Katja MacLeod Kessin

The Faculty of Fine Arts (FOFA) Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Katja MacLeod Kessin , starting October 17, 2007. The retrospective memorial exhibition will feature the work of Katja MacLeod Kessin (February 7, 1959 – April 1, 2006).

Born in Hamburg, Germany, Kessin emigrated to Montréal in 1981 where she became an active member of the Concordia University community, receiving a BFA, MFA and in 2003, a Ph.D in Humanities. Kessin's work examines the connections between the home environment and large-scale acts of violence, as exemplified by Hitler's Third Reich and the resulting Holocaust. Kessin's research project, To Lend the Dead a Voice , focuses on "second generation German artists", the descendants of Jewish and gentile Germans of the Third Reich. Throughout her practice, Kessin developed a detailed iconography which drew on her childhood experiences in Germany and explored the socially accepted forms of violence, the hidden dangers and often-false comforts of traditional family life. Kessin was a teacher, curator, mother and artist, who saw her practice as a means to explore, communicate with and impact the society she lived in. After a long illness, Kessin died in 2006.

Truly a labour of love, the exhibition is co-curated by Kessin's friends and peers from Concordia University: David Elliott, Lynn Hughes, Loren Lerner and Sara Morley. The exhibition will feature a wide range of Kessin's works and will premiere her final painting series, 366 days in which she created a painting a day for one year.


From Kessin's "A is for Auschwitz" performance,1999

The exhibition will be on view at the FOFA Gallery from October 17 to November 16, 2007. The vernissage will take place on October 25 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the FOFA Gallery. A selection of Kessin's interviews and performance pieces will be screened and discussed by the co-curators during Performing Katja at 7:30 p.m. in lecture hall 1-605. Alexandra Daszkowski will also present, We hadn't seen each other for two years , a collaborative work she made with Kessin. An exhibition catalogue will be sold at the FOFA Gallery; proceeds going toward an undergraduate Fine Arts scholarship in Kessin's name.

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For more information, please contact:
Dina Vescio
dinavescio@gmail.com
514.805.7899

www.katjamacleodkessin.com




Don’t you see that everything’s in perfect order?, 1990
acrylic on canvas / acrylique sur toile
121.9 x 147.3 cm

#44 from the 366 Days series,
Sept. 15, 2003 to Sept. 14, 2004
acrylic on canvas / acrylique sur toile
22.9 x 17.8 cm