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2010 CURRENT EXHIBITION

Birthe Piontek

 

Birthe Piontek
The Idea of North

June 25 – July 28, 2010
Opening Thursday, June 24
Artist Talk and reception 7pm

 

The ODD Gallery is pleased to present Birthe Piontek’s The Idea of North, a series of photographs that were conceived and undertaken in Dawson City during the artist’s nine-week tenure as Artist in Residence at the Klondike Institute of Art & Culture in Fall 2008.

Taking its inspirational cue (and title) from Glenn Gould’s famous 1967 CBC radio work about the enduring mythos of the north, Piontek’s project utilizes modes of portraiture, landscape study, still life and reportage to both unearth and project the multitude of social assumptions and narratives regarding northern life. Her pictures look to the people, places and specific visual features of the Dawson City area to present a distilled view of the local landscape that is somehow familiar and defamiliarizing. Exuding qualities of mood and tension, Piontek’s series finds narrative resonance in the “ideas of north” that permeates the lives and dreams of those who visit or inhabit the area, as well as those who have merely imagined it.

 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT: Birthe Piontek

"Individuation is a recurring theme in my photographic work: the ways people struggle to belong yet be different at the same time. Sometimes, people’s quests for identity lead them to leave the beaten path. For them, the quest for self-discovery becomes a journey in every sense of the word.

The fast-paced, anonymous life of the urban environment sometimes offers neither the time nor space for individualization, nor the comforting place needed for belonging. So, for some, the sense of freedom and interdependence intrinsic to a remote, Northern community makes it an idealized symbol of the Promised Land.

The idealization of the North has been nourished by stories by Jack London and Robert Service; by numerous movies about the area’s wild and pristine tapestry; and even by images of the Northern lights, which to this day, although certainly explicable by science, have lost none of their spiritual fascination or magical appeal.

In 2008, I spent three months in a small community in Canada’s Yukon, where I experienced first hand the mystery and fascination of life above the 60th parallel, and met people who came here as part of their quest for the idea of North.

I’m not the first observer to be simultaneously intrigued, yet remain a visitor. Glenn Gould, whose work inspired the title, wrote after visiting the North briefly, "I've read about it, written about it, and even pulled up my parka once and gone there. Yet like all but a few Canadians I've had no real experience of the North. I've remained, of necessity, an outsider. And the North remained for me, a convenient place to dream about, spin tales about,” and in the end, return South."

 

BIRTHE PIONTEK was born in Leer, Germany and currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She received her M.A. in Communication Design and Photography from the University Duisburg-Essen in 2004. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and magazines including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, The Walrus, Wired, and Die Zeit. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy and Brazil. She is represented by Jen Bekman Gallery in New York.

www.birthepiontek.com

The ODDGallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Yukon Government, Department of Tourism & Culture and the Canada Council for the Arts.

 

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