MMFA 2015: Owen Kydd

OWEN KYDD

DURATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS

September 10 – December 6, 2015

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in partnership with Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, presents Durational Photographs by Owen Kydd. This 14th edition of the Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal explores The Post-Photographic Condition, a theme formulated by the Catalan guest curator Joan Fontcuberta. The post-photographic era is characterized by mass production of images and their wide circulation and availability online. Digital technology encourages conceptual fracturing and restructuring of photo-imagery, leading to the fundamental changes in values, as well as the social and functional role of photography.

Owen Kydd started as a film maker, as he stated at the vernissage of his exhibition. He realized, though, that nothing was happening in his movies, they were basically composed of a collection of still video shots of long duration. This is how he found his very specific niche in the art world.

Kydd puts a camera on a tripod in front of a static subject. He takes a photo-shot. Then he switches to video mode and records a short sequence in high definition. The results of the two ways of depicting his subject are almost identical. In conceptual terms, they explicitly show two conflicting ways of representing temporality. In the still photograph, a fragment of the subject’s life is captured, corresponding to the length of the exposure (the time the shutter has been left open). In the video, time is presented in a continuous fashion. The photograph is a slice in time, the video - an unfolding sequence.

Owen Kydd’s  Durational Photographs (the project started in 2006) merge the static image and kinematic lapse. The inclusion of very slight movements shows video-graphic nature of his images, which have been additionally edited to form a continuous loop, with no beginning or end. This captures a circularity quality of time in the imaginary world he creates. In his photo-video installations, the still life (nature morte) has been made to move in time, thus acquiring some live qualities.

Owen Kydd was born in 1975 in Calgary; he lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of California, Los Angeles (2012), and has exhibited his works in solo and group exhibitions at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas (2015), the Oakville Galleries (2015), the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (2014), the International Center of Photography in New York (2014), FOAM Photography Museum Amsterdam (2014), Galerie Xippas in Paris (2014), Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver (2013), Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York (2013), and the Daegu Photo Biennale (2012), among others. He has received many prizes and grants, such as the Toby Devan Lewis Award in 2012 and the Elaine Krown Klein Fine Arts Fellowship in 2011. He was nominated for the AIMIA–AGO Photography Prize in 2014 and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Artist Grant in 2013. He is represented by Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver, and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York.

For more information on Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal program, exhibitions, artist talks, conferences, and educational programs, click here.

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Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website.

Top image courtesy Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
All other photos by Nadia Slejskova
© Nadia Slejskova