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# The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver Presents a Handful of Dust, Curated by David Campany
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/polygon-gallery-north-vancouver-presents-a-handful-of-dust-curated-by-david-campany/
- Published: 2019-02-05T21:41:52.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:09:02.000Z
- Description: a Handful of Dust: from the Cosmic to the Domestic examines dust and debris as an indicator of time, action and consequence.
- Author: The Polygon Gallery
- Tags: Announcement, Canada, Exhibition Announcement, Vancouver, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:34 (2019, 2020, part 1)

![Polygon](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2019/02/polygon-gallery_feb2019_sp_1080x720.jpg)

Jeff Mermelstein, Statue (‘Double Check’ by Seward Johnson), New York, 11 September 2001 (detail), 2001\. Chromogenic print, 22 3/8 x 28 3/8”. Private Collection.

Opening February 8 at [the Polygon Gallery](http://bit.ly/2MJEygI?ref=hyperallergic.com) in North Vancouver, Canada, [*a Handful of Dust: from the Cosmic to the Domestic*](http://bit.ly/2S1lJeO?ref=hyperallergic.com), offers a rare opportunity to view a remarkable diversity of photographs from the last 100 years, focusing on the theme of dust – from aerial reconnaissance and forensics, to conceptual art and abstraction. More than 30 artists and photographers are featured, some of which include Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Louise Albin-Guillot, Walker Evans, Scott McFarland, Gerhard Richter, Mona Kuhn, Sophie Ristelhueber, Eva Sternram, Jeff Wall, and Nick Waplington.

Curator David Campany proposes a speculative history of the past century, beginning with an iconic photograph by legendary artist Man Ray picturing a sheet of glass belonging to Marcel Duchamp covered in dust. It is humble yet enigmatic. It is a document, and an artwork, one that is realist and abstract, a still life and a landscape, and perhaps even a performance. The exhibition asks, what if dust is really a key to the ensuing decades? Why do we dislike it? Dust must be kept well away from camera equipment, but it is deeply photogenic. There is something universal about dust: we come from it, go to it, and create it daily. Inevitable and unruly, dust is the enemy of the modern order, its repressed other, its nemesis.

[***a Handful of Dust: from the Cosmic to the Domestic***](http://bit.ly/2S1lJeO?ref=hyperallergic.com) **is on view at the Polygon Gallery through April 28, 2019\. For more information, visit** [**thepolygon.ca/a-Handful**](http://bit.ly/2S1lJeO?ref=hyperallergic.com)**.**