Although the CCA's main show, "Sense of the City/Sensations Urbaines" is still up, the Octagonal Gallery now sports a tight little collections-based display curated by Louise Désy. Entitled, "Empire", it runs only until the 12th of March. Go see it. It's a worthy visual meditation on various imperial activities, including those currently in play...

From the CCA's website:

The Canadian Centre for Architecture presents the exhibition Empire, a visual essay by American artist John Gossage on the relationship between architecture and power. Gossage’s photographs of government buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C. are juxtaposed with images of Egypt taken by Hermann Vogel in 1868, exposing the parallel actions of governments, over a century apart, in preserving the past and laying claim to the future.

Empire comprises a set of 38 gelatin silver prints from the CCA collection made by Gossage between 1987 and 1993, and 21 albumen silver prints by Hermann Vogel, on loan from Gossage. The temples and other emblematic structures of Egyptian civilisation photographed by Vogel at the request of the Prussian government inspired Gossage, leading him to reflect on the representation of the architecture of power in his home city, the capital of the United States. Gossage comments, “I photographed the places that government uses to preserve its past and, by implication, lay claim to its current power this is, of course, exactly what Dr. Vogel photographed when he was sent by the Kaiser to Egypt to bring back pictures of a great and ancient civilisation. Vogel’s technique was to go closer than had anyone before him (into the tombs by the light of magnesium flares or revolving mirrors) – whereas I was to push for greater distance.”