For VOLTA NY 2018, dc3 Art Projects is excited to present work by Evergon + Jean-Jacques Ringette, aka Chromogenic Curmudgeons, from Two Old Friends Play Chess. Made by the duo during a period in which Evergon was housebound, the photographs are painterly in both form and content, using objects and memorabilia from Evergon’s home to build works for the lens of the camera without digital alteration.These series of still lifes/landscapes, volcanos and Rorschach’s create psychological spaces that serve as portraits of both the artists and of the viewers.

‘’For years I spent my creative time globe trotting in search of Ramboys, Cruizing Grounds and/or Homo-Baroque/Rococo productions in the Polaroid studios of New York, Boston and Frankfurt.

Three years ago my body failed me. I became ill and with this I was confined to my home/studio i.e. housebound.

But in an act of defiance and remembrance, I started to work in tandem with Jean-Jacques Ringuette, my long-time collaborator. From memorabilia, we produced a series of photo/paintings of still-lifes/landscapes titled Two Old Friends Play Chess.

We danced around each other, we parried, we counter-charged, we trumped each other as queen fiends – no time for a king. It was a courtship of physicality, equality, creativity, and good fun.

Our creative process is well beyond a simple collaboration: our works would not exist without the contribution of the both of us.”

– Evergon, Summer 2017

Evergon (b. 1946, Niagara Falls, ON, Canada) lives and works in Montréal. He holds an MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and his work has been the subject of numerous major solo exhibitions. His work is found in private and public collections in Canada, the United States and internationally, including the National Gallery of Canada, The Photographer’s Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Princeton Collection, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Jean-Jacques Ringuette (b. 1961, Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada) is a Montréal-based photographer whose work has been shown throughout Europe, the United States and Canada. He holds an MFA in Photography from Concordia University and his work is found in numerous private collections, as well as the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

Evergon and Ringuette have been working together since 2015 under the name Chromogenic Curmudgeons and the duo were recently featured in the 35th Anniversary issue of Blackflash.

dc3 Art Projects is also delighted to present Dana Dal Bo’s …Still in the Running Towards Becoming… for the VOLTA Video Wall. In …Still in the Running Towards Becoming… Dal Bo re-enacts scenes from the popular American reality television shows America’s Next Top Model and Toddlers & Tiaras. Inhabiting these scenes, Dal Bo intermeshes quote from teen models, pageant children, as well as their parents, all blending together into the same character consumed by the desire to use beauty to win approval and beat the other contestants.

Dana Dal Bo is an emerging contemporary Canadian artist whose work explores identity, self-surveillance, voyeurism, exhibitionism and selfie culture. Her work moves in and between photo, video, textiles, performance, and online and has been shown widely across Canada, USA and Europe. Works from Dal Bo’s self-less series debuted at VOLTA Basel in June 2017 and were recently on view in the exhibition Art of the Selfie at Helen Day Art Center in Vermont, alongside Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Marina Abramovic, Suzy Lake, and Hannah Perry. Dal Bo completed her MFA in Fibres and Material Practices at Concordia University in 2017 and currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada.