ANNU PALAKUNNATHU MATTHEW: Generations Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queens Park), to October 18. $14.50-$16 Friday 4:30-8:30 pm $9-$10. 416-586-8000.
Internationally acclaimed photographer Matthew speaks to the growing phenomenon of trans-culturalism: the dilemma of individuals who find themselves pulled between several cultures at once. A British native raised in India who studied photography in the U.S., Matthew explores the tensions of living at the nexus of three distinct world views by mixing up the varied codes of traditional dress and cultural setting to explore issues of identity, authenticity and the long shadow of colonialism. Most memorable are portraits of three or more generations of a single family in one photograph, placing young people next to their great-grandparents in Photoshopped montages.
David Jager
Blondie, 1978 hangs as part of Analogue Gallery’s Women In Rock show.
WOMEN IN ROCK Analogue Gallery (673 Queen West), to June 14. 416-901-8001.
This curated group show features shots of divas of pop, rock, punk and folk from the last 20 years, to the extent that it’s impossible to leave without seeing an iconic shot of at least one of your favourite singers, like Debbie Harry, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Chryssie Hynde, Joni Mitchell or Diana Ross, to name a few. DJ
Erratics’ wall of postcards raises questions about time and narrative.
MARTHA BAILLIE, MALKA GREENE AND ALAN RESNICK: Erratics Koffler Gallery (180 Shaw), to June 14. 647-925-0643.
This show plays with time and narrative using real and imagined archives. Baillie’s installation, complete with commissioned music, is a reading room for a wall of postcards on which she’s written quotes from her latest novel, The Search For Heinrich Schlögel, about a German’s time-travelling trip to the Canadian Arctic. Like many of our inherited photos, Greene and Resnick’s selections from WWII and family snaps shot by Toronto MD Morris Resnick (Alan’s father) tantalizingly raise more questions than they answer.
Fran Schechter
Jimmy Limit’s Water Pump With Hoses On Orange (Abundance, Ambiguity, Anxiety, Art, Balance, Collapse, Commerce) typifies his playful aesthetic.
JIMMY LIMIT: Surplus Clint Roenisch Gallery (190 St. Helens), to May 30. 416-516-8593.
The artist with the cartoonish name makes absurdist assemblages of office and building supplies, generic ceramics and fruit that he photographs against brightly coloured flat backdrops, wryly channelling the bland aesthetic of mail-order catalogues. FS
