The first edition of our Lynn Valley series of artist-designed publications is by Richard Prince, the influential New York artist who first created controversy in the 1970s by working with appropriated imagery–then a quite radical concept. Weighing in at 48 pages, this volume contains representative samples of all of Prince’s most famous work: biker girls, nurses, sculptures, paintings, tattoo pornography, jokes, and other assorted incendiary images.

The 4th installment of the Lynn Valley artist book series features an untitled work by the Berlin artist Annette Kelm. Using a detailed studio-shot format reminiscent of advertising photography the book displays six versions of a hat that the artist bought while traveling through New York. Manufactured in China for the US market these hats are a strange cultural hybrid. Their design – a combination of a western baseball cap and a eastern straw hat – grafts two separate idioms together to create a consumer item which is more an “interpretation” of a western cultural icon rather than a knock-off of it. Each version is fastidiously documented from every angle (there are six in all with yellow, purple, red, beige, blue and black seams respectively).

Critic Kirsty Bell describes Kelm’s unique photographic approach: “Her precise, carefully composed, well-lit images, often shot with a large-format camera, luxuriate in surface and clarity of detail while fitting neatly into standard photographic genres: still life, portraiture, landscape. The things they present definitely exist; there is no doubt about that. But something about their ‘rightness’ seems not quite right. As selfevident as her images appear, they are undercut with a strangeness that questions not only the purpose of the objects, but also the nature of their representation.”

Lynn Valley #3/The reason why I am here is the reason why I am here by Jonathan Monk (b. Leicester, England 1969), explores legacies of conceptual art practice in installations, photography, film, sculpture and performance, often marrying his interests in canonical artworks from the 1960s and 70s with wry references to personal autobiography.

The reason why I am here is the reason why I am here is a 48-page bookwork featuring crude amateur photographs of pop singer Morrissey performing at a recent concert in Berlin. Taken by an audience member, the photographs are mirrored on each verso page of the publication. The result acts as a fan’s tribute to legacies drawn from 80s popular music and 60s visual art, while creating a series of photographic “Rorschachs” whose formal inventiveness grows from the simplicity of their source.

Richard (Dick) Oulton (1918-2000) was a commercial photographer who worked out of Vancouver from the late 50s to the mid 80s. He operated under a variety of names—Dick Oulton Studio, Dick Oulton Photography and Ricardo Photographic Services—advertising services for weddings, portraits, passports, photographic restoration and commercial photography. A bachelor who had an eye for attractive ladies and a flair for fashion, Oulton continued to photograph until his death.

With no heirs, the bulk of Richard Oulton’s image collection was rescued by friends and subsequently came to the attention of Presentation House Gallery. A sample of his work was included in the 1994 exhibition, “The Just Past of Photography” in Vancouver, but the bulk of his archive, which contains thousands of unprinted negatives, has yet to be seen.

Oulton’s commercial assignments took him out on location to document businesses and events including restaurants, store displays, parades, nightclubs, boxing matches, promotions, countless weddings, and beauty contests – however his forte was portraiture and glamour shots, usually of attractive young women.

This selection of Dick Oulton’s photographs, which reveals the commercial and vernacular imperatives of his production, showcases the idiosyncratic power of his images. Restricted to particular genres and conventional formats, his pictures indicate a stylized sensibility and personal vision.

Printed in conjunction with the exhibition Juliette and Friends, November 21, 2008 – January 11, 2009

The catalogue is Out of Print

Catalogue design: Roger Bywater

Printer: DL & Associates, Canada