their family experiences with relatives in Kentucky and New Zealand. We see birthdays, Christmas, Easter and Halloween parties, as well as ordinary moments from their daily lives.

The artist appropriates these images in order to reveal the elements of fiction and staging they contain. To do so, she offers us a photography and video installation in two parts. In her main projection, entitled Chronology, she compiles approximately one hour of brief segments spanning some 30 years, composed of video and Super 8 fragments taken by her father and photographic images taken at the same time by her mother. The filmed images precede the photographs by a few seconds, highlighting their constructed nature. As is often the case with family photographs, children are first positioned, then required to hold the pose and, naturally, smile.

Sunsets, the second part of the exhibition, comprises a video projected on a cathodic screen and a mosaic of framed photographs mounted on the wall. All the elements in this section have a common subject: a sunset viewed from the family's country house. The installation in this apartment/gallery is relatively banal. The same images could have been mounted in this manner in any other apartment. It is actually quite common to see this type of picture in people's homes. With this body of work, the artist presents her parents' shared interest in the beauty of dusk, but the quantity suggests that she is also exposing an obsession.

Through this installation, the artist offers us a private collection of moments that her parents chose to preserve. However, in doing so, she underscores the impossibility of capturing such moments. Put together, the 30 years of archives assembled for this exhibition clearly demonstrate how time has escaped them. If our past and out memories truly are integral parts of ourselves and determine who we are, the artist proves that they, unfortunately, cannot be physically or materially reconstructed as anything more than pale copies of what they once were, despite the importance we grant them.

What is also particular about the moments and events the artist has chosen to show us is their archetypal nature. Who has never attempted to capture the sunset in a photograph? Even if the determination to document is not as strong in other North American families, it is still a widespread phenomenon to which most viewers can relate. We project ourselves easily upon the characters presented by the artist, as long as we share her culture and rituals. Presenting this exhibition in an apartment accentuates and fosters this effect. The artist plays with the site's ambiguity in exposing intimate aspects of her life and her past as if in a private home, surrounded by family. Nevertheless, this is a gallery and, on second thought, what she offers us is more than plain family pictures. Besides underscoring the construction of these images, she reminds us of the impossibility of stopping and appropriating time, while telling us a story that strangely resembles ours.

This exhibition by Kim Waldron will also be on view in Nova Scotia at Eye Level Gallery from September 6 to October 12, 2008 and in Toronto at Gallery 44 from June 5 to July 4, 2009.