David Askevold, Geneviève Cadieux, Ian Carr-Harris, Stan Douglas, Murray Favro, Wyn Geleynse, Rodney Graham, David Hoffos, John Massey, Gar Smith, Michael Snow, Robert Wiens, Krzysztof Wodiczko

PROJECTIONS brings together the rich area of artistic experimentations with slide, film and video projection that characterizes much contemporary art since the 1960s. The exhibition focuses on the earlier years of projection in Canada, 1964-1989, encapsulating a history and providing insight into why projection has become such an important and prevalent medium. Many of the works have been internationally recognized as having a seminal influence on the history of contemporary art, and most will be shown in Alberta for the first time.

Projection in contemporary Canadian art is not a form of story-telling but a powerful means with which artists think through ideas about seeing and knowing, and experiment with the conceptual, psychological and political dimensions of the relationship between these two activities.

Realized in the form of sculpture, slide-dissolves, 16mm film and video, the works exploit and toy with the experiential and the metaphoric potential of projection and cinema. They engage and playfully dissociate the relationship between voice and image, the camera’s eye and the viewer’s body, specifically addressing the construction of cinematic spectacle.

Some works focus attention on the experience of light, reflection and illumination while others point to the paradoxical nature of the screen—a variously receptive and resistant surface where a text or image is cast. A number of artists also take the idea of projection to be a trip of sorts, a journey into recorded and therefore virtual space, while irreverently undermining the illusions and Utopian dimensions of this projected place. In all cases, however, the artist’s interest is in the way projection allows us to look at how the world is seen—however distorted, strangely re-cognized or poignantly observed.

Michael Snow, Two Sides to Every Story, 1974. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

To complement the PROJECTIONS exhibition, the Art Gallery of Alberta is proud to present two important video works by two of the world's most significant contemporary artists.

Bruce Nauman: Raw Material OK OK OK

Bill Viola: The Reflecting Pool