UBC Belkin Gallery shows art on truth, myth, wishfulness thru film, sculpture, installation, craft

“Aporia (Notes to a Medium)” at UBC Belkin Gallery
works by Colleen Brown, Azza El Siddique, Dani Gal, Katie Kozak and Lucien Durey, Mark Lewis, Jenine Marsh, Jalal Toufic and Elizabeth Zvonar
January 12 to April 14, 2024
Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery
UBC University of British Columbia
1825 Mail Mall
Vancouver, BC
curated by Melanie O'Brian
open Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm
Saturday and Sunday from Noon to 5pm
Chapter breakdown:
00:00 Introduction
Apologies for Mark Lewis' section got corrupted
00:49 Dani Gal - projected texts and images
04:47 Colleen Brown - wall tapestries
09:56 Jenine Marsh - fountain installation
12:51 Elizabeth Zvonar - installation and photo-collage
19:37 Jalal Toufic - lens based projection
22:38 Azza El Siddique - architectural installation with projected texts
26:43 Katie Kozak and Lucien Durey - fabric installation
“Aporia (Notes to a Medium)” considers how history, mythology and wishful thinking entwine across media and through mediums. In this moment where faith in media, government and institutions is further collapsing, where binarization is on the rise, where expressions of doubt are tactical, this exhibition includes artists’ works that contend with systems of belief and perception to trouble truth’s material (and immaterial) forms.
Holding space for doubt - a space of critical reflection that contains multiple truths or exposes the limits of truth - is a self-articulated strength of contemporary art. Doubt is part of nuanced thinking and ambiguity may be fertile ground for possibility and otherwise thinking. But Janus-faced doubt is also a tactic. The exhibition’s title engages the paradoxical or impassable from the Greek word “aporos.” This impasse functions as an expression of real or pretend uncertainty that the works in the exhibition collectively query and channel.
Indexical proof has always been a double-edged sword and art has tangled with our less-than-seamless belief in the image and the dubiousness of the image’s power to witness. Social media and AI have led to a renewed power and doubt in what we see, hear and read. How images and texts are created and in what context they are seen are determinants in reception, requiring that we ask what is at stake when media and mediums construct realities through images and words that are inconvenient to power.
For more information and for the schedule of events, please visit ...
belkin.ubc.ca/

[@joniwilliams4212]

Thank you for your comprehensive commentaries which are not only informative but thought provoking on not just the aesthetic aspects but the historical, cultural and global significances. I view several contemporary art vlogs but your channel exceeds them in the manner that you anchor the exhibits in the larger arena of local and global realities.

[@pauldeguzmanpresentsART]

Thank you and I really appreciate your comment. I visit exhibitions at least twice and find a lot of satisfaction in trying to bridge the gap between contemporary art and life in general. Art speaks to our reality in so many ways. :-)