The curatorial team has recently devoted considerable time to assessing the AGGV Collections and thinking about ways it can develop and grow, in thoughtful, targeted ways. One area we identified as a priority is photography, with the aim of acquiring selected works of historic, modern and contemporary photography. Our primary goal will be to acquire works that were made in British Columbia and/or have a special association with Vancouver Island. We will of course be interested in acquiring selected photographs from other parts of Canada and in some cases, internationally, to ensure we have high caliber works and a broad context to showcase the development of photography as a practice.
Part of the rationale for this focus is to ensure that the AGGV develops a strong, concise collection, that speaks to artistic practice and the history of photography here on Vancouver Island. We aim to build a Collection that is focused, strong and unique to this City and region. We also aim to build a collection that will bring a unique strength and compliment to other collections that exist at our neighbouring galleries and museums across BC and Canada. As step towards achieving this goal, the AGGV recently acquired some photographic work, including an iconic ‘Firebox’ by Dana Claxton entitled Headdress-Connie of 2019 as well as a group of photographs taken on Vancouver Island by the late renowned Vancouver photographer, Fred Herzog (1930-2019).
The Fred Herzog photographs the AGGC recently acquired depict a range of Vancouver Island subjects, including a spectacular image of a Victoria alleyway of 1967; scenes at Qualicum Beach taken in 1972, as well as a fascinating series depicting Chinese owned businesses and homes in Nanaimo. The best-known of these images is the 1967 colour photograph of Victoria. The artist exhibited this work in his own lifetime and openly acknowledged his fondness for it.
The photographs of Nanaimo’s Chinatown are truly fascinating urban studies, showing an area that was destroyed by fire on 30 September 1960. This was the ‘Third’ Chinatown in Nanaimo and located at the corner of Pine and Hecate Streets. I carefully selected these works for the AGGV Collection from the artist’s estate, which is managed by Equinox Gallery in Vancouver.
Headdress-Connie is one of six photographic artworks in Dana Claxton’s “Headdress” series (2018-2023) and was first exhibited at the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019. Headdress-Connie depicts a woman, Connie Paul, dressed in black and adorned with beadwork that covers her face, chest and shoulders. Visitors to the AGGV will recall this work was included in the highly successful exhibition, Adorned, organized by former AGGV Chief Curator, Jaimie Isaac in 2022. Since then, it has been included in groundbreaking survey exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous Art including Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum, a multi-part exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, MD (2024), and Indian Theater: Native Art, Performance and Self-Determination since 1969 at Bard College’s Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2023). AGGV’s Curator of Contemporary Art, Toby Lawrence, notes that Claxton’s “Headdress” works “emphasize the beauty and resilience of Indigenous culture, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQIA+ in the safeguarding, shaping and transmitting of cultural knowledge.” The sitter in this work, Connie Paul, is shown wearing beadwork that she made herself.
Toby Lawrence points out that “Connie Paul’s mother comes from the Sylix Okanagan people in the interior region of British Columbia and her father is from the Tsartlip Nation located within the Greater Victoria region, further establishing relevance to the AGGV Collection, which aims to tell the history of art across Greater Victoria, Southern Vancouver Island and British Columbia, in dialogue with national and international art practices.” Dana Claxton (Hunkpapa Lakota) is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation and is one of the most prominent Indigenous women artists working in North America. Last year she was selected as the winner of the Prestigious Audain Prize for the Visual Arts. Acquiring these works marks a turning point for the AGGV towards building our future collections.
– Written by Steven McNeil, AGGV Chief Curator & Director of Exhibitions
Feature Image: Dana Claxton (b. 1959), Headdress-Connie, 2019, edition 1/5, LED firebox with transmounted lightjet duratrans, 157.5 x 106.7 x 20.3 cm, AGGV 2024.011.001
