The eleven artists all resided in what was then called Manitoba. Their place in history is as wide and free ranging as their source material. Their un-provincialism is succinct: a definitive point of origin remains aloof. A particular school of thought or regional palette isn't apparent (remember the Prairie Post-Modernists?). What they've learned and how they've been molded is of less interest than what they were able to hold. Mere empty vessels they were not. That is, their minds operated with two open ends, allowing memes to take hold while shards, flakes and streams of data trash² entered and exited freely.

For decades, Manitoba, specifically its capital, Winnipeg, was regarded by many as an artistic Mecca³. And why not? It was located in the near-center of the continent and has four distinctive seasons. Community had multiple meanings. Now of course, the idea of one place being better than another seems so '30s.

(The beckoning of the real went head-to-head with Sony™)

Retrospective group exhibitions, though often problematic (broad brush-strokes by purveyors and public alike), can serve an appropriately anthropological purpose – the dig without the dirty hands. Though we cannot replicate its original setting, scholars and lay-people alike are quick to detect that, unlike their predecessors, these artists do not betray the typical doomsaynishness of other millennial artists. In fact, according to the curator, they "offer alternative versions which are provocative and, at times, satirical and humorous."⁴

While most remained in the vault, a few of these artists have been elevated and copied. Of course, mimicry is really at the heart of artistic currency. To be influenced is to be done. Growth is both appealing and fleeting. Bereft of angst, these 11 artists shunned the typical, cliche path towards suicide, venereal disease and madness – all hallmarks of the 20^th century artisan.

If nothing else, this retrospective exposes the viewer to a bout of wonder. Though ostensibly working 'on their own', the artists' sense of individuality is obscured – due in no small part to an historical blur. Artistic autonomy is unmasked, exposing a garret, with room for more than one, furnished, heat included, a modest library (some questionable titles), complex systems of communication and parking.

"There is no time like the present to see and experience what the future holds for local art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery"⁵, wrote a scribe in another '99. It is unclear whether this was some sort of sardonic aside, a banana peel lead or a deadpan observation in the guise of late 20th century objectivity. Whatever the case, the benchmarkedness of these works is of less significance than their enduring appeal.

When originally compiled, this exhibition signaled, intentionally or not, the acknowledgement of a sociological phenomenon previously unrecognized: which is that we then lived in the age of the artist⁶; more so than at any previous point in history - Atlantis at our feet. In this post-artisan epoch, we often forget that at one time, for some time, artists were broke. Not to mention that their place in society was never agreed upon. No matter what you read.

Occasionally we may yearn for those halcyon days, but we're plus content maintenant (Anyway, we can't go back in time if it's more than 10 years). The fact that our Elected Leader has artistic leanings (who can forget his solo show at the Art Bank as a kick-off to his last election campaign) demonstrates just how homogeneous a contemplative existence has become.

The production of sites and situations deemed artistic today has meant the loss of the gallery as we once knew it, and concomitantly, how art is (re)viewed. After the 'Big Purchase', all walls, halls and storage rooms were laid bare and refitted with hospital beds, paid for with public admission fee dollars. Now, the art and the artists are precisely located and always in public view; guilded one might say, protected and prodded, many unaware of the workethical chasm separating themselves from their ancestors. They never come into the picture.

As we roll along, from office to office, location to location, the motor-hum barely audible beneath the all-encompassing voice-over (one never sits with the same person twice), we are afforded such an array of settings that, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that each building and art-designated area was designed with the art in mind. The artists' whose role today as cultural head-turner and license dispenser is even greater than ever before. It's their vision or at least the vision of whom they represent that has accomodated the flourishing artographers. "It's like looking at yourself"⁷ a one-time gallery administrator and image manager once quipped.

We realize now that the real art lies within the period spent between now and then. It is not the object, rather the subject, who defines the moment: money, weather, hunger, fear - Gesumptkunstwerk™ – the total work of art. My seat, shirt, even what I had for breakfast, as well as my current emotional state, contributes to the overall experience. Baggage isn't always bad.

To see the art presented in this manner, divested of its original context (that most important word in the English Languages) can be confusing or edifying. Some pieces are enhanced by their proximity to other environments and points of view otherwise in cognito to passersby. While others are "too personal to fit its (original) curatorial lasso."⁸ Arguably, it is contingent on your station or at least on how you maintain it.

By leaps and bounds, the longer something's been around, the less it changes. Yet, where would we be if no one had changed their minds? I'm not the first to write with their eyes and ears against the walls of expression. "History is pointed, exaggerated, like the bow of a ship - an icebreaker"⁹. Believing we're so much further ahead, breaking new ground, a quick glance over the shoulder reveals our advances closing in around us. We have ourselves surrounded. Though one would never bring it up in polite conversation. The sun is the same in a relative way.

After so many years of absorption, the need to create has been supplanted by enforced continuity. This prescribed conduit to relevance, forged by the headstrong meta-patrons of our time has released the artist from the tyranny of the self. Today, we make art not through inspiration but genomitry¹⁰, that biological pre-emptive strike, which truly puts us in our place. Thanks, in part to evolution, but even more, to Refitting, we are all artists born.

This imagined, speculative essay was originally published in the catalogue accompanying the Winnipeg Art Gallery's exhibition: Sit(e)ings: Trajectories for a Future, curated by Shirley Madill.

But humour is noticeably absent from this oeuvre of expression. We can all think of individual images that amuse us, but these are one-liners, mere jokes, which do not constitute a sub-genre of the medium. As a result, it appears that little has been written or even explored regarding the subject of humour in photography. Yet humour, like fear, desire and anger is a fundamental instinct, a sensory extension of ourselves. As an art form, photography can and should be able to reflect all the essential emotions. If current critical practice ignores humour, it ignores a vital aspect of our response to the world.

The intrinsic relationship between humour and photography is that both are pandemic. Each, in their multiple forms and guises are recognized and accepted the world over as part of our collective interpretation of reality. But reality is a relative experience, and therefore, photography's role and definition, like that of humour, hinges entirely on social and cultural context.

For example, humour has been deployed as an artistic strategy by several North American photo-based artists, most notably, William Wegman and his collection of canine portraits, Garry Winogrand's The Animals and Andrew Danson's Unofficial Portraits, Canadian politicians photographed by themselves. Wegman "produces art that, although lighthearted, deals insightfully with subjects such as death, solitude, and contemporary art itself. Although accessible through its humour, Wegman's work is considered serious art that inspires laughter in order to subvert belief systems and dogma". Winogrand's series, taken in the Brooklyn Zoo in 1963 are ".....both humourous and sarcastic (in their) look at the human race. The animals exhibit human-like qualities and when photographed in relation to humans, it is often hard to tell who is performing for whom".

Humour does not always equate itself with laughter, as revealed in the work of these artists. Irony, satire, parody, slapstick, are types of humour which make the bitter pill easier to swallow, without undermining artistic license. The agenda is present, but sugar-coded. Breaking the code becomes a less formidable task for the viewer without rendering the artwork as simplistic. In this sense, to be humourous is to be inclusive and by adopting a humourous approach toward this medium, one works toward a democratization of photography.

To define humour is akin to defining love, freedom, God and art: these are mercurial and abstract terms that constitute categories but not dictionary definitions. Consequently, we are able only to offer interpretations of humour. Yet humour is a global phenomena, delineated by culture, education and personal history. Humour and photography have a symbiotic relationship in terms of their pervasive influence on how we view ourselves.

How is that relationship incorporated in current photographic strategies? Does a lineage exist which supports the argument for a canon of photographic humour? The existence or emergence of this specific genre of photography cannot be defined nor supported without the conscious focus of a critical eye informed by visual history, contemporary culture and a great sense of timing.

The exhibit, entitled Low Maintenance, had its Canadian debut at the Floating Gallery, now Platform: Centre for Photographic & Digital Arts in January of 2002. Located in Winnipeg's downtown core, the gallery is situated amongst a makeshift grid of buildings in varying stages of decay and development. It was impossible not to see similarities between the environments depicted in the photographs and the Exchange District's own history and future. The disparities, however, lay in the circumstances that caused the cases of disrepair — place, position, and point-of-view — three words that informed and inspired an exhibition, long overdue.

For the next year and a half, Milan and I corresponded by email. He was unable to travel to Winnipeg for the opening of his exhibition because his father was gravely ill. In his place, a young, inspired, and capricious artist named Zana Poliakov made the journey from Belgrade. During her stay, she spoke not only about Milan's work, but also about the vibrant and enterprising art scene in what is now Serbia and Montenegro. This was clearly a place affected by political and economic upheaval, yet maintained a healthy artistic and cultural headspace.

During the autumn of 2003, I was able to travel to Belgrade to finally meet Milan and see first hand the city that has experienced so much change over so many centuries. This was a place hungry for and eager to see visual art from outside Europe, but had yet to attract the attention of North American artists, curators and galleries. It was perfect.

A lot has changed in the last eighteen years since Milan organized the exhibition of Winnipeg photographers, Mid-Continental Vision, which toured throughout Yugoslavia in 1986. Some of these changes are apparent in the expanded technological advances of the medium and the ways in which these changes have been adopted and adapted by artists who aren't regarded as conventional photographers.

Latitudes is an exhibition of contemporary photo-based art by Canadian artists living and working in Winnipeg. Each is at varying stages of their artistic careers, and utilizes the medium in personal, distinctive ways. The exhibition includes Les Newman, Sarah Crawley, Aganetha and Richard Dyck, Sheila Spence, Larry Glawson, Diana Thorneycroft, William Eakin, Reva Stone, Paul Butler, and David McMillan.

Latitudes refers to several ideas that serve as the exhibition's foundation. First, it connotes a location and position. This can be geographical, as in the latitudinal coordinates of the city where the artist resides. It also pertains to an artistic point of view and departure; a position that separates each of these artists from the other, yet allows their works to intersect and establish a framework for the entire exhibition.

Latitudes also generates ideas related to freedom – the critical artistic license. Where an artist is positioned — morally, politically, financially, romantically, geographically, and demographically — affects their mobility and aesthetic choices.

Latitudes, as an experience, shows the artists' abilities, willingness and determination to challenge what a photograph can be. Their strategies to this end are manifold: silver and c-print, accidents and purpose, scanners and software, lenses and flashlights, digital platforms and film. What emerges are elements of privacy and myth, whimsy and craft, starkness and irony, as well as the intimate and crude, dark and sardonic.

Newman's humour, Crawley's lyrics, Stone's cartography, Spence's portraiture, Thorneycroft's mythologies, Eakin's icons, McMillan's formality, the Dyck's fantasia, Butler's records, and Glawson's relationships, indicate that the current state of photography is a conduit to a greater artistic end. That end is here.

This essay was originally published in the catalogue accompanying the Charles Shilliday's & Platform's exhibition: Latitudes, which opened in Belgrade, Serbia.