Polaroid Portraits
In 1974, Gabor Szilasi began producing a series of portraits on Polaroid film, a project he pursued until 2002. Rarely shown and never printed in their entirety, these images assemble close, intimist shots, mainly of women, family members, and fellow artists and photographers. For this exhibition, OPTICA has commissioned the artist for fifteen limited edition (3/3) prints, several of them as yet unpublished.

Life Must Be Alive

Jaana Kokko has developed a body of video work in which the spatial configuration shapes the totality of being. Two videos are presented in the gallery: Modern Times (Transcription) (1982/2006) and The Anarch (2008)—drawn from the series “Who am I, What am I, Why am I”—, both of which testify to a desire for interrogating the value of the document as representation of reality and as element of fiction. Speech, here, carries a story, knowledge and memory; in an examination of power relationships, the artist brings it to the screen through individual and familial interviews.

Optica
space 508
Gabor Szilasi/Jaana Kokko
January 16 – Febuary 20, 2010
www.optica.ca