KAG: Stories Life is a Tool Like Any Other
Thu July 18, 2024 to Thu September 5, 2024Kamloops Art Gallery (465 Victoria St #101, Kamloops, BC V2C 2A9, Canada)
Arts & Culture, Galleries & Exhibits
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Samuel Roy-Bois
Musée d’art de Joliette
Joliette, Québec
June 18 to September 5, 2022
Curated by Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre and Charo Neville
Curated by Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, Curator of Contemporary Art, Musée d’art de Joliette, and Charo Neville, Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery
Québec artist Samuel Roy-Bois, who has lived in British Columbia for the past 15years, presents select projects from two independent bodies of work. First exhibited at the Kamloops Art Gallery in 2019, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2016–2019) is a series of photographic sculptures Roy-Bois made from things he found on a property in Germany in 2016, during an artist residency at Künstlerhaus Worpswede. Realized with the help of his children, who balanced the found objects and then quickly disappeared from the camera lens, this series presents momentary, precariously composed sculptures that exist only long enough to be documented. Suspended for the brief opening of the camera shutter, the sculptures are only experienced by the viewer through the photographs. As improvisational and incidental photographic sculptures, they push up against our understanding of temporality and the certainty of concrete existence.
The Origin of the Family series questions our contemporary material knowledge by interrogating our relationship to things, property, and ownership. Shown alongside a recent sculptural project, these photographs of momentary sculptures destabilize our understanding of both mediums and shift our understanding of ordinary things and spaces as a strategy to examine our bodily relationship with material objects and their visual representation.
The images prove that these assemblages, as ephemeral as they are and almost performance-like in their execution, did in fact occur. Strangely, they appear more real and irrefutable than the reality they manifest. Roy-Bois’ most recent sculptures—either hand-carved or formed by connecting objects he finds in his studio or in his immediate environment—elevate otherwise banal materials to the status of artworks capable of generating an esthetic experience.
The Kamloops Art Gallery presented the exhibition Samuel Roy-Bois: Presences in 2019. This exhibition included The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2016–2019) photographs along with a group of sculptures and site-specific works. Presences toured to Esker Foundation, Calgary, Alberta, in 2020.
About Kamloops Art Gallery
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The Kamloops Art Gallery is a registered charity and not-for-profit society.
Incorporated in 1978, the Kamloops Art Gallery serves residents of and visitors to Kamloops (pop. 82,000) and the surrounding Thompson-Nicola Regional District (pop. 124,000) as well as national and international audiences.
In 1998, the KAG moved to a purpose-built civic building, designed by award-winning architects Peter Cardew and Nigel Baldwin, which also houses the Thompson-Nicola Regional District offices and the Kamloops branch of the TNRD Library System. The 20,853 square foot Gallery includes 4,500 square feet of exhibition space, an admissions/store area, two multipurpose studio/workshop/lecture rooms, a packing and acclimatization area, the collection storage vault with an adjoining workroom and, on a mezzanine above, administration and curatorial offices along with a research library. In 2006, the KAG was designated a Category “A” institution under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act.
The Gallery’s annual attendance has ranged between 24,000 and 37,000 over the last five years. It enjoys a national reputation for its touring exhibitions and publications and has developed relationships with national and international artists, curators, critics and scholars. The KAG is also well respected for its exhibitions, events and educational and public programs through activities organized and presented in the community and region involving both contemporary and historical art. Its collection as of December 2012 consists of 2,700 works that primarily reflect the Gallery’s exhibition history. In 2005, the KAG co-commissioned with the University of British Columbia’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Canada’s participation in the 51st Venice Biennale with the work of Rebecca Belmore.
Governed by a Board of Trustees, the KAG maintains an effective organizational structure that includes a Management Team led by the executive director, a Program Team led by the curator and a Development Team led by the manager of operations. Teams meet monthly to report, evaluate, problem solve and plan.
Vision
The Kamloops Art Gallery brings art, artists and communities together.
Mandate/Mission
The Kamloops Art Gallery is the principal gallery in the Southern Interior of British Columbia supporting contemporary and historical visual arts and practices on a local, national and international level. The KAG acknowledges art to be an essential part of the human experience in nurturing a healthy society. As a leading cultural institution, the KAG is an integral part of the fabric that draws intellectual, social and economic opportunities to our province and to our region.
The Kamloops Art Gallery fosters enjoyment of and interest in the visual arts by researching, developing and producing exhibitions, publications and programs that engage, challenge and inform its various audiences. The Gallery also oversees the development and preservation of a permanent collection that includes regional, national and international art in all media. It also strives to create rewarding opportunities for visual arts professionals and the public.
Guiding Principles
- Committed to art, artists and audiences
- Collaborative, respectful and ethical
- Tolerant, inclusive and diverse
- Relevant to local and regional communities
- Striving for excellence
- Fiscally responsible
- Sustainable