Drifting, Slowly

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September 6–October 11, 2008

 

Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 6, 2008, 2–5pm

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Pari Nadimi Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of drawing, sculpture and interactive media, focused upon details of the things that make up the transient background of the world. The works in Drifting, Slowly trace the forces that bestow strange life upon the inanimate. Gathered or dispersed, saved or tossed out, things are transformed through practical and symbolic use — including disuse. In these works, time is revisited, slowed or frozen to create a dream-like space that also has an odd clarity. The material world is thus offered for inspection as historical evidence, narrative prompt, invitation to reverie and opaque residue. 

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George Legrady’s Anecdoted Archive from the Cold War, is an interactive digital project from 1993 that weaves chance narratives between objects, books, family documents, propaganda and other items from Legrady’s archive related to Stalinist Hungary. Born in Budapest and raised in Canada, Legrady assembled his collection over the course of 20 years. Engaged with the politics of storytelling, this pioneering new media work has been exhibited in institutions including the Centre Pompidou and the National Gallery of Canada.

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Andrea Nunes is a young Vancouver artist who makes delicate drawings that might record a puff of smoke, the texture of a blanket, or the faceted surface of Vancouver’s Science World. With an evenly measured gaze she produces a visual compendium, taking equal interest in disparate subjects. The drawings proceed from the act of looking as an extended private aesthetic experience, opening towards a meditation on the cultural resonance of things.

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Along with new works from their Clutter Sculptures series, Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky will exhibit a new version of Music of Chance, originally created for the 2008 Biennale nationale de sculpture contemporaine (Trois Rivieres). Made on-site, this work mimics a series of silver boxes each spilling dozens of silver-coloured objects. Cast in one unbroken sheet of foil, the work is a pattern of repeated spills suspended in time. The result is both a microcosm of the world and a record of labour. The title comes from a novel by Paul Auster, in which two protagonists question the roles chance and fate played in their becoming indentured labourers given the existential task of building a long stone wall.