George Steeves: Photographs
Ingrid Jenkner & Peter Schwenger

For over twenty years the Canadian photographer has been creating staged eroticized performances with himself and his friends as subjects. Positioned at the convergence of disciplines, Steeves's practice is marked by a frank, unidealized nudity within a context of cultural erudition. Presented here for the first time (and nearly never presented at all), the Excavations series has affinities with the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Pierre Molinier, yet is distinguished by Steeves's meticulous theatricalization. Recovering from the apparantly casual nudity, the viewer will appreciate the minutely orchestrated motifs, settings, poses, gazes and personae drawn from opera, theatre and painting. In her introduction Jenkner states that the exhibition and its publication are intended to "redress the denial of exhibition opportunities in English-Canadian curatorial venues that has censored Steeves's work". Most recently George Steeves has exhibited at Nederlands Foto Instituut and Denmark's Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (03/2007) 48 pp 25 ill. 11 x 8 in sofctcover 978-1-894518-37-6 $20.00 Can./U.S. (16 euros)