Exhibition ~ Facing History

                 Portraits from Vancouver

Facing History is a an exhibition about a city's inhabitants and their collected visage. Curated by Karen Love, the assembled portraits are drawn from the last fifty years of Vancouver's image history. There are videos, outdoor advertising billboards as well as hundreds of photographs hung salon style in three of Presentation House's galleries. The work of more than 50 artists and photographers is represented in the exhibition which is rounded out with archival images from local historical photograph collections.

Exhibition Catalogue

Title: Haircut

Year: 1982

Medium:360° panorama made from assembled black and white gelatin silver fiber base photographic prints with accompanying hand written text. Matted and framed.

Size: 118 inches wide x 24 inches high (300 cm x 61 cm)

Caption: Here I rediscover my face after 15 years of long hair and beard, assisted by barber and co-photographer Jeannie Kamins. This clean-cut, youthful look will help me appear more employable during the current depression while at the same time giving my male vanity a temporary boost. 360 panorama in our kitchen, December 7, 1981.

Title: Ken Gerberick

Year: 1996

Medium: Black and white fiber base gelatine silver photographs. Matted and framed.

Size: 40 inches wide x 30 inches high (100 cm x 76 cm)

Caption:Ken Gerberick makes art from stuff other people throw out. His studio is an archive of consumer junk, car parts, obsolete machines, neon signs, broken toys, etc. A tragic four car collision in front of his childhood St. Louis home which left 1950’s auto parts strewn across the Missouri landscape was the beginning of then five year old Ken’s collection. Now Ken’s collection fills four rooms in his studio and every square inch of his tiny apartment.

Early in his career Ken worked as a commercial artist and is best known as the designer of the 1964 Anheuser-Busch 10,000,000th barrel of beer commemorative medallion. Commercial art stifled Ken’s creativity so for relief he turned to he now-famous assemblages.

Apart from his assemblages Ken has made two ART CARS. The first was a 1957 Pontiac named The Emblem Car. His latest street machine is an 84 Chevette known as the Frivolous Niece for short. She’s covered with 2,000 emblems and roofed with 37 license plates. On the hood is a model junk yard which has 175 toy cars glued to it. Frivolous Niece won 3rd place in the Small Vehicle Class at the 1996 Houston Texas International Art Car Exhibition.