Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12, 2013, 6 – 9 p.m.
Pari Nadimi Gallery
254 Niagara Street, Toronto
From left to right: Artists Elle Kurancid, Ash Moniz, Pari Nadimi Gallery owner Pari Nadimi and artist George Legrady
GEORGE LEGRADY: On the Road
George Legrady, Smoke & Fire, 2013, Lenticular, 32 x 47 inches. Courtesy of Pari Nadimi Gallery
The exhibition title, On the Road, cannot escape reference to the defining work of the Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac’s portrait of the search for personal meaning during the Cold War. But a referential title is just the beginning. Over forty-years ago Legrady embarked on a yearlong journey, searching for meaning himself, during the Vietnam War, October Crisis and hippie counterculture movement. He explains: “I boarded a plane in Montreal on October 7, 1970 to Paris with $200 in my pocket, two jean shirts in my backpack, my Nikon F and Kerouac’s On the Road in my hand. I lasted a year by quickly getting down to the Middle East, spending time in the Negev on the border of the Gaza, old Jerusalem, the Sultanahmet in Istanbul where I met a Turkish artist who took me to his town near the Syrian border. After running out of money, I took a train to Budapest to revisit the country where I was born.”
Artist George Legrady
On the Road presents a series of eight panels, each consisting of multiple photographs interlaced together through the lenticular process. This process results in the illusion of movement between images: When the viewer changes the angle from which the panel is viewed, motion and a morphing effect seem to occur. This non-linear, multi-layered format is a transformative one and, furthermore, explores the cinematic narrative potential of the photographic image in non-electronic form.
ELLE KURANCID & ASH MONIZ: Reputations / Project Space
Artist Elle Kurancid
Artist Ash Moniz with his work
If it takes x amount of years to build a reputation and y amount of minutes to ruin it, might it also take y amount of years to ruin a reputation and x amount of minutes to rebuild it? In Reputations, Elle Kurancid and Ash Moniz respond to the aforesaid Warren-Buffet-derived and word-problem-inspired query with works that suggest “it sure might—but that’s only the beginning of the maze of reputations.” In other words, Kurancid and Moniz manipulate a selection of texts, devices and environments to underline the malleability of identity and opinion. For example, Kurancid muses on convenience and inconvenience in her redesign of the 7-Eleven logo, and Moniz uses plaster bandages to support and immobilize the ruins of condemned buildings throughout the city of Nanjing, China.
The crowd with Bonnie Rubinstein, Artistic Director of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival (in the middle)
Exhibition dates: September 12 – October 29, 2013, Pari Nadimi at 254 Niagara Street, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 5 p.m.
Photo: Celeste Ringrose
Ashlee, you and your co-artist are amazing artists and dare I say humanitarian?…the little boy from White River has made it’s way through a world of experiences amounting to this moment. Bravo!