About Me

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MICHAEL SCHREIER Michael Schreier is a professional artist and photographer who has dedicated his considerable professional career to the celebration of both the public and private hero. Recent work includes Storyteller, Waiting for Words at the Ottawa Art Gallery, curator Emily Falvey, 2009, and the curating of the exhibition Dave Heath, A Heritage of Meaning, 2013 at the Ottawa Art Gallery. Selected works are represented in both public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Archives Photography Collection, the Agnes-Etherington Art Centre, the Canadian Portrait Gallery, Visual Studies Workshop, (Rochester, New York), Light Works Workshop, Syracuse New York, Carleton University Art Gallery, and the University of Ottawa Library Special Collections.

Monday 19 December 2016

...between the book and leaving the book...

#13

(cursor on photograph for detailed view, 
note: unless otherwise indicated all photographs,

by Michael Schreier and drawings by Hilde Schreier,
reproduction, without permission, prohibited.)





...between the book and leaving the book...
          
                                                                
                                                     The Book of Questions
                                                                                                                        Edmond Jabès




Can one grant that initially, there was the "word" given as a sound, and then, challenged, with an intent to garner meaning? I would suggest the passage, from an "understood" to further understanding provides a foundation for the image maker. It can be considered a trust between experience, knowledge and truth and although one can declare the non-existence of truth; yet, " how can that be believed.?" Perhaps, the non-existence of truth, a "post-truth", significant of our immediate moment in history, may be accurately rendered as a consequence of disillusionment.



         
                                                          ...a consequence of disillusionment...

Is there an association between the sublime and, "to sublimate" and further, is it not in the belief of the sublime that one progresses? Yet any suggestion  that an ascension towards a higher understanding and an acceptance that one is quite prepared to sublimate, might become suspect. The nexus between reason and passion becomes disparately clouded. 

  
The gallery/book, and the above selected photographs have proffered an access to passage from history to the presence. The included, time line, offers evidence, a confirmation of an event, 05..10..16, 11..36..47,  yet what is understood and critically, what is its link to history?




"The fact that the word needs to go from one to the other to be confirmed or contradicted and developed shows the necessity of the interval. The power to speak is interrupted, and this interruption plays a seemingly subordinate role, that precisely, of subordinated alternatives. A role, however, so mysterious that it can be interpreted as carrying the mystery of language itself: pause between phrases, pause from one speaker to the other, and pause of attention, of understanding, which doubles the power of expression."

Interruptions
Maurice Blanchot


Trans. Rosemarie Waldrop and Paul Auster

   
Art is born in conflict, life and death in opposition, each mirroring
the other, interchangeable. Art is born in sorrow, nostalgia and
madness. Art is born on the threshold of silence. Art is born in
the reclamation of that which is lost. Art is born in the chimera
of hope. Art is born as the tragic expression of the profound 
laughter of God's melancholy.

We are the present
Bound in this moment of life's reality
To a task;
An action borne from an unseen past.

We are the present
Compelled by life's disorder
To order;
In action borne toward an unknown future.

                           We are the image makers
                           Beguiled by our fictions,
                          Through creation cursed
                          With the mystery.

                                                         ____Dave Heath
                                                         
                                                         Dave Heath's Art Show

I have returned to this credence, offered by Dave to his students as a way to assist their efforts, to underscore the very nature of art making, an embrace for philosophical, spiritual truths in which verity can be challenged for a deeper understanding. It is for me appropriate to return to these thoughts as I notice with some regret such a plethora of contemporary art making, governed seemingly by expediency and an urgency to be noticed. Dave's thoughts return me to a moment of profound consideration for that illusive gift of knowledge given and challenged through the ages, by those who have touched on a level that continues to motivate my own search.





                                                                  The Veil of Orpheus, 
                                                                           Harold Budd