The Malabar People

Ever cared to peer into a 1950s nightclub? The Mark presents an exclusive photo exhibition from Vancouver artist Stan Douglas.

Entertainment: Selections from Midcentury Studio is an exhibition of new photographic work by Vancouver artist Stan Douglas that will be showing at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto between Dec. 10 and March 4. The work in the exhibition continues the artist’s practice of re-examining historical, site-specific layers, particularly the imaging of post-war North American diversions, from cabaret to sports. The body of work is largely a meticulous studio project in which Douglas assumes the lens of a photographer who takes on various jobs from Weegee-esque photojournalism to advertising. A social system – and an economic system – of entertainment is revealed here in the artist’s inhabitation of a historical fiction.

The exhibition includes the Malabar People, a series of 16 black-and-white portraits of the patrons and staff of a fictional 1950s nightclub featured above. The patrons range from single women to loggers, and the staff include bartenders, waitresses, and entertainers (a dancer, a female-impersonator, a musician). The notion of entertainment is entwined with a post-war optimism, and is at the same time inflected with darker ramifications of looking back. Stan Douglas will speak about his new work and his critically renowned practice on Thursday, December 8th, at 7:00 PM.

Photos courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner, New York