Gerry Kopelow

Rodney LaTourelle Installation

What was once a dark dingy hallway joining Centennial Hall and the Duckworth Centre on campus is now a jubilant experience of colour! This project was spear-headed by Dr. Serena Keshavjee. Rumour has it that the official opening of this installation will take place on November 8 at 1:30 p.m. with the artist in attendance!

Artwork of the Week!

Artwork of the Week!
Week 20:

Jackson Beardy (1944-1984)
Sturgeon Clan
1979
Silkscreen

Cree artist Jackson Beardy was born on the Garden Hill First Nation at Island Lake, Manitoba. Torn away from his family at a young age, Beardy was sent to residential school in Portage la Prairie. Subsequently, he studied art at Tech-Voc High School and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. In the mid-1960s, Beardy returned to northern Manitoba to collect the stories of his ancestors which he then depicted in his art. His first solo exhibition was held at The University of Winnipeg in 1967, but eventually he participated in group and solo shows at major public galleries across Canada and internationally. Beardy’s mature images, including Sturgeon Clan, express important cosmological and spiritual concepts such as balance in nature, regeneration and growth, and the interdependence of all things. The colours and figures employed in his artworks are often symbolic: here, turquoise blue signifies a link between the spirit world and the actual world and the sturgeon itself represents Beardy’s clan, who were traditionally teachers and healers.

Kopelow artist talk

Thanks to all who came out to Salon Night at Platform last night with Gerry Kopelow! Now a few photos from his artist talk on Monday....be sure to read Helen Delacretaz' response to Where the Buddha Walked when you're at the gallery!

Calling all photographers -- Salon Night at Platform tonight!

Check out the front cover of today's Uniter for an image from Gerry Kopelow's current show in Gallery 1C03 "Where the Buddha Walked". Exhibition is up until November 20.
Photographers: bring some of your recent works and join us tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Platform Gallery (121-100 Arthur Street) for Salon Night crits with Gerry!

Gerry Kopelow

The University of Winnipeg presents a double solo exhibition on campus:

GERRY KOPELOW
Where the Buddha Walked (Gallery 1C03)
Forty Years Ago Today (Hamilton Galleria & University Archives)

October 21 – November 20, 2010
Opening reception: Thursday, October 21, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.(Gallery 1C03)
Public artist talk: Monday, October 25, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
(Manitoba Boardroom, Room 2M70, 2nd floor of Manitoba Hall)
Salon Night: Thursday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m.
(Platform: Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts, 121-100 Arthur Street)

In a double solo exhibition on campus, The University of Winnipeg will present two distinct bodies of work created by Winnipeg photographer Gerry Kopelow. While Where The Buddha Walked and Forty Years Ago Today tackle different subjects and are separated in time by four decades, they are connected as integral moments in Kopelow's artistic career. Forty Years Ago Today consists of black and white shots of Canadian youth culture from 1969-70, taking viewers back to the origins of Kopelow's photographic practice. Capturing spontaneous moments of the youth hippie scene of the day, the emerging photographer worked in the tradition of W. Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier-Bresson. These images will be shown in the Hamilton Galleria and University Archives, both located in The University of Winnipeg’s Library.

Kopelow's photographic pursuit of the “decisive moment” in the late-1960s indirectly led him to study Eastern meditational practices and, ultimately, the methods of mental cultivation invented and taught by the historical Buddha. For years, Kopelow has pursued the meditative life that he was introduced to by his meticulous approach to photography. In 2006 and 2007, Kopelow found himself travelling to India to visit historical sites associated with the life of the Buddha: the places where he is said to have been born, achieved his realizations, taught, meditated and died. The results of Kopelow's pilgrimmage are the subjects of the photographs in Where the Buddha Walked, which will be presented at Gallery 1C03.

Gerry Kopelow is an internationally published photographer, author and educator. As an emerging artist in the late-1960s, his photographic work received support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Film Board of Canada. Kopelow subsequently established himself as an award winning commercial photographer, producing projects for various corporate, institutional and government clients. His writing and photographs have appeared in professional journals and his books on photography are widely respected as definitive works in the field. He has lectured and delivered workshops at various academic institutions including the University of Florida, The Georgia Institute of Technology, The Pratt Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also teaches architectural photography regularly at the Cooper Union in New York. Kopelow's most recent publication is All Our Changes: Images from the Sixties Generation, Photographs by Gerry Kopelow (2009, University of Manitoba Press) and reproduces photographs that will be presented in Forty Years Ago Today. Where The Buddha Walked and Forty Years Ago Today are the first public solo presentations of Kopelow's non-commercial photography in nearly four decades. Gallery 1C03 gratefully acknowledges the partnership of Platform: Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts for hosting Gerry Kopelow at their Salon Night event.

Contact:
Jennifer Gibson, Curator, Gallery 1C03
The University of Winnipeg
515 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9
Ph: 204.786.9253
F: 204.774.4134
E: j.gibson@uwinnipeg.ca
http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/gerry-kopelow
http://gallery1c03.blogspot.com/

Regular Gallery Hours:
Monday - Friday, noon - 4 p.m.
Saturday: 1 - 4 p.m.
Closed Remembrance Day

Admission is free to all events and all are welcome!

Cinema Politica: Club Native

Gallery 1C03 & The University of Winnipeg Students’ Association will screen Club Native
WINNIPEG MB, October 13, 2010

Together as part of the international documentary screening network Cinema Politica, Gallery 1C03 and The University of Winnipeg Students’ Association (UWSA) are pleased to present the film Club Native at Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall on Tuesday, October 19 at 7 p.m.

Written and directed by Tracey Deer (NFB, 2008), Club Native is a candid and deeply moving look at the pain, confusion and frustration suffered by many First Nations people as they struggle for the most important right of all: the right to belong.

On the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawaké, located just outside the city of Montréal, there are two firm but unspoken rules drummed into every member of the community: Do not marry a white person and do not have a child with a white person. The potential consequences of ignoring these rules – loss of membership on the reserve, for yourself and your child – are clear, and for those who incur them, devastating. Break the rules, and you also risk being perceived as having betrayed the Mohawk Nation by diluting the "purity" of the bloodline.

In Club Native, filmmaker Tracey Deer uses Kahnawaké, her hometown, as a lens to probe deeply into the history and contemporary reality of Aboriginal identity. Following the stories of four women, she reveals the exclusionary attitudes that divide the community and many others like it across Canada. Deer traces the roots of the problem, from the advent of the highly discriminatory Indian Act through the controversy of Bill C31, up to the present day, where membership on the reserve is determined by a council of Mohawk elders, whose rulings often appear inconsistent. And with her own home as a poignant case study, she raises a difficult question faced by people of many ethnicities across the world: What roles do bloodline and culture play in determining identity?

Club Native was selected for screening by the Aboriginal Student Council at The University of Winnipeg. Special guest Dr. Brian Rice, member of the Kahnawaké community and faculty member of the Department of Education at The University of Winnipeg, will facilitate discussion after the film.

For more information about Club Native, please visit: http://www.cinemapolitica.org/node/1927 or
http://films.nfb.ca/club-native/. For more information about the Cinema Politica network, please visit www.cinemapolitica.org.

All screenings will be open to all audiences – everyone is welcome. Our screenings will always be free, but donations to offset costs are welcome. Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall is located on the third floor of Centennial Hall at The University of Winnipeg.

Gallery 1C03 and the UWSA wish to thank Cinema Politica for making it possible for us to participate in this network. We are grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for generously supporting this initiative.