"mis.com: Fiona Bowie, Lorna Simpson, Sophie Calle and Gregory Shepard"
2001-06-02 until 2001-07-22
Presentation House Gallery
North Vancouver, BC, CA

From June 2 through July 22 Presentation House Gallery presents the media work of three artists grouped under the title mis.com, referring to each artists interest in communications and miscommunications.

Lorna Simpsons piece Call Waiting, 1997, is based on that ubiquitous phone conceit by the same name. The device that mediates all the relationships interrupts the narratives in this elegant projection piece, This allows for the play of intrigue, eroticism, humour and betrayal on the scale of a soap opera. Simpson is a New York artist whose work explores race, relationships, and private and public spaces. Call Waiting was originally produced for inSite97 in San Diego/Tijuana. Her work has been exhibited in the Venice Biennale, the Johannesburg Biennale, and she was short- iisted for the Hugo Boss Prize in 1998. Lorna Simpsons work is available courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York.

Vancouver artist Fiona Bowies 360-degree projections combine video and still projected images to create an immersive environment. In Faltering Repetition, 2000, viewers find themselves party to an encounter between a man and a woman, each in their own vehicles, at an intersection. like most overheard bits of conversation, the communications are incomplete, based in gesture and nuance that we, as viewers, get caught up in by our casual curiosity as we wait for the light to change. Fiona Bowie works as a sessional instructor at SFU and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She has had solo exhibitions at the grunt gallery, the OR gallery, and NAC in St. Catharines, Ontario. Her work was shown recently in a video salon of intemational art and new media in Brussels, Belgium, and is included in the current exhibition These Days at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

In Sophie Calles videotape Double Blind, 1992, made with Gregory Shepherd, truth and fiction are hard to separate. Calle and Shepherd agree to travel together, ostensibly knowing each other only slightly. Each videotapes the other as their relationship develops and they share their inner monologues with the audience. The tape is 1 hr and 15m long. Sophie Calle regularly assumes guises through which she creates a temporary truth in the resulting narrative and documentary activities. Her work has shown extensively in Europe and the US. She lives in Paris. Double Blind is her only video work.

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