Karen Moe, Torte, from Lethe, 2005
Archival inkjet, 25” x 35”
Karen Moe, Lethe performance, New York
Bobbi Sue Smith, As Found
Janet Sadel, Fast Ball
Rena del Pieve Gobbi
reinsertion (film still)
Rena del Pieve Gobbi
From the Cunt Series
(No) Matter What: Four Women Photographers Realize Neglected Spaces
Photographer and filmmaker rena del pieve gobbi, photographers Janet Sadel and Bobbi Sue Smith, and photographer and performance artist Karen Moe realize neglected spaces in a Vancouver context, through the sexed and gendered body and, in so doing, voice some of the silences at the core of patriarchal culture. The project addresses how the cultural and ideological inscriptions that construct social subjects are intrinsically informed by the corresponding privilege and neglect in a hierarchical ontology.
del pieve gobbi’s film reinsertion reflects the loss of Vancouver’s missing and murdered women through images of the Downtown Eastside. The images attempt to reframe culpability for the murders to the City of Vancouver for its inaction. del pieve gobbi is also exhibiting her collaged photograms, which reaffirm one’s relationship with one’s body while striving to heal from sexual violence.
Moe’s Lethe is a “mock metaphysics” where contradictions, absurdities, and horrors surface in a system that is recognizable as our own. Lethe consists of large-format photographs and a performance that begins with Moe bound in crime-scene police tape, accompanied by an audio montage of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the stock exchange. Lethe has been shown in New York City, Toronto, and Victoria, but never in Vancouver. Moe will bring Lethe “home” through Capture.
Sadel is an expert in photographic hand tinting and will inscribe this loving process onto a large-scale tree. She will also show C-prints of the residue of fallen leaves on urban pavement. Each fall season unacknowledged beauty is commemorated in these fleeting impressions.
As an East Vancouver flâneur, Smith moves randomly through her neighbourhood, documenting such objects as shopping carts, temporary shelters, and painted dumpsters. Her silver gelatin prints are mythologized phantoms that haunt Canada’s most neglected neighbourhood.
Throughout the show, a silent auction will be held for the completion of del pieve gobbi’s 35 mm film reinsertion that is currently in post-production and will be released to festivals in the summer of 2015. Each artist will be donating one or two pieces for auction.
