Victor Burgin
dal 6/12/2006 al 24/3/2007
Segnalato da
6/12/2006
Victor Burgin
Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA, Montreal
Voyage to Italy. The exhibition comprises three works that the British conceptual artist created in 2006: Voyage to Italy, a single screen digital video projection with sound, and Basilica I and Basilica II, two series of black and white photographs accompanied by text; as well as the nineteenth-century photograph by Carlo Fratacci of a basilica in Pompei that inspired them.
Voyage to Italy
curated by Hubertus von Amelunxen
Victor Burgin: Voyage to Italy is a Tangent exhibition on view from 7 December 2006
until 25 March 2007, featuring new works commissioned by the CCA. British conceptual
artist Victor Burgin has created formally powerful black and white photographs and
an evocative video that engage the timeless beauty and lasting resonance of a Carlo
Fratacci photograph of Pompeii. Conceived by Hubertus von Amelunxen, visiting
curator of the CCA Photographs Collection, the Tangent exhibition series seeks to
bring contemporary artists into dialogue with the CCA's rich collection.
The exhibition comprises three works Burgin created in 2006, Voyage to Italy, a
single screen digital video projection with sound, and Basilica I and Basilica II,
two series of black and white photographs accompanied by text; as well as the
nineteenth-century photograph by Carlo Fratacci that inspired them. Fratacci's image
of the Basilica at Pompeii derives from an album of 26 albumen silver prints in the
CCA Photographs Collection entitled Principales Vues de Pompei par Charles
Fratacci, Naples 1864.
The ruins of Pompeii are understood by Burgin as a simultaneous moment of
destruction and preservation: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 annihilated
the city of Pompeii and its inhabitants while conserving the traces for later
civilisations. The ruin thus acts as an archive of the past. Photographs perform a
similar action, fixing a living presence into a still image while capable of
recalling a life long since ended. As Burgin writes, “every photograph is the trace
of a previous state of the world, a vestige of how things were. The sum of all
photographs is the ruin of the world."
Victor Burgin: Voyage to Italy is part of the Tangent exhibition series, conceived
to engage artists in reflection on the relationship between photography and
architecture, beginning with a body of photographs from the CCA's collection. The
commissioned works enter the CCA collection.
The CCA Photographs Collection is dedicated to the history of photography as it
relates to architecture and the built environment. Begun in 1974, it comprises more
than 55,000 items dating from 1839 to today. The objective of the collection is to
bring together works that will make it possible to study and understand the presence
and role of photography in the representation of architecture, the city, and
landscape.
The CCA is an international research centre and museum founded in 1979 on the
conviction that architecture is a public concern. Based on its extensive
collections, the CCA is a leading voice in advancing knowledge, promoting public
understanding, and widening thought and debate on the art of architecture, its
history, theory, practice, and role in society today.
Conversation with the artist: 7 December, 6 pm, free admission
Victor Burgin and Hubertus von Amelunxen in discussion
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920, rue Baile - Montreal