Luther Konadu

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Luther Konadu, “figure as index 15” and “figure as index 14,” 2021

c-prints, 12″ x 17″ and 12″ x 16″ (photo by Don Hall)

Winnipeg-based visual artist and writer Luther Konadu’s exhibition, Particularly Tentative, opens with two rectangular sheets of plywood that angle away from the gallery wall. Black and white images of two figures – each holding up a camera – are affixed onto their bare surfaces. As viewers move further into the gallery, their eyes track the camera lenses and they may feel they are being watched, photographed or even surveyed. These two photographic sculptures lay the foundation for what viewers are about to experience in this exhibition of Konadu’s recent work, on until Sept. 26 at the Sherwood Village branch of Regina’s Dunlop Art Gallery.

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Luther Konadu, “Particularly Tentative,” 2021, installation view at the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina (photo by Don Hall)

In recent years, Konadu has been investigating the nature of photographic portraiture, and how the camera negotiates personal and collective formations of identity. In Particularly Tentative, his artistic goal is evident in how works are placed to reconfigure spatial relations in the gallery. The show’s curator, Toronto-based artist Liz Ikiriko, utilizes curatorial strategies effectively to create a fluid and dynamic environment in which viewers are compelled to abandon a typical flaneur-like stroll and actively negotiate their position in relation to the gallery space and the pictures on display.

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Luther Konadu, “figure as index 2,” 2020 and “figure as index 1,” 2018

c-prints, 36″ x 24″ and 24″ x 36″ (photo by Don Hall)

Viewers can remain in the centre of the gallery and appreciate the exhibition’s scale from a distance. Or they can move closer to each grouping of works to decipher the people or the texts written on Post-it Notes and pieces of paper inside framed pictures – only to glimpse their own reflections in the glazed barrier of the glass. As their eyes follow the visual narrative from one frame to the next, their bodies are nudged along the length of the gallery. This subtle participation provides the immersive context necessary to understand the exhibition.  

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Luther Konadu, “figure as index 10,” (detail), 2016

c-print, 60″ x 20″ (photo by Don Hall)

Particularly Tentative can be viewed as the latest development in Konadu’s artistic exploration. An earlier iteration of the project, Gestures on Portrayal, was presented at PAVED Arts in Saskatoon in 2019. The artist elaborated on the show’s title in his curatorial statement, writing: “By gestures on portrayal, I mean, an accumulation of fractional utterances about the very subject of depiction through photography and its attendant history.” Viewers who reference Konadu’s definition in reading the work in Particularly Tentative might recognize a constant abstraction rather than a conclusive representation of a singular identity – individual or collective – despite the many full and half faces of models, the artist and viewers sighted in the works.

By quietly capturing and incorporating viewers in the experience, Particularly Tentative encourages them to question the power of truth-making given to photography as a medium. In an era where post-truth and disinformation run rampant, the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” no longer holds much sway. Konadu, through his evolving photographic investigation, invites viewers to actively join him in questioning the meaning behind an image, what it represents, what it tries to prove – or as Nya Lewis questions in her exhibition essay, what it tries to not prove. ■  

Luther Konadu: Particularly Tentative at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Sherwood Village) in Regina from July 17 to Sept. 26, 2021.

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