Wyn Geleynse & Danny Singer: EXPOSURE 2020

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Wyn Geleynse, "Projector, November 21, 2019," 2019

Opening Reception:  Friday, February 7, 2020 From 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm

As part of the 2020 EXPOSURE Photography Film Festival, TrépanierBaer presents a new Big Sky photograph by Danny Singer, and new and recent works by the 2018 Governor General Award - winning  artist Wyn Geleynse. 

On view now in our Galleria is a breathtaking new work by Danny Singer titled Gainsborough Storm Sky (2019). Gainsborough is a village in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. A small farming community, the village is located on Highway 18 in the southeastern corner of Saskatchewan, the corner-most community in the province. Working out of the tradition of documentary photography and using contemporary photographic techniques, Singer records places found in Canada’s western Prairie Provinces, and in the Great Plains of North America. Often composed of up to 80 or 100 sequential images digitally conjoined into seamless panoramas, Singer’s photographic works are eloquent, elegiac and nostalgic histories of small towns, villages, and hamlets.

In our Viewing Room, we have curated and presented a few select works by Wyn Geleynse. Anchoring this part of the exhibition is the stunning film projection titled Aura (1991-1992): an image of what could easily be a hazy 19th-century landscape painting, dancing in the light, is projected by an old 16 mm projector onto a wall-mounted ground-glass gilded frame surrounded by an ebony velvet curtain. 

As noted by Wyn Geleynse:

'Aura' was inspired by an essay written by the early twentieth-century German philosopher Walter Benjamin titled 'Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," that was partly responsible for my interest in film. Benjamin proposed that only original works of art have an aura or soul. The actual footage is a reflection in the Medici Fountain at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris...The shimmer and suggestiveness of this small projection actualized what I thought was the aura of a subject rather than its literal representation. The scale, the framing, and the black background all work to present a unique experiential visual moment. 

Complementing Aura are two sets of photographic works recently produced by the artist. The first, from his Pairing Series, pairs two individual photographs of diverse studio objects in a serendipitous and sometimes ironic pairing. The second set of works are a poetical suite of  black and white photographs of places the artist has visited. While reviewing these photographs, Geleynse noted his predilection for recording light, through fog, windows, snow, projectors, etc...As he has remarked:

They are momentos, of what my idea of what photography is and are as much about  the photos as objects as they are about the subject within the photos. B & W  images are more than the light that creates the images than about the colour of what we see..." 

Danny Singer was born in 1945 Edmonton, Alberta, Singer began his career as a cameraman and director for the CBC; in 1970, he moved to Montréal, where he made the transition to still photography, and where he currently lives and works. He is the recipient of a Canada Council mid-career grant, a British Columbia Arts Council grant, and the Hamber Foundation Award of Merit. Recent solo exhibitions of note include: Danny Singer, Whyte Museum, Banff (2020); Danny Singer: Standing Still, Denver Art Museum (2016); and Danny Singer – Welcome to Miss Meagan’s Munchies, TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary (2014); to name a few. Recent group exhibitions include:   Next Year’s Country, Remai Modern  2020); Making Pictures, TrépanierBaer (2017); Shore, Forest and Beyond, Art from the Audain Collection, Vancouver Art Gallery (2011); Timeland: 2010 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta (2010). His work can be found in private and public collections across the country including the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Glenbow Museum in Calgary, and the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, to name a few.

Wyn Geleynse was worn in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1947, moved to Canada as a child, and currently lives and works in London, Ontario. Since 1969, he has exhibited consistently in Canada and abroad. In 2018 he was awarded a Govenor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.  In 2006, the Museum London presented a major survey exhibition titled Wyn Geleynse: A Man Trying to Explain Pictures. Solo and group exhibitions include the following: Wyn Geleynse: Slackwire and Other Situations, TrépanierBaer Gallery (2018); City Service Trucks, Gallery Stratford, Ontario, (2016); Étranger, The Audio Art Gallery, Prefix Photo, Toronto (2014); Kit 1A: Some assembly required,Bruno David Gallery, Project Room, St. Louis, USA (2008); At Times I Think Too Loudly,Galerie Anton Weller, Paris, France (2008); Wyn Geleynse. Trop haut, tropBas, de loin”, Centre culturel canadien, Paris, France (2003); Improbable Movement, Centro Cultural De La Bunco Do Brazil, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (2003); Wyn Geleynse, MK Expositieruimte, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2001), to name a few. His work is held in prestigious collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario; the National Gallery of Canada; the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Rhenish Collection, Germany; the Caldic Collectie, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and the Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia, Italy, to name a few.