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at Allan Gardens

at Allan Gardens

It is when history is denied that is is most unmistakably at work.
— Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero (1953)
Filed under: roland barthes, writing degree zero, history, quote, literature,
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Earthquake?

There are dog fountains in Liberty Village. This exists. I’m done now, goodnight world.

There are dog fountains in Liberty Village. This exists. I’m done now, goodnight world.

Historys history

Found it

Found it

Ugh, Toronto is such a stunning place once the weather warms up.

Finished interview now bring me all the beer please.

Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days - Ryerson Image Centre May 1 - June 2 and June 19 - August 25, 2013Curated by: Blake Fitzpatrick & John Bentley During his long tenure as Toronto’s official photographer (1911-1940), Arthur S. Goss created thousands of images that illustrate in fine detail the Victorian city’s ambitious, but often difficult, re-invention of itself as a modern Canadian metropolis. He has long been best known for his eloquent pictures of slums, destitute immigrants, and other dark elements of this historical passage. This exhibition, presented in collaboration with the City of Toronto Archives, aims to reveal a less widely heralded aspect of Goss’s professional work, but one that occupied his time and creative energy more fully than any other: the routinized production of visual documents for the use of various city departments and agencies. Early in the fashioning of this display, our curiosity was aroused by these images, which have so far been largely unfamiliar to the public. We became interested in what they can tell us about the practice of a photographer embedded in, and beholden to, an urban bureaucracy early in the twentieth century. This practice, the images suggest, was informed by the instrumental and disinterested rationality expected of employees in the public institutions created by political and social modernity. His self-effacing and matter-of-fact approach suggests to the viewer that what is visible to the naked eye is all that there is to see. However, this literalness actually obscures the invisible but pervasive presence of an institutional authority directing these photographs. By featuring and deliberately highlighting Goss’s quotidian, prosaic output, in contrast to his more humanistic imagery of unfortunate city-dwellers, we hope to encourage a fresh appraisal of civic photography, its urgencies and ideologies, in Toronto early in the last century, and a rethinking of bureaucratic image-making everywhere.

Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days - Ryerson Image Centre

May 1 - June 2 and June 19 - August 25, 2013
Curated by: Blake Fitzpatrick & John Bentley

During his long tenure as Toronto’s official photographer (1911-1940), Arthur S. Goss created thousands of images that illustrate in fine detail the Victorian city’s ambitious, but often difficult, re-invention of itself as a modern Canadian metropolis. He has long been best known for his eloquent pictures of slums, destitute immigrants, and other dark elements of this historical passage. This exhibition, presented in collaboration with the City of Toronto Archives, aims to reveal a less widely heralded aspect of Goss’s professional work, but one that occupied his time and creative energy more fully than any other: the routinized production of visual documents for the use of various city departments and agencies.

Early in the fashioning of this display, our curiosity was aroused by these images, which have so far been largely unfamiliar to the public. We became interested in what they can tell us about the practice of a photographer embedded in, and beholden to, an urban bureaucracy early in the twentieth century. This practice, the images suggest, was informed by the instrumental and disinterested rationality expected of employees in the public institutions created by political and social modernity.

His self-effacing and matter-of-fact approach suggests to the viewer that what is visible to the naked eye is all that there is to see. However, this literalness actually obscures the invisible but pervasive presence of an institutional authority directing these photographs. By featuring and deliberately highlighting Goss’s quotidian, prosaic output, in contrast to his more humanistic imagery of unfortunate city-dwellers, we hope to encourage a fresh appraisal of civic photography, its urgencies and ideologies, in Toronto early in the last century, and a rethinking of bureaucratic image-making everywhere.

Sad people have the gift of time, while the world dizzies everyone else; they remain stagnant, their bodies refusing to follow pace with the universe. With these kind of people everything aches for too long, everything moves without rush, wounds are always wet.
— Warsan Shire, Day Twenty One (via the-reluctant-optimist)

(via mirrortheories)

Filed under: quote, sadness,
Source: idterab
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