May 28–August 27, 2017
Esker Foundation
4th floor, 1011 9 Ave SE
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
www.eskerfoundation.com
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Jason de Haan
Oh for eyes! At night we dream of eyes!
Calgary-based artist Jason de Haan has developed an interest in proposing and undertaking projects in which particular environments, natural conditions, and massive time scales complete, animate, and determine his multidisciplinary practice. The work most clearly deals with fleetingness, vulnerability, and the fragility of the natural world in a way that considers the limits of human perception and influence. The tangible traces of the monumental passage of time, like the interval it takes light from the most distant stars in our galaxy to reach earth—a staggering 3.8 billion years—or the polishing of a stone from thousands of years of touch, are evidence that we are merely a twinkle in a larger and longer conversation.
For de Haan, our ephemeral position within this epic dialogue offers a productive space to consider the difficulty of perceiving and describing distance, as well as the longing and nostalgia that this struggle evokes. The search for meaning and the act of creating to describe and generate understanding in this space is core to the artist’s research and subsequent projects. By deliberately placing his work into the evolutionary flow, de Haan attempts to reverse, adjust, and interrupt the course of time through sincere gestures that resonate with romance and poetry. We are asked to be attentive, patient, and open to following the artist’s propositions, especially when their logic seems precarious, or the promised transformation cannot be seen—at least not in our lifetime.
Anton Vidokle
The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun
The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun is the second film of Vidokle’s trilogy on Russian cosmism, a metaphysical philosophy and cultural movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among Russian scientists, intellectuals, artists, and revolutionaries, which speculated on the possibilities of space travel; the use of electromagnetic energies to enhance health, healing, and vitality; and prolonged human lifespan, immortality, and even resurrection. This film focuses specifically on the poetic dimension of the theories of Soviet biophysicist, Alexander Chizhevsky (1897–1964), whose lifework involved the study of the effects of aero-ionization and cosmological fluctuations such as sunspots and solar flares on human health and behaviour.
In the Project Space
Laura Dutton: Night Comes On
May 1–July 23, 2017
Night Comes On is a video installation comprised of sixty 8 inch LED screens housed in and among ninety-nine black wooden boxes. Each screen contains a looping video depicting human activity within a domestic window frame, as seen from the exterior of a building. The source footage used for this work came from wide shots of glassy apartment buildings in downtown Vancouver, shot at night during a firework festival, which prompted many residents to peer out of their windows. Arranged in the exhibition space, the stacks of screens and boxes reference an active urbanscape environment—a city in motion. The installation encourages the viewer to become a voyeur, peering into private spaces while navigating in front of imposing structures of flickering, hypnotic light.
Night comes on as we move around this city of windows.
Contact: Elizabeth Diggon, T 403 930 2493, ediggon [at] eskerfoundation.com