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document series and new video work Louise Noguchi September 17 - October 15, 2005

For the past six years Louise Noguchi has indulged a curious passion for cowboy arts and culture. Now, she hits the trails and dons the guise of documentary photographer to bring us images from Wild West theme parks across the USA. Staged six-gun shoot-outs and smoking aftermaths are the stuff of Noguchi's probing scrutiny. Her photos are a seductive and shrewd exposition of anachronism, ethno-bending, and contemporary art-making. Going for the big bang ...In photographing the narrative plays of frontier history, Noguchi captures the stunt fall, mock fistfight, gunfire and explosions. The sense of an aggressive violence that is all in good fun in the acts of the stunt gunslinger parallels that of the wrestlers in the W.W.F. what social purpose do these spectacles still hold in our culture? Shootin' it up at the OK Corral ....It would be different if guns and violence belonged safely in this reimagined past. If we could walk away shaking our heads thinking Imagine that. Such a violent time. The growth of gun culture in America has kept pace with population growth since that time. The frontier is no more, but the belief that protection is needed; that the world is a dangerous place is stronger than ever. In the photograph In the Back, a cowboy is hot and spins dramatically. In Blow Back, an actor dies in a heroic and spectacular way, flying backward with the force of gunfire. More Hollywood than historic, where an actual death would have meant something either good - the removal of a threat to the town; terrible - the death of a good man, gunned down by a criminal. Taken on their own, the moments recorded in Noguchi's photographs and videotapse exude real violence. The slapstick nature of the acts and the hoots of the popcorn-munching crowd are absent. Excerpted fom Bang,bang, my baby shot me down. By Jennifer Rudder Photographs from this series are currently in a touring exhibition entitled Contemporary Photographic Art in Canada: The Space of Making. This exhibition is organized by VOX, Montreal and the Neuer Berliner Kuntsverein, Berlin and will travel to several venues in Germany during 2005. The document series will shown in two parts. At the WARC Gallery froom September 17 - October 15, 2005, and at the Birch Libralato, 129 Tecumseth St. Toronto, from september 15 - October 15, 2005. New video works will also be shown at WARC. Bio Louise Noguchi was born in Toronto, where she currently lives and works. She studied at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 1981 and completed an MFA at the University of Windsor in 2000. Louise Noguchi currently teaches photography in Art and Art/History in a collaborative program between Sheridan College and the University of Toronto. She works primarily in sculpture/installation, photography and video and has been included in exhibitions across Canada, USA, Europe and Tokyo.