Phil Bergerson | Shards of America

Exhibition Dates: September 11 - October 30, 2004    

Opening reception and book launch with the artist: Saturday, September 11, from 2 – 5 PM

In conjunction with the launch of his book Shards of America, published in New York by Quantuck Lane Press, and distributed by Penguin, we are pleased to present our fourth exhibition of photographs by Phil Bergerson.

In his most recent body of work, an on-going project spanning the last ten years, Bergerson has packed his camera and traveled extensively through southern Ontario and across the United States, visiting cities both small and large. The resulting photographs capture the cultural detritus of everyday life, and the pastiche of remnants left over from generations past.

This territory has been explored by numerous photographers, but rarely with such unabashed joy as Bergerson injects into his images. His viewpoint is never condescending, but instead captures the beauty of these ‘organic’ installations, small moments that have been created through a mixture of human intent, nature’s intervention, and time, and realized through Bergerson’s lens. Whether humorous or poignant, the photographs are consistently moving and entirely unforgettable.

Phil Bergerson has been a professor at the School of Image Arts, Ryerson University, since 1972. His images are included in the collections of major institutions such as the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, and have been shown in public and private galleries across Canada, in Europe, the United States, and Hong Kong. Selected images from Shards of America will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, running from September 9, 2004 to January 2, 2005. His work has been reproduced in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Toronto Life, amongst other publications.