Press Release: Winter 2020/21 Exhibitions at The Polygon
The Polygon Gallery is pleased to present A pot lid for the sky, Everything Leaks, and Miradas Alternas from December 10 to February 7, 2021. These three distinct exhibitions centre emerging talent in Vancouver, and feature photography, video, and sculpture.
“With these three shows, The Polygon is proud to showcase a number of new artistic and curatorial voices, including three Vancouver artists who are garnering deserved attention. Together the exhibitions reaffirm our commitment to spotlight the tremendous strength of our region’s emerging talent.” says Reid Shier, The Polygon Gallery’s Director.
A pot lid for the sky brings together the works of Vancouver artist Christopher Lacroix and pioneering American conceptualist John Baldessari. Both artists embrace self-parody, irony, and absurdist humour to question what role art might play in a complicated, changing world.
An MFA graduate from the University of British Columbia, Lacroix is the 2018 winner of the Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize that is awarded annually at The Polygon to a BC-based artist working in mediums of photography, film, or video.
Everything Leaks is an experimental collaboration by Vancouver artists Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes and Maya Beaudry that responds to our era of visual information overload. Produced in response to an increasingly digital and dematerialised culture, the artist’s works are demonstrably tactile, incorporating fabrics, sculpture, and printed photographs.
Holmes and Beaudry are both graduates from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and Holmes is the winner of the 2017 Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize.
Miradas Alternas challenges how photographic representations of violence in contemporary Mexico might be reimagined through the works of five lens-based women artists. As the Spanish title implies, the artists present alternative ways of looking at an ongoing crisis, upsetting the boundaries between visual arts, documentary photography, and photojournalism.
This exhibition is curated by Andrea Sánchez Ibarrola, an MA candidate in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia.
“It feels appropriate to end this challenging year with a celebration of visionary young artists who critique that which we accept as familiar, and imagine new ways forward. Throughout these exhibitions, there is a recurring theme of reaction, exchange, and collaboration that resonates in these times of transition,” says Justin Ramsey, The Polygon’s Assistant Curator, and curator of A pot lid for the sky and Everything Leaks.
Image: Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes, Dark Horse (detail), chromogenic print, 2020