Issue No. 28 – Control

What is the nature of control? The desire for it—and to be free of it—are essential parts of both life and art.

Art Out: Mary Ellen Mark, Nico Krijno and John Max

Art Out: Mary Ellen Mark, Nico Krijno and John Max

Mary Ellen Mark, [Mona and Beth in the shower, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA], 1976, gelatin silver print © Mary Ellen Mark, courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation/Howard Greenberg Gallery

Mary Ellen Mark: Ward 81

January 25–April 1, 2023
Curators: Gaëlle Morel and Kaitlin Booher

The Image Centre showcases Mary Ellen Mark’s unflinching and compassionate photographs of women living in a psychiatric facility

Ward 81—an early series by one of America’s most distinguished and respected photographers— sheds light on the invisible lives of women institutionalized for mental illness.

American documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark (1940–2015) transported her viewers to places rarely seen, from the brothels and circuses of India to the streets of Seattle. Her humanistic approach and long-term commitment to her subjects were legendary.

This winter, visitors to The Image Centre (IMC) at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) are invited to experience life in the women's ward of the Oregon State Hospital, the state's only locked, high security psychiatric facility at the time. On view from January 25 through April 1, 2023, Mary Ellen

Mark: Ward 81 presents photographs, audio recordings and archival materials—many of which are being shown for the first time—to offer an in-depth view of Mark’s experimental and groundbreaking approach to documentary photography.

Mary Ellen Mark, [Tommie peeking out of room window, Ward 81, Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, USA], 1976, gelatin silver print © Mary Ellen Mark, courtesy of The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation/Howard Greenberg Gallery

“Mary Ellen Mark’s willingness to immerse herself in her subjects’ lives and to show them empathy, care and dedication allowed her to create extraordinary portraits that were also candid and relatable,” says IMC Exhibition Curator, Gaëlle Morel. “We’ve brought together Mark’s Ward 81 photographs, striking black-and-white images with an almost cinematic quality, with many of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ materials that offer a fuller picture of the project.”

To view more of this exhibition, please visit here

The Constellation #047, 2022 © Nico Krijno _ courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery

The Constellation by Nico Krijno
Opening: Saturday 21 January 2023, 17:00 - 19:00 Exhibition: 21 January - March 4 2023

For our first exhibition of 2023, the Ravestijn Gallery is proud to present ‘The Constellation’ – a dizzying show of vibrant works by South African artist Nico Krijno (b. 1981). In a riot of colours and meandering forms, Krijno’s abstract works consider and apply photography’s many visual codes, symbols and patterns – as part of a bid to investigate the history of the image. The playful practice of performance defines Krijno’s process throughout, inviting a closer interrogation of modes of creation in and of themselves.

From staged photography to collage and video works, the densely-textured images that Krijno conceives
are invariably hard to pin down. Synthetic, layered, digitally-manipulated, painterly, puzzling, enthralling; each one is unfixed and seemingly infinite, with a number focal points to absorb simultaneously. In the act of looking, the familiar traces – those things we recognise – are displaced and buried under elements we don’t. All the while, we rarely look away, succumbing instead to the works’ many mysteries.

The Constellation #032, 2022 © Nico Krijno / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery

In The Constellation, the latest chapter in Krijno’s continuous flow of obsessive image-making, a series of motifs bleed between the featured works, from multi-coloured polkadots to vanishing still-lifes, from warped sculptures to the characteristic lines of spray-painted graffiti. Combining wall-mounted works with a series of imposing paper poster rolls – cascading down from the gallery’s ceilings – the exhibition underlines the effect of Krijno’s oscillating images: a disorientating outpouring with no logical beginning or end. Spliced and stacked, fragments blend into other fragments – like the rippling screen of an old TV-set locked between competing frequencies.

To view more of this exhibition, please visit here

Strike Up The Band!, Old Lady of Clear Vision (6), 1974-1979 © The Estate of John Max / courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery

JOHN MAX

First and Last

January 14 – February 25, 2023

Stephen Bulger Gallery is pleased to present John Max “First and Last” featuring two exhibitions of photographic work by Canadian artist John Max (John Porchawka) (b. Montréal, Québec, 1936; d. Montréal, Québec, 2011): “John Max Shouts: Enough, No More, I Want” and “Strike up the Band!.”

John Max was born to parents of Ukrainian origin who arrived in Canada in the 1920s. He studied painting with Arthur Lismer and music at the McGill Conservatory of Music before discovering photography in the late 1950s through Lutz Dille, whose work, strongly influenced by Europeans such as Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, and Robert Doisneau, brought the subjectivity of the photographer to the fore. Max discovered in this approach something that corresponded with his own vision of the human condition. From that point on, he devoted himself to photography. While self-taught, Max then completed his training with Guy Borremans and Nathan Lyons.

Crucifixion Express: Destination Nowhere, VIII - A Lapidation, 1956-1960 © The Estate of John Max / courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery

Throughout the 1960s, Max worked on assignments for various magazines and for the Still Photography Division of the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. During this immensely productive decade, his work was widely disseminated, particularly in the many exhibitions and publications of the Division. Max also produced photographs for the Christian Pavilion at Expo 67. He represented Canada at the Fifth Biennial in Paris in 1967, and took part in “Four Montreal Photographers,” an exhibition organized and circulated by the National Gallery in 1968. An exhibition of 57 photographs entitled “And the Sun it Shone White All Night Long” toured Europe in 1969, sponsored by the Cultural Services of External Affairs Canada. Max's photographic vision reached its maturity with the “Open Passport - Passeport Infini” exhibition ( a sequence of 161 black and white photographs culled from Max’s archives, some dating as early as 1960), organized by the NFB’s Still Photography Division and shown at The Photo Gallery in Ottawa in 1972. It traveled to multiple venues in Canada until 1976 and was printed as a photobook by the Toronto-based magazine IMPRESSIONS as its special issue No. 6 and 7 in late 1973.

To view more of this exhibition, please visit here

Photo Journal Monday: Michael Young

Photo Journal Monday: Michael Young

Film Review: Glass Onion Dir. Rian Johnson (2022)

Film Review: Glass Onion Dir. Rian Johnson (2022)