Coinciding with Polygon Gallery exhibiting Stan Douglas’s 2011 ? 1848, Griffin Art Projects presents Allegories of the Present from Sept. 9 to Dec. 11, 2022. A survey exhibition in celebration of the works of acclaimed Vancouver-born artist, photographer, filmmaker Stan Douglas and of his representation of Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale. The exhibition is a concise retrospective, bringing together photographic works from the 1990s to the present. Allegories of the Present highlights how the artist reveals complexities that live just beyond, behind, or beneath the metanarratives of historical accounts.
“Allegories of the Present provides a primer on how Stan Douglas addresses social and political turbulence in his work, a major theme of his most recent show at the Venice Biennale,” says Lisa Baldissera, the exhibition’s curator and director of Griffin Art Projects. “Each of the artworks in this exhibition focuses on key sites of rupture within Vancouver and British Columbia. They demonstrate contested histories and sites of resistance, from small-town Ruskin to Hogan’s Alley. The exhibition traces a narrative that shows how Douglas approaches the fragmented nature of personal and historical stories.”
The artworks in the exhibition are drawn from private collections — including pieces from the artist’s own collection — as well as those from the Vancouver Art Gallery and Audain Art Museum, presenting a rare opportunity to view some of Douglas’s pieces in one place.
Highlights include: Pursuit, Fears, Catastrophe: Ruskin, B.C. (1993), a series of chromogenic prints that explore the relationship between image and sound while drawing from the history of a Japanese community in Canada during the 1930s. Ballantyne Pier, 18 June 1935 (2008), which depicts a scene from a docker’s strike in Vancouver. Hogan’s Alley (2014), a photograph of the racially diverse neighbourhood that was once home to a thriving Black community before residents were displaced. And a number of character portraits from Klatsassin (2006), which depicts the events leading up to the Chilcotin War of 1864 that led to the eventual execution of Tsilhqot’in chiefs.
Accompanying the exhibition will be History ReMIX, a series of film screenings, curatorial talks, and panel discussions curated by Dr. Karen Tam, Griffin Art Project’s adjunct curator. The series will explore the themes in Douglas’s practice and the work of Black curators, writers, artists, and filmmakers from across Canada.
Allegories of the Present is on display at Griffin Art Projects, 1174 Welch St, North Vancouver, from September 9 to December 11, 2022. For more information, visit griffinartprojects.ca/exhibitions/stan-douglas-allegories-of-the-present.
Stan Douglas’s Venice Biennale exhibition 2011 ? 1848 will be on view at The Polygon Gallery, from September 9 to November 6, 2022. ?