DOUGLAS CLARK, "Sweet Immortality," June 23-July 5, 2006, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, during The Works Art & Design Festival

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"Tintype and Game, from Articles of Faith"

Douglas Clark, "Tintype and Game, from Articles of Faith," 1987, chromogenic print, 64.5" x 22.5". Collection of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa.

DOUGLAS CLARK, Sweet Immortality

Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, during The Works Art & Design Festival

June 23-July 5, 2006

By Mary Joyce

Sweet Immortality, curated by Art Gallery of Ontario photographer and filmmaker Michael Mitchell in collaboration with Maia-Mari Sutnik, associate curator of photography, is the banner exhibition for The Works this year. It comprises 39 photo-based works by the well-loved and short-lived Canadian artist Douglas Clark (1952-1999) who, though born in Hamilton and educated at Ryerson, left the mark of a generous, flamboyant photographer on Edmonton. Through the imagination, humour and determined research that produced his many insightful curatorial projects, his writing, teaching and his personal work, Clark left an expressive world of strangeness and beauty. The exhibit surveys his early photographs, classic “street” photography of the 1960s and ‘70s: Streeters and Interiors, Travel Panoramas:Japan-China, through the highly personal bodies of work: Gio and Articles of Faith. The latter includes large totemic photo-assemblages inspired by found objects and unusual articles. His accompanying book extends the concept with poetry. A video component of the exhibition provides insight into Clark’s personality.