Canadian Art - Fall 2017

canadianart
The Idea of History

WHAT is REMEMBEREd? WHAT is REsisTEd? WHAT is ignoREd?
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canadianart
The Idea
Fa l l 2 01 7
volume 34, number 3
of History
92 Haunted House
The Museum of Fear and Wonder
pays tribute to the enduring
appeal of the uncanny
by Eve Thomas
96 Passing Through
As Grafton Tyler Brown moved
across the Pacific Northwest, his
identity changed from Black to white
by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir
98 The Women
Running the Show
Black women curators
shape a distinct conversation
responsive to the unique
experiences of the Black diaspora
by Yaniya Lee
102 Deuxime Dportation

Acadian artists bring
attention to an ongoing 118
story of expropriation
by Rmi Belliveau
Jonah Samson Untitled (feathers) 2017 Archival pigment print and rooster feathers 78.4 x 60.9 cm
G E N E RO US LY SU P P O RT E D BY T H E
S H E I L A H U G H M AC K AY FO U N DAT I O N
106 Spectres of Ren Payant 128 A Surrealist 134 This Womans Work
An influential Quebec in the Gaspsie Women sculptors use
courtesy Macaulay and co. Fine art/clint roenisch Gallery Photo toni haFkenscheid
critic is remembered In 1944, Andr Breton retreated industrial materials to

through his marginalia to Quebec to write his wartime render visible the
by Vincent Bonin manifesto, Arcanum 17 weight of hidden labour
by Jonah Samson by Ginger Carlson

108 Take Back the Streets
Indigenous street art rejects 130 The Archive Acts Up 138 We Lost an Entire
the colonial restrictions Digital archives reassemble Generation
of the institutional art world and resist the standard histories Indigenous peoples remain
by Laurence Desmarais of queer communities ghettoized within, or absent
and Camille Larive by Evan Pavka from, what we term AIDS art
by Lindsay Nixon
110 The Diaspora 132 InVisible Colours
That Never Happened Revisiting a groundbreaking 142 Voyage of a Lady
Searching for portraiture film and video festival The story of a Nazi-looted
in the archives of made for and by women of paintings Hamilton sojourn
the Komagata Maru colour in late 1980s Vancouver by Blair Mlotek
by Aaditya Aggarwal Rosemary Heather in
cover:
conversation with Zainub Verjee
canadianart.ca 11
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canadianart
18 This Issue
37 Preview
Upcoming openings, events,
performances and more
65 Keynote
A Play of History
by Luis Jacob
67 Poetry
Thursday (A Grand Total)
by Damian Rogers
68 Legacy
The Group of Eight
by Katharine Lochnan
and Sarah Stanners
112 Artist Project

The Long Doorway
by Deanna Bowen
65
118 Spotlight
A national survey
of 10 artists whose works
reinvent history
by Amanda Shore
g e n e r o us ly su p p o rt e d by r b c
168 Reviews
Recent exhibitions, books,
films and more
188 Backstory
The Halifax Conference
by Craig Leonard
previous page:
Chun Hua Catherine Dong I have been There
Santiago 2016 performance and photography
this page, above:

Luis Jacob Public Domain 2017 tempera and
pencil on gatorboard, hand painted by Wayne
reuben 22 panels; 61 cm x 1.21 m each
this page, below:

Charles Stankievech Until the O Becomes
a Point (detail) 2017 photo sbastien roy
168
canadianart.ca 13
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This Issue Contributors
History can be misleading. Take for instance the October 1967 edition of artscanadathe Damian RogeRs is a poet. Born and raised in the Detroit
Black issue. It was a loaded theme that promised, on the surface at least, to address suburbs, she has been based in Toronto since 2002.
The author of two books of poetry, her first book-length
the simmering unrest of the time head on. Only a few months earlier, violent race riots
work of non-fiction, An Alphabet for Joanna, will be
and protests had erupted in more than 150 cities across the United Statesincluding published by Knopf Canada in 2019.
border cities such as Buffalo, Chicago and, most dramatically, Detroitin what has
become known as the long, hot summer of 1967. What we find in the artscanada evan Pavka is a Toronto-based writer who holds
an M.Arch in architectural history and theory from
pages, however, is something altogether different. The entire issue was dedicated to a
McGill University. He is currently a sessional instructor
transcribed conference call between Toronto and New York in August that year, where at Ryerson University.
two artists, two musicians, an architect, a filmmaker and a sociologistall men, all
white, with the exception of Black American composer and poet Cecil Taylordebated YaniYa Lee is a writer and researcher based in Toronto.
She will be the 201718 writer-in-residence at Gallery 44.
black as a quality of colour in paint; as perceptual blindness; as religious metaphor; as
stasis, negation and nothingness. Aside from the inclusion of a Black Panther symbol Deanna Bowen is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary
to illustrate the text, the burning racial tensions of the time were mostly ignored. Much artist whose practice examines race, migration, historical
has changedand not changedsince the Black issue hit newsstands 50 years ago. writing and authorship. She is a 2016 Guggenheim
Fellow in film/video and recipient of the 2014 William
Yet in looking back at that issue, what becomes strikingly apparent, and important, is
H. Johnson Prize.
not the flawed history it contains, but the real stories that are glaringly absent from its
pages. It is these missing narratives, the hidden, suppressed, overlooked and otherwise Rmi BeLLiveau is an Acadian multidisciplinary artist
untold histories of Canadian art, that are the focus of this current issue. Think of it as our from New Brunswick. He currently co-directs Galerie Sans
sesquicentennial-year counter-canon: read the little-known stories of pioneering artists Nom and was part-time lecturer of Acadian art history
at Universit de Moncton.
Florence McGillivray and Grafton Tyler Brown; the under-recognized influence of Quebec
critic Ren Payant and Indigenous artists Ren Highway, Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, Archer gingeR CaRLson is a curator and writer based in
Pechawis and Terry Haines, whose lives were cut short by HIV/AIDS; the winding tale of Calgary, where she is currently the director of TRUCK
a 17th-century painting stolen during the Second World War and returned to its rightful Contemporary Art.
owners; the ongoing work of Black women curators across the country; and much more.
BLaiR mLotek is a Toronto-based freelance writer
These are the stories that matter now and set the record straight for histories yet to come. and editor. She is also the arts and ideas editor of
This Magazine.
amanDa shoRe is a freelance writer and curator based

in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Jonah samson lives on Cape Breton Island. His

photographic artworks have been exhibited widely and
he has produced several artist books, including Yes
Yes, Were Magicians, recently published by Presentation
House Gallery.
CamiLLe LaRive is a community art organizer and street

artist based in Montreal. She is the curator and the
lead organizer of Unceded Voices: Anticolonial Street
Artists Convergence.
LauRenCe DesmaRais is a Montreal-based art historian

and community organizer. She has a masters degree from
Universit du Qubec Montral and has been working
at the DIALOG Aboriginal Peoples Research and
Knowledge Network for six years.
aaDitYa aggaRwaL is the programming coordinator

at Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. He was
the 2016 online editorial intern at Canadian Art.
vinCent Bonin is a writer and curator living in Montreal.

His book Dun discours qui ne serait pas du semblant/Actors,
Networks, Theories is forthcoming from Black Dog
Publishing, London, and Leonard and Bina Ellen Art
Gallery and Dazibao, Montreal.
kathaRine LoChnan specializes in 19th- and early

20th-century art. She is senior curator emeritus
at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and adjunct professor at
Cover of artscanadas October 1967 issue, from the Canadian Art archives. Regis College, University of Toronto.
18 C a n a d i a n a r t fa l l 2 0 1 7
Contributors F17_7TSHR.indd 18 08/05/17 2:22 PM

canadianart
David Balzer Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher (On Leave)
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Leah Sandals Managing Editor, Online
Caoimhe Morgan-Feir Associate Editor
Lindsay Nixon Indigenous Editor-at-Large
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Nicholas Brown Contributing Editor and
Manager of Programming
Dale Barrett Print Production Manager
Simon Lewsen Research
Vidal Wu Editorial Resident
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Masthead_fall17_8.indd 20 08/11/17 12:23 PM

JOSEPH HARTMAN:
Joseph Hartman (Canadian b. 1978) Pierre Dorion, 2015
digital chromogenic print
Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Bulger Gallery
Joseph Hartman
THE ARTISTS STUDIO

UNTIL DECEMBER 31, 2017
123 King Street West, Hamilton 905.527.6610 info@artgalleryofhamilton.com
AGH_HARTMAN_FP_CAN_ART_ad_8.875x10.875.indd 1 2017-07-25 2:24 PM

The behavior
of the material,
which does not
seek your
permission,
already
suggests to
me a dance
of nature and
culture, mind
and nature.
October 19, 2017 - January 21, 2018
Quote by Steven Heinemann. Images: Left: Steven Heinemann, Slider (detail), 2017, Courtesy
of the artist, Photography by Taimaz Moslemian; Right: Steven Heinemann, farawaysoclose
(detail), 2002, Gardiner Museum, purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the
Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, G01.3.1, Photography by Toni Hafkenscheid.

preview
Upcoming openings, events, performances and more
N.E. Thing Co. Double

Light Casts, Seymour
River 1968/1981
ColleCtion of Phil lind
opening
N. VaNcouVer
polygon gallery, north VancouVer
From november 18
The inaugural exhibition at the Polygon Gallery considers
North Vancouver and its surroundings.
Photographs of Vancouver are often framed by the coastal mountains on the citys northern edge.
This rugged, natural beauty bolsters Vancouvers reputation as one of the worlds most livable
and picturesque places. Nestled at the base of a mountain, the city of North Vancouver is hazily evident
in these picturesa glistening appendage to its southern sisterand a place whose complex histories
can only be dimly imagined. N. Vancouver registers the familiar while revealing the hidden.
canadianart.ca 37
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COLLABORATION
INSURGENCE/RESURGENCE
Winnipeg art gallery
Opens September 22
In this interdisciplinary exhibition, the co-curators

connect 28 artists across generations and territories to explore
the insurgence and the resurgence of Indigenous culture,
nationhood, activism, survival and solidarity.
JULIE NAGAM AND JAIMIE ISAAC: To only say resurgence shortens the
time frame; insurgence says that Indigenous peoples have always been
resisting, and thats the strength of our intergenerational cultural knowledge.
Indigenous peoples have been present for millennia, and weve always been
cultural producers in ways that have been shaped very differently from
mainstream avant-garde art.
Our curatorial engagement takes a geographic and nation-based approach
to focus on the multidisciplinary practices of emerging to mid-career artists,
with a few more established artists, to think about the complications and
politics within nationhood, the complications of cultural solidarity and
diversity and the complications of land politics.
Co-curating in a large, mainstream gallery is a departure from traditional
curatorial practices, and when we say co-curating, we mean a full
collaboration within the whole genealogy of Indigenous methodologies that
have been thinking about resistance and survivance for a long time. Were
building on the legacy of collaboration in the Indigenous circle of curators
in Canada and beyond on exhibitions such as Sakahn: International
Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; Close
Encounters: The Next 500 Years at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg; and Moving a tattoo shop, and an installation by Tanya Lukin Linklater. Were partnering
Forward Never Forgettingat the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. with Wall to Wall, a mural festival; were hosting a three-day symposium to
Were both interested in drastically changing the physical scope of an discuss Indigenous futures with Indigenous Canadian, American and Oceanian
exhibition within the WAGall 10,000 square feet and up to four gallery scholars; and were hosting a day of Indigenous video games for a family-
spacesand outside the building. Some of the pieces will be larger external oriented gathering. Were getting input from the larger community to try to
interventions, and others will involve taking up as much space as possible broaden the scope of who comes into the WAG, and engage with different
within the gallery. Were working with 28 artists16 loans and 12 new groups of people who have never come into the gallery. Thats quite a radical
commissionsa performance by Earthline Tattoo Collective, who will set up shift for classic museum practices. When it comes to making space and asserting
REpREsEntation
FACES
OF PICASSO
remai mOdern,
SaSkatOOn
from October 21
The Remai Modern celebrates its

grand opening with an exhibition
by conceptual artist Ryan
Gander, who selects from the
worlds largest collection
of Picasso linocuts and presents
them alongside crude
copies he has made himself.
Ryan Gander Drawings from

Being Picasso 2017
38 C a n a d i a n a r t f a l l 2 01 7

Dee Barsy My Four Grandmothers
Preview
2017
THREE PIECES
150 ACTS:
ART, ACTIVISM, IMPACT
art Gallery of Guelph
September 14 to february 11
Drawing from the gallerys collection of Indigenous art

and timed to coincide with Canadas sesquicentennial, this exhibition
aims to prompt reflection about the relationship between
nationhood and Indigeneity in Canada. Director Shauna McCabe
believes art and politics cannot be separated.
Shauna mccabe: Shelley Niro

explores mythmaking and
storytelling through portraiture
in her series Ghosts, Girls,
Grandmas. Ghost imagery recurs
in her work to provide alternative
readings to historical events,
to trouble the boundary between
past, present and future. The
wampum frame and the figure
with its psychic double hovering
over his shoulder signify
Iroquois ancient histories that
are fluid in their telling of time.
presence through coded language: were not spelling out what it is to be
Indigenous. Theres a refusal of subscribed or prescribed ideas of Indigeneity.
We confront that, but were thinking more about insurgence and resurgence
within peoples work, their politics, their nationhood, their culture. In terms Michael Massie is a carver and
of settler engagement, we dont think there has to be anything that spells silversmith who is renowned for
out, This is what this is; we are translating our Indigeneity so you can his teapot sculptures. They
understand. Winnipeg has one of the fastest-growing Indigenous populations highlight tensions between
in Canada. We have strength in that and we want to showcase it. the organic and the domestic
through iconography from Inuit
culture blurred with European
traditions. The humour
enhances the participatory
ryan gander: Ive got this him and his lifeto surround dimension of the tea ceremony.
really strong idea that when we this conveyor belt. Ive spent
close our eyes and think of the last three months re-drawing
Picasso, we dont see his work: every print in their collection
we see an image of the man of 406 with Sharpie and In his larger-than-life
himself. The persona of Picasso Wite-Out pensIm bad at performance-portrait series
the manor the stereotype drawing, so theyre crude Masks, Arthur Renwick asked
of the artistand his work are all approximationsbecause Indigenous artists, writers and
seamlessly bound together. I wanted to start this process thinkers to create masks of
Theyre almost the exact same where I understood what it was their own faces. Each of these
thing. Ive done a lot of work to be Picasso. Its this strange, performersin this case,
about artist clichs, where creepy ritual that I do every Rebecca Belmoreconsiders
the framework of being an artist morning, where, by repeating the difficult relationship
is the subject of the artwork. the work that hes done, between themselves and how
The Remai owns a work of mine I somehow assimilate my mind Indigenous people have been
called Fieldwork, a collection with his. Its like me trying represented, then mock it
of 33 objects on a conveyor belt; to become Picasso, essentially. in this playful yet critical way.
you only see one at a time Im sure theres already a very
through a window. Ive selected expensive book of the real From top: Shelley Niro Ghost 2004
130 printsall about Picasso prints, but Im printing a crude
as a person: all portraits or version with my drawings Michael Massie let me whip you up a cup of tea 2007
self-portraits, all associated with on cheap paper for a few dollars,
Arthur Renwick Rebecca #2 2009
so that anyone could buy it.
canadianart.ca 39

Preview
CONCEPT
Narratives
iN space
+time society
dalhousie art gallery, halifax
october 12 to december 17
This Halifax-based artist collective

facilitates technology-assisted
public walks. Here, one
of its founding members explores
the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion
on its centenary.
BARBARA LOUNDER: The initial debris-field

public walks we did in Dartmouth were along
the shoreline opposite Ground Zero of the
explosion, spanning Turtle Grove, the original
Mikmaq site; Tufts Cove, that areas settler
community; and Shannon Park, an abandoned
military-housing neighbourhood.
We dedicated the next three years to an
intensive, critical investigation of the zones
shaped by the event. Ground Zero is located
where the Irving Shipyard is now, and access and other ways we experience the SS Mont-Blanc, the ship that exploded, with Narratives
where Arctic patrol vessels are made. The city. The exhibition will feature a mural that contemporary images of the sites where in Space+Time
Society Walking
development of that site over the last 100 visually interprets the debris field; a bookwork those fragments fell, among others. This
the Debris Field:
years has affected the contours of the hill in Braille, recognizing the explosion cost work has allowed us to learn more about A Natural
leading down to the harbour, the walls many people their eyesight; and photographic traumatic experiences and landscapes, and History 2015
dividing communities, sightlines, public documentation of the 60 fragments of the how far-reaching reconciliation must be. Photo RobeRt bean
Jennifer Chan foot in mouth

(installation view) 2015
During the run of Jennifer Chans exhibition

The Blue Pill, visitors logging on to public
Wi-Fi will be confronted by an updated, intersectional
version of a notorious radical feminist treatise.
JENNIFER CHAN: The objective of the locally hosted

piece is to force or attract Brandonites to check
out my work while making them read the Society for
Cutting Up Misogynists, a collaborative rewriting of
Valerie Solanass S.C.U.M (Society for Cutting Up Men)
Manifesto (1967). At the end, they are rewarded with
Internet access. At airports and Starbucks, we agree
to read or scroll through some terms of service before
we login to use free Internet. But we dont know what
were complying to.
Presenting something radical and upsetting is a
deliberately educational initiative: either way they
have to choose a red-pill or blue-pill route, and both
will end up on the page with Society for Cutting up
Misogynists. Since I started working at an office, my
CONCEPT life and thinking have changed 180 degrees. Theres
JeNNiFer cHaN a lot of ennui and privilege; Im realizing that people

in the working world are pretty basic in their messaging
art gallery of southern Manitoba, brandon and desires. Advertising and this idea of the common
september 28 to november 18 person has informed me more. I havent been able
to run away from that.
canadianart.ca 41

Preview
MYTHOLOGY Rithika Merchant
Hildegard von Bingen
TO TALK TO 2014
THE WORMS
AND THE
STARS RETROSPECTIVE
The New Gallery, CalGary
September 15 to October 28
NADIA MYRE
MONTreal MuSeuM
Of fiNe arTS
Curator Natasha Chaykowski from November 15
takes cult book Caliban
and the Witch which Montreal-based artist Nadia Myre,
investigates how feminist, a member of the Kitigan Zibi
queer and Indigenous Anishinaabeg First Nation, presents
epistemologies are repressed her first retrospective.
in capitalist structures
as the starting point for this
group exhibition. NADIA MYRE: Since 2015, I have
been collecting and looking into
NATASHA CHAYKOWSKI: Im working the history of 19th-century
with artists whose practices are invested clay pipes. I am intrigued by these
in alternative forms of knowing, despite transcultural objectsskeletal and
the capitalist impetus to extinguish with a bone-like feelbecause they
them. I like to imagine these beautiful hold different meanings and
magics as being like the resilient tiny significance within Indigenous and
plants that grow through the cracks of non-Indigenous contexts. Used
the hot, dry pavement of a roada bit by sailors and tradesmen involved
romantique, perhaps. Rithika Merchants in colonial activity, this archaeological
work depicts Hildegard von Bingen, a refuse is found on both sides of the
12th-century German nun. Though she ocean. The theoretical framework
was entangled in the churchs initiation of the Code Switching series
of its centuries-long war on women, on involves decolonizing the history
queers, on Indigenous people and so of these tobacco pipes. By beading
many others, she was a medieval proto- together clay-pipe fragments, our
feminist who made space outside the understanding of these objects and
male monastery for herself and other their cultural contexts is transformed
nuns. The other artists take up subjects and redefined. Thats where the
as diverse and compelling as mapping idea of code switching comes
dreams that occurred inside fairy circles in: its one thing to one culture and
of mushrooms; the emanation of luminous something else to another, so your
imprints extruded by a dying leaf, perspective informs how you read it.
unmoored from its branch; traditional
divination technologies and astrology;
the politics of ancient Greek feminisms;
Nadia Myre below: Nadia Myre
myriad uses of local herbs; and Indigenous Circle (detail) Pipe Beads 2017
permutations of nonlinear time. The 2017
title, To talk to the worms and the stars,
comes from Arthur Evanss Witchcraft
and the Gay Counterculture, a beautiful
work that is a wholesale proposition for
inclusive futures predicated upon certain
forms of magic and old knowing. If we
can re-learn to talk to the worms and
the stars, then perhaps we have a chance
to become unmoored, even if slightly,
from the confines of a white supremacist,
hetero, cis, capitalist patriarchy whose
tendrils extend to every facet of life.
Some, however, dont need to re-learn.
Theyve always known.
canadianart.ca 43

Slate Gallery LHP.indd 1 07/19/17 11:03 AM
MiChaeL FReeMan BadouR
aManda BouLos
TeTo eLsiddique
david KaaRseMaKeR
Cindy Ji hye KiM
Wei Li
veRoniKa Pausova
LauRa Payne
LauRa RoKas-BRuB
M.e. sPaRKs
Kizi sPieLMann Rose
angeLa Teng
Joani TReMBLay
TRisTan unRau
aMBeRa WeLLMann
RBC Canadian Painting Competition

Finalists artwork will be on view at the National Gallery of Canada
from September 1 to October 22, 2017.
Learn more at www.rbc.com/paintingcompetition
/ Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. 2017 Royal Bank of Canada. all rights reserved.
For complete competition details including eligibility, specifications and judging, visit rbc.com/paintingcompetition. award-winning works become the absolute property of Royal Bank of Canada. vPs97182
RBC CPC vs7 - nxt to gatefold.indd 1 07/29/17 3:23 PM

Thursday, September 28
Evergreen Brick Works
Social 2017 Committee Art Advisory Committee Participating Galleries Participating Artists
gutter
Co-Chairs Co-Chairs Montreal Micah Adams

Debra Campbell Gareth Brown-Jowett Battat Contemporary Saimaiyu Akesuk
Victoria Webster Stefan Hancherow Galerie Antoine Stephen Andrews
Ertaskiran Shuvinai Ashoona
Rui Mateus Amaral David Balzer Galerie Division Melanie Authier
Gabe Gonda Jessica Bradley Parisian Laundry Nicolas Baier
Jane Halverson Nicholas Brown Shannon Bool
Jane Hutchison Leslie Gales Toronto Sascha Braunig
Popsy Johnstone Corrie Jackson Clint Roenisch Gallery Vanessa Brown
Shanitha Kachan Sue Kidd Daniel Faria Gallery Hank Bull
Megan Kalaman Robyn McCallum Diaz Contemporary Robert Burley
Sue Kidd Bryne McLaughlin Division Gallery Julia Dault
Sarah Milroy Rosie Prata ESP | Erin Stump Projects Moyra Davey
Steven Rapkin Feheley Fine Arts Manon De Pauw
Marla Schwartz Auction Coordinator Georgia Scherman
Alex Bowron Geoffrey Farmer
Eleanor Shen Projects Nika Fontaine
Vandana Taxali MKG127 Sky Glabush
Rachael Watson Paul Petro Claire Greenshaw
Contemporary Art Fred Herzog
Stephen Bulger Gallery Colleen Heslin
Zalucky Contemporary Stephanie Hier
Vancouver Lili Huston-Herterich
Catriona Jeffries Jeremy Jansen
Equinox Gallery Eleanor King
Franc Gallery Zachari Logan
Macaulay & Co. Fine Art Katie Lyle
Monte Clark Nall McClelland
Wil Aballe Art Projects Kent Monkman
Geoffrey Pugen
New York Les Ramsay
Foxy Production Jade Rude
MarianneBoeskyGallery Beth Stuart
geetha thurairajah
Los Angeles Joseph Tisiga
ChinaArtObjects Howie Tsui
Berlin Ambera Wellmann
wildpalms Janet Werner
Lawrence Paul
London Yuxweluptun
greengrassi
Shanghai
Art Labor

Auction Highlights
Shuvinai Ashoonas
Sealskin Politics Contest, 2015
f
V
noRTheRn A
sATiRe A
va
History, fantasy and popular culture become en
entangled in Cape Dorsetbased Shuvinai ju
Ashoonas intricate pencil-and-ink drawings. V
Find among them subjects as disparate as a th
menagerie of non-human creatures, influenced K
by a Toronto screening of Godzilla (2014); ra
the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; and ca
politicians clad in sealskin vests and ties, based if
on the unspoken uniform worn by Northern fo
leaders when their political meetings are given K
televised coverage. It wouldnt be like Shuvinai pe
Coloured pencil and ink on paper, 31 x 50 in., courtesy Feheley Fine Arts, framed to make political commentary, says Pat Feheley th
by Superframe, Estimate: $5,000 of Feheley Fine Arts. But it really is, in a way. hi
Its an observation of how Nunavut government vi
politics are held. Its Shuvinais reaction to be
seeing an image and wanting to draw it. di
Seeing an image
and wanting to draw it.
VAnCouVeR
Fred Herzogs
looks souTh Hotel, Guatemala, 1964
Photographer Fred Herzog has always been
peripatetic. Born in Germany, he immigrated
to Canada in 1952. After a stint with the
Canadian Pacific Railroad, he eventually settled
in Vancouver. Camera in hand, Herzog roamed
the city, capturing evolving everyday urban
life from Granville and Strathcona to New
Westminster. He took his camera wherever
he went, including on a 1964 motorcycle trip
to Guatemala. He once referred to Vancouver
as engagingly seedy and colourful, but this
observation better describes his fondness
for documenting the unfolding present. The
pictures are about content, and more content,
Herzog once said. And if there is no content,
take no picture.
Archival pigment print, 12 x 18 in., edition 2/20, courtesy the artist and Equinox
Gallery, Estimate: $2,800

fAnTAsTiCAl gee
Fro
Visions of Howie Tsuis
Kowloon / Wudang Walled City, 2017
A losT CiTY
A man bathingperhaps boilingin a large
vat. A butchers daily routine. A young man
enthralled by a radiating television. These are
just a few of the many scenes contained within
Vancouver artist Howie Tsuis reimagining of
the infamous, ungoverned and now destroyed
Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. I want to
raise the question of whether social harmony
can exist in lawless places. And, paradoxically,
if legislated governed states could be ripe
for corruption, says Tsui. Historically, the
Kowloon Walled City, as an avatar for me, fits
perfectly as a socially harmonious community
that exists in a liminal state. As the site of
his monumental 25-metre-long, five-channel
video Retainers of Anarchy (2017), the city
became a surrogate for the chivalry and Epson ultrachrome pigmented ink on Epson coldpress rag paper,
36 x 48 in., AP 1/3, courtesy the artist and Art Labor, framed by Superframe,
dissidence of its inhabitants.
Estimate: $4,000
I like images and forms

Claire Greenshaws
Returns, 2017
that suggest Acry
a history. Pain
TAking Time To
see The beAuTY
in misTAkes
When it comes to her creative process,
Toronto-based artist Claire Greenshaw is
careful, meticulous and methodical. This
laborious practice gives her time to make
mistakes, and to find the beauty in them. In
Returns (2017), she uses coloured pencil to
delicately replicate the water stains left on
her drawing table, or the incidental residue
of painting, as she describes it. I like
images and forms that suggest a history,
she says. Im also interested in things that are
sort of marginal and that engage an element
of chanceeither through their origin or
through my encounter with them.
Coloured pencil on paper, 14 x 11 in., courtesy the artist

and Clint Roenisch Gallery, framed by Superframe,
Estimate: $1,600

geetha thurairajahs
From Here You Look Different To Me, 2017
whAT You CAn

And CAnT see
Im interested in semiotics, symbols and
the way I can turn objects into symbols,
explains Toronto artist geetha thurairajah.
Her deliberately flat airbrushed scenes reflect
an interest in language and a concern for
pulling stories from the relationships among
icons. In From Here You Look Different To Me
(2017), drawn from her early work and the text
Bugs Goes to the Mall by Walter Scott, a
shape-shifting harepartBugs Bunny, part
Brer Rabbitis camouflaged behind parting
foliage. Im interested in how this character
captures the nuance of what it might mean to
embody a surrounding environment in order
to survive. This can be symbolic of many
things to do with ones identity and ideas
or notions related to camouflaging oneself or
making oneself invisible.
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 x 1.5 in., courtesy the artist, RBC Canadian
ory. Painting Competition Finalist, 2016, Estimate: $3,500 Moyra Daveys

Untitled (Blue bottle), 2005
ART As A
wAY of life
Intimate and often overlooked moments
feature prominently in the photography,
film and writing of Toronto-born, New York
based artist Moyra Davey. I have always
been interested in that idea of separation
of art and life, Davey said in regards to her
2014 exhibition Burn the Diaries. For the
self-confessed flneuse who never leaves her
apartment, an empty bottle of gin teetering on
a window ledge is almost more enticing, if not
revealing, than the street beyond. Using life
for art and the comparison, the drive that artists
and writers have to turn everything into art:
It can become a product. Its just a way of life.
Its a question, she says.
C-print, 10 x 8 in., courtesy the artist and greengrassi,

framed by Superframe, Estimate: $2,500

Jewellery
as sculpture
Steel is used as a material for items as
varied as shipping containers, automotive Ambera Wellmanns
parts, tanks, swords, furniture and even Choker, 2017
A
charm bracelets. This material connection
and resulting hierarchy between industry,
weaponry, fine art and craft fascinates
Vancouver-based sculptor Vanessa Brown.
Steel is subtle, pliable, gentle, capable of
standing and supporting itself, says Brown
about the material used in Wednesday Charm
(2017)an enlarged charm bracelet populated
by cut-outs of personal symbols. I like the
idea that the work is both somehow sculpture
and jewellery, or rather that it allows me the
chance to re-look at jewellery as sculpture.
Vanessa Browns
Wednesday Charm, 2017
T
Oil on linen, 23.6 x 23.6 x 1.2 in., courtesy the artist, framed by Superframe,
RBC Canadian Painting Competition Finalist, 2016 and 2017, Estimate: $3,200 A
a
the sensual d
m
Gaze O
m
Liminality is central to Ambera Wellmanns s
fleshy, sensual depictions of porcelain bodies.
The coy yet confrontational gaze of the y
partially veiled figurine in Choker (2017) is a
indicative of the gendered nature of both the a
material and medium. Im interested in the C
portrayal and representation of women, but f
also in the strange quality of vulnerability w
and empathy that we have for their portrayal a
in painting where we know that its not a
real person, but it still engages a sense of
personhood, says the Berlin- and Toronto-
based artist. My paintings deliberately use
this in-between territory in their subject
using porcelain as a medium and a barrier to
engage that conversation.
Steel, paint and magnets, 30 x 6.25 x 2 in., courtesy the

artist and Wil Aballe Art Projects, Estimate: $1,200
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GALLERY DAY ToRonTo
Join Canadian Art editors and contributors
for a free day of talks and tours in galleries across
Toronto, then celebrate the launch of our
Fall 2017 issue, "The Idea of History."
SaTurdaY, SepTember 23
GallerY TalkS
15 p.m. Various Locations
Fall 2017 ISSue launcH

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11 dublin St. east
For full schedule and details,visit

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your art equity? In other terms, how
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Until recently, if you required a

measure of liquidity, you had to sell
works of art. The art market is
not liquid on a daily basis and values
may fluctuate widely depending Art loans are relatively new retaining the work of art that you
on supply, demand and trends. in Canada. In the US and Europe, love and accessing the cash value in
Transaction costs can be high and several banks and smaller lenders the short term. Perhaps its even an
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Keynote
A plAy of history
by luis Jacob
Historical continuity is the Achilles heel of Toronto artmaking.

I wrote these words in the Spring 2009 issue of Publiceight
years ago! Reflecting on this statement today, from a different
context and in a different publication, raises the question, What
does this mean?
Certain thoughts come to mind in response. The first is that
history is not synonymous with the mere passing of time. The
fact that something happened in the pastan act of writing
nearly a decade ago, for instancedoes not, in itself, make that
act historical. Something else is needed: a subsequent act that
bridges the past act of writing, and relates it with the present act
of connecting the dots. It is only at this subsequent meeting
point that past and present reveal their historical dimensions.
The second thought that comes to mind is: history matters.
Its worth recognizing the strangeness of this truism. Writing in
the catalogue for the Power Plants inaugural exhibition, Toronto:
A Play of History (Jeu dhistoire) in 1987, artist Ian Carr-Harris
put it like this: History is a bit like the tar-baby: stuff sticks to it.
A decade later, in her collection of essays Symbolization and Its
Discontents, critic Jeanne Randolph described it in terms of the
magnetism of an amenable object: the availability of an object
to the elaborations, distortions and yearnings of the person who
is interacting with it. The subconsciousplucks from all
sensations, images and concepts what it needs to keep going.
History, then, does not simply entail narrating what really metropolitan population surpassed the six-million mark. All of Installation view
happened. Rather, history is the process of determining what, the 588 schools in the Toronto District School Board now start of Luis Jacobs
Habitat at
among past events, is useful and needful for plucking in the the day with an Indigenous land acknowledgement. And Honest Gallery TPW,
present. What matters? To tell history is to respond to our present Edsthe fantastically tacky landmark located at the intersection 2017 PHoTo TonI
HafkenscHeId
desires by adopting past events; this is done as a way of making of Bloor and Bathurst Streetsclosed its doors this past December,
those unresolved aspects of our present situation apparent to us after 73 years in business, to make way for new development.
as if for the first time. Different cultural environments have How do residents of non-British, non-European backgrounds
developed their own ways of narrating history. In some places, challenge Torontos existing hierarchies? How do we develop
stories of domination are the ones that stick. In other places, the forms of recognition between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
stories that take hold are those of loss and defeat. In Toronto, people within a colonial setting? How do we preserve the markers
we tend toward stories that remind us of the mechanisms of that enable cultural memory in a capitalist city where profit alone
erasure. As curator Wanda Nanibush recently observed, This determines what has value and what does not?
city tends to bury thingshistories, neighbourhoods, waterways. Most obviously, Achilles heel refers to our vulnerabilities
This is precisely what makes historical narratives of erasure so those unresolved aspects of our present situation that make
useful (so amenable) in this place. demands of us that we cannot ignore. Its worth making friends
What does Achilles heel mean? In Toronto, it means confus- with the ways in which our home makes its claim upon us. It is,
ing erasure for an absence of history. It means living in a place where after all, on the basis of our vulnerabilities that the desire arises
acts of connecting-the-dots are inadequate to the task of making to pluck, magnetize, elaborate and rearrange the stuff that
sense of the ever-changing, multi-dimensional place I call home. surrounds usand to establish new, sometimes unforeseeable,
A lot has happened in Toronto since 2009. The greater points of departure.
canadianart.ca 65
Keynote_F179-TSLR.indd 65 08/05/17 9:57 AM

Poetry
THURSDAY (A GRAND TOTAL)

by Damian Rogers
My father recently gave me

a box of things hed saved
from my parents brief time
together. It included a
passionate, delusional love
letter my mother wrote to him
when she was pregnant with
me, though she doesnt tell
him that. She is desperately
trying to convince him to
come back to her and this
poem distills her hopes for
her new job at a department
store. this illustration is
from the inside cover of my
Photo bryan boake
mothers Winnie-the-Pooh,
a book she had inscribed
to my father and then taken
back when they split up, later
blotting out her dedication
with one of my crayons.
I get paid in two weeks so I

can send you money I arranged
transportation for a couple dollars a month
Ive limited myself to 25 cents a day (coffee)
Except for one day a week 45 cents
It will cost me $9.86 to work a month I will spend

a grand total of $32 a month for store items
Clothing Im too fat and tall for mine
Stockings makeup perfume shoes
Gifts (for you darling)
$41.86 a month on doctors dentists and you darling

$375 in three months $725 in six months
I could pay for us both to go to Europe
arent I awfully clever for being so dumb
canadianart.ca 67
Poetry_F1710TSLR.indd 67 08/05/17 9:58 AM

florence McGillivray studied under Matisse in paris,
then went on to mentor Tom Thomson.
The origin story of Canadian Modernism might
have ignored one of its major figures
The Group of eiGhT

florby Katharine Lochnan and Sarah Stanners
68 C a n a d i a n a r t f a l l 2 017
Florence MacGillivray-F17_9TS_HR.indd 68 08/05/17 10:03 AM

Legacy
In 1930, an anonymous Ottawa Citizen art critic paid artist Florence and were friends of Gauguin and Les Nabis. The Bande noire sought to
McGillivray what, at the time, he probably considered to be the highest create a moral, sombre and bourgeois art, employing solemn tones, sharp
possible compliment: [She is] one of the most vigorous of Canadas women contrasts of light and dark and thick lines characterized by spontaneity,
painters. There is nothing effeminate in her art. simplicity and navet. McGillivray experimented with a range of Post-
McGillivray was an accomplished artist in an era when women were Impressionist styles before finding her own.
unquestionably treated as subordinate to men. In the greater narrative of During the summer of 1914, she spent four months in Venice, where
Canadian art, she is still treated as a footnote. Yet McGillivray was an artist she attended the Biennale. On her way back to Paris via the Italian Lakes,
brimming with talent. She clearly made an impact on Tom Thomson, with she discovered that war had been declared. Chaos ensued. She managed
whom she enjoyed a close personal relationship. to cross the Alps only to be stranded for three weeks in Switzerland. Forced
Bringing McGillivray out from the margins is certainly due. A closer to leave most of her sketches and art materials behind and cram necessities
examination of her mentorship of Thomson has the potential to shift into a knapsack, she travelled in the first British train out of the war zone
the foundation story of modern Canadian artthat of the lone genius from Geneva to Paris, observing French soldiers, weeping families, German
woodsman-painter inspiring the Group of Seven to paint the spirit of prisoners and Belgian refugees. After crossing the Channel, she boarded
a new nation from the land. Not only would it allow a woman into that the SS Royal Edward and arrived in Quebec on September 26, 1914. She had
origin story, but it would also finally identify the source of the European enough space to bring back one tiny sketchbook: a collection of brilliant
influence on Thomsons work that had, until now, been ascribed to watercolours inspired by Turner and Whistler, painted during her time in
painter A.Y. Jackson. In truth, Jackson and Thomson knew each other Venice before Europe was ravaged by war.
on and off for less than two years, and parted ways, perhaps for good, Eventually, McGillivray settled in Toronto, and quickly established
in 1914. According to Group of Seven biographer Ross King, Jackson her reputation as a professional artist. Like the Group of Seven, she
and Thomson spent little more than 12 weeks together, in close contact. focused on the Canadian landscape, travelling up the Labrador and BC
The historical facts of dates and sketch trips remain, but because Thomson coasts. During the winter of 1916, she visited Thomson in his shack
left behind no diaries or thorough primary documents, he has become and became his mentor. He called her one of the best, and the first
the historians blank canvas. A thorough exploration of McGillivrays of the artists to recognize instantly what he was trying to do. She
oeuvre, and its foundational place in the Thomson legacy, makes a new appears to have conveyed to him knowledge of the Realist, Nabis and
prologue to modern Canadian art history necessary. Fauvist palettes and pictorial construction.
Although McGillivrays art survived, her papers did not, so over the McGillivray received as much recognition as was then possible for a
past five decades her story has been gradually pieced together from woman: she was elected to the National Association of Women Painters
surviving shards of information and research by Katharine Lochnan, and Sculptors in New York; she was made an Associate of the Royal Canadian
her great-great niece. In her day, McGillivray was celebrated, but like so Academy of Art, a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and a founding
many historical Canadian women artists, she has since plummeted from member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour; and her work
view. This is largely because she came from a prosperous Whitby family was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada and placed in museums
and was not obliged to make a living by selling her paintingsthough across the country.
she did sell some of them, and also worked as a teacher. She studied at Thomsons last, most confident and ambitious works clearly demonstrate
the Central Ontario School of Art, developing a Victorian style that she McGillivrays influence. She visited him at Canoe Lake in spring 1917
later taught to others at Ontario Ladies College, before moving to Paris and likely painted with him; McGillivrays Birch Trees and Lake (ca.
in 1913. There, her work underwent a radical transformation. While 1917) and Thomsons Spring in Algonquin Park (1917) are remarkably
living in Montmartre and attending the Acadmie de la Grande Chaumire, comparable. Following Thomsons death in July of that year, McGillivray
she studied under Matisse, who insisted on submitting her painting moved to Ottawa. An invitation to her March 1917 exhibition was
Contentment (1913) to the Salon. This recognition led to her election for discovered in Thomsons paintbox.
two terms as president of the International Art Union.
McGillivray entered the atelier of Lucien Simon and mile-Ren Mnard, The first major survey exhibition of Florence McGillivrays work will take
members of the Bande noire, a little-known group based in Paris and Brittany place at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario,
who took their inspiration from Gustave Courbet and his Realist circle, in 2020, co-curated by Katharine Lochnan and Sarah Stanners.
Florence McGillivray Birch Duminy; reStOreD at QueenS
Trees and Lake ca. 1917 univerSity reStOratiOn

PrOgram PhOtO m C miChael
Oil on canvas 22.2 x 55.4 cm
CanaDian art COlleCtiOn
Signed on verso Private
COlleCtiOn, eState Of Kathleen
canadianart.ca 69
Florence MacGillivray-F17_10TS_HR.indd 69 08/05/17 12:35 PM

canadianart
Art Toronto
Edition
Inside
Fair Highlights
Los Angeles Comes to Toronto
New and Noteworthy
Exhibitors
Exhibitions in the City
Explore Toronto
ART Toronto_p1-4_Fall17_27TS.indd 73 08/05/17 4:47 PM

OPENING NIGHT lOCaTION
PREVIEW Metro Toronto
A benefit for the Art Gallery of Ontario Convention Centre
Thursday, October 26 255 Front St. W.
Purchase tickets at North Building, Toronto
Art Toronto is Canadas only international art fair. This year, in its 18th edition, the ago.net/art-toronto-2017. arttoronto.ca
(1-800) 663-4173
fair puts modern and contemporary art from more than 100 galleries and eight countries
TICKETS
on view under one roof, along with collectors, curators, artists and art enthusiasts. General: $22 PUBlIC HOURS
The West Coast will be highlighted in the FOCUS: Los Angeles section, and Canadian Art Students and seniors: $15 Friday, October 27
Groups: $15 128 p.m.
contributors and editors will present a panel about Black Canadian histories and art. Multi-day fair pass: $40 Saturday, October 28
Children under 10: Free 128 p.m.
Purchase tickets at arttoronto.ca Sunday, October 29
or at the door. 126 p.m.
Monday, October 30
126 p.m.
Power Talks art Book Fair

ON THE ArT TOrONTO STAgE edition Toronto returns
POwEr TAlkS presents influential figures from the last year, Edition Toronto
art world and beyond discussing their projects, made its Art Toronto
preoccupations and ideas. Presented by the Power Plant debut, and welcomed
Contemporary Art gallery. more than 8,000 art and
book enthusiasts, who
CHARLES GAINES were able to look through
the wide range of artists
Friday, October 27, 4 P.M. books, publications,
los Angelesbased artist Charles gaines is celebrated editions and ephemera
for his photographs, drawings and works on paper that were on view. This
that investigate how rules-based procedures construct year, Edition Toronto,
order and meaning. In 2014, his acclaimed retrospective which is dedicated to the
opened at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the promotion of art-book
following year it travelled to the Hammer Museum publishing in all forms,
in los Angeles. His talk will offer a survey of his work, is back. look for special
looking at his early projects with systems and numerals projects by artists
and his most recent investigations into language kristin Nelson and Dave
.COVER Erin LorEE Milky Way 2017 oil and acrylic on panel 1.27 x 1.02 m
and representation, and consider notions of subjectivity. Dyment, and a new
library sculpture
by Sotirios kotoulas.
MARI SPIRITO To learn more about what
Saturday, October 28, 4 P.M. to expect, visit online
at editiontoronto.com.
Mari Spirito is curator and founding director of
Protocinema, a nonprofit that organizes exhibitions
between Istanbul and New York. She is also the curator
and director of Alt, a contemporary non-profit art space in
projectS
1
Istanbul that has shown work by rodney graham. Spirito
will discuss recent and current projects in two different
environments: New York, which is saturated by art;
artists Bring Bunkers and Projections
and Istanbul, a place with internal tensions and external A number of PrOJECTS will be
threats representing conservative worldviews. activating the Metro Toronto
Convention Centre, including
CoUrTESY BUnkEr 2 ConTEmporArY ArT ConTAinEr
COURTNEY J. MARTIN screenings of Oliver Husains Isla

Santa Maria 3D, presented by
Sunday, October 29, 4 P.M. Susan Hobbs gallery, and projection
Courtney J. Martin, deputy director and chief curator work by British artist Ed Fornieles,
of the Dia Art Foundation, will use American painter presented by Division gallery. One
robert ryman, active from the late 1950s, to discuss of the PrOJECTS you wont be
painting and object-based Minimalism. rymans able to miss: local project space
work is often connected to Abstract Expressionism; Bunker 2 will move their exhibition
CoUrTESY AnGELL GALLErY
Conceptual art, because of his non-traditional materials; spacea shipping container

and, most often, Minimalism, because his works often into the fair, and show changing
include achromatic or white surfaces. Martin has combinations of performance and
worked with rymans work before, notably curating video art throughout the weekend.
1
an acclaimed exhibition of his paintings at 1. Bunker 2s container
the Dia Art Foundation, which opened in 2015.
Canadian art art toronto

COURTESY NIGHT GALLERY
COURTESY MOSKOWITZ BAYSE
Untitled 2016 Watercolour on ceramic 45 x 40 x 5 cm

Hawaii (23) (still) 2017 HD video, sound 23 min
1 2
FOCUS:
Los Angeles
The City of Angels heads north, with a selection
of galleries from the citys varied neighbourhoods,
and a nod to the experimental, moving-image
practices that have developed there.
Los Angeles is a city of neighbourhoods, and far from ignoring this
diversity, curator Santi Vernetti will be highlighting it with his selections
for the FOCUS: Los Angeles portion of Art Toronto 2017. The city
has a number of different pockets of gallery activity, with the main ones
being the Culver City area, the downtown arts district and other galleries
scattered across different areas, said Vernetti earlier this year from LA.
Im trying to help the fair choose galleries from all of those different little
sectors, he explained, so visitors can expect a nice overview of the city.
Unsurprisingly, with a range of neighbourhoods, theres no shortage

COURTESY ANAT EBGI
of varied choice. Los Angeles is often considered the seat of art

and cultural activity and experimentation, so what we actually do have
here in the city is a really wide range of diverse practices that encapsulate
a whole number of different aesthetic and philosophical concerns,
said Vernetti. I think in the presentation Im trying to stay true to that,
All Tomorrows Parties 2016 Oil on canvas 101.6 x 76.2 cm
which is something that curatorially has always been one of my working

methodologies. You know, try to highlight the diversity of practices rather
than zone in on a specific register that artists seem to be working in.
A few things can be guaranteed, though. Even though LA artists run

the gamut of disciplines, its undeniable that the citys mythos is
dominated by the movies. And its a dedication that Vernetti hopes to tap
into, with a homage to LA cinema. Also on the docket are the more
avant-garde aspects of the scene. Another dream of mine is to bring
some of the more genre-bending and experimental new-media artists and
technologies that happen here in Los Angeles to the fair, Vernetti said.
Some of the artists from the selected galleries will also have work on
view in an exhibition curated by Vernetti, titled And the sky is greya nod
to the Mamas and the Papas 1989 song California Dreamin. But far
from offering an idyllic view of the West Coast, Vernettis showing will try
to take apart some of the myth of Los Angeles as the land of milk
and honey, or the place where dreams come true. And the sky is grey 3
will be doing demystifying work, he said. Maybe showing a little 1. Kim Schoen 2. Rachelle Sawatsky 3. Chris Coy
bit more of the darker, messier side of LA that people often dont
experience until theyre actually here.

Canadian Art at Art Toronto
Artist Project, Talks and Tours
Panel: canadianart
+ EDITOR TOURS
The Idea OF FAIR HIGHLIGHTS
of History Commence daily
at 2 p.m.,
beginning at the Canadian Art booth
Saturday, October 28, 6 p.m.
Main Stage
Deanna Bowen
CHRISTIAN KLIEGEL
Yaniya Lee
Michle Pearson Clarke DESIGNED BOOTH
Moderated by Merray Gerges Come and see Canadian Arts booth,
where artist and designer
Whose stories are we telling and Christian Kliegel will create
whose are we leaving out? an immersive installation
Inspired by the theme of our Fall of found and transformed materials.
2017 issue, The Idea of History, Wood platforms throughout
this discussion explores Black the structure will serve as monuments
Canadian histories from the for display, seating, shelving
perspective of our panellists and circulation.
artistic practices. Join Canadian
Kliegel, who spans art and
Arts assistant editor Merray
architecture in his work, graduated
Gerges for a conversation with
from Emily Carr University of Art and
associate editor Yaniya Lee and
Design and the University of British
multidisciplinary artists Deanna
Columbias graduate architecture
Bowen and Michle Pearson
program. He maintains a collaborative
Clarke, all contributors to
architectural design practice
the Fall 2017 issue.
with Vancouver-based Katy Young
(with whom he is currently
Excerpt from Deanna redesigning the building for artist-run
Bowens artist project
The Long Doorway centre Western Front)
in Canadian Art s and works with David Carter
Fall 2017 issue Architects Inc. in Toronto.
Roche Bobois Auctions Artist-Designed Cushions

You know Roche Boboiss signature piece: luxe cushions that can be combined to create modular seating
arrangements. But, at this years Art Toronto, Roche Bobois is launching a special Canada 150 project
that will give their iconic Mah Jong cushion a twist. Six leading Canadian artists will each design a cushion
in their signature style, and Roche Bobois will exhibit the resulting creations before Art Toronto.
After being a Feature Project at the fair, Roche Bobois will auction the pieces in support of Canadian Art.
They could fit together to form a fun composition, but given the artists who are contributing to the project,
they could happily stand alone. Past RBC Canadian Painting Competition winner Patrick Cruz will
be working on one, as will veteran Calgary painter Ron Moppett, Kinngait-based artist Ningiukulu Teevee
and Montreal multimedia artist Karen Kraven.
Special Offer
Subscribe at Art Toronto and receive
a free issue and limited-edition tote bag by artist
Les Ramsayall for only $25.
Visit the Canadian Art booth for more details.
FOR COVERAGE FROM THE FAIR, VISIT
CANADIANART.CA

New and Notable Gallerists
Must-see booths at Art Toronto
COURTESY JARVIS HALL GALLERY
COURTESY MINDY SOLOMON GALLERY PHOTO JUSTIN wONNACOTT
There are plenty of new facesand exciting returning faces

at Art Toronto this year. With more than 100 galleries represented
at this years event, there are plenty of first-time exhibitors
making their debut this fall, and they hail from across North
America. Some galleries are closer to Toronto, like Oeno Gallery
in Bloomfield, but there are plenty from farther afield, like
Vancouvers Franc Gallery, so visitors will have a chance to make
new finds from across the continent. Also on the docket
2
for new faces: Galerie 3 from Quebec City and, in the Cultural
Partners section, the Canada Council Art Bank will be exhibiting
at the fair for the first time.
1 JARVIS HALL GALLERY Being from 2 MINDY SOLOMON GALLERY Im
For exhibitors like Catriona Jeffries and Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, out west, there is a built in sense of alienation presenting a solo show of work by Jennifer
both from Vancouver, and Erin Stump Projects and Susan Hobbs that this countrys geography imparts on us. Lefort, whos based in Gatineau. I became
Gallery, both from Toronto, this year marks an exciting return I know JHG represents artists that are familiar with her work several years
to the fair. Here, we speak to a few of the first-time exhibitors not always known in other parts of the country, ago during a fair in Basel, Switzerland, and
about what theyre bringing and what theyre looking forward to. and I like the idea of taking charge. Were Im interested in showcasing her in her home
taking our artist Robin Arseneault to Toronto, countryI love the work, and its always
and sharing this fantastic work with fresh nice to have an artist from the country youre
eyes. Having visited Art Toronto, I have always showing in. Mindy Solomon, director
1 Robin Arseneault been struck by the sheer number of interested
MASk wITH DECAY 2016
audiences. Jarvis Hall, director
2 Jennifer Lefort
LAYERS 2016
ART Toronto_pg5to8-Fall17_22TS.indd 80 08/04/17 11:56 AM

3 JESSICA SILVERMAN GALLERY
We will present a curated booth called
Atmospheres, featuring works by Judy
Chicago (the legendary feminist artist),
Ian Wallace (the Vancouver-based master
of photoconceptualism), Isaac Julien
(the award-winning British filmmaker and
photographer), Hugh Scott-Douglas
(a young Toronto/New Yorkbased artist)
and Margo Wolowiec (a Detroit-based artist
who works in the cross-section of high
tech and tapestry). The booth will create
a lively conversation between historic works
by older artists and new work by younger
ones.Jessica Silverman, owner/director
4 LINCONNUE Im planning on having

a more curated boothIm bringing young,
Canadian artists who are living abroad,
and most of whom have never been shown
at Art Toronto before. As a new gallery, my
intention is to boost Canadian representation
in terms of galleries and artists abroad,
and in order to do so I have to have a strong
base and a following domestically. I figured
Art Toronto is the best fair for that within
Canada. Leila Greiche, director
5 DILLON + LEE Two or three years ago,

when art-fair expansion was at its peak,
COURTESY JESSICA SILVERmAN gALLERY
we experienced fair fatigue and realized that

much of the same collectors travel from
fair to fair, creating a strange, insular bubble.
We took a step back and decreased the
number of fairs. Canada, while close to the
US, is still a different world, and we hope
that it will draw different kinds of collectors
who we are excited to share our art with,
as well as learn from. Diana Lee, partner
3
COURTESY LINCONNUE
COURTESY DILLON + LEE
4
3 Isaac Julien 5 Humans since 1982
TRUE NORTH SERIES A mILLION TImES 61C
2004 2014
4 Larissa Lockshin
FIg III 2016
ART Toronto_pg5to8-Fall17_23TS.indd 81 08/05/17 3:58 PM

www.trepanierbaer.com Fall 2017
DaveandJenn, Time will fold you in, 2017, Polyclay, acrylic paint, brass, silicon carbide, fiber, wire, acetate and dichoric film, 14 x 11.25 x 9

Joseph Hartman
THE ARTISTS STUDIO
Book Signing at Art Toronto SOLO Booth S01
Saturday, October 28, 2-4pm
Fair dates: October 26-30, 2017
Spanning nearly five years of work by Hamilton-

based photographer Joseph Hartman, The Artists
Studio is a full-colour catalogue featuring over
100 photographs of studio interiors, shot around the
country. These images provide rare behind-the-
scenes views into the production spaces of some of
Canadas most well-known contemporary
artists alongside more emerging practices.
Published by Black Dog Publishing, 2017
1356 Dundas Street West Toronto Canada

416.504.0575 bulgergallery.com
Tuesday to Saturday 11am-6pm

Art Outside the Fair
Must-see exhibitions on across the city
1 Florine Stettheimer
SELF PORTRAIT wITH PALETTE
(Painter and Faun)
1915
2 Unknown Associated Press

photographer
Princess elizaBeth
at niagara Falls sPeaKing
with ernest hawKins, mayor
oF the ontario community
OCTOBER 14, 1951
COURTESY ART PROPERTIES, AVERY ARCHITECTURAL AND FINE ARTS LIBRARY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
COURTESY THE RUDOLPH P. BRATTY FAMILY COLLECTION, RYERSON UNIVERSITY
1 2
1 FLORINE STETTHEIMER A painter,

a Jazz Age salonisteStettheimer was many
things, but above all she was a woman
ahead of her time. Her work is vibrant and
all too overlooked; catch a glimpse in
this show circulated by the Jewish Museum
in New York. Art Gallery of Ontario,
317 Dundas St. W.
2 THE FARAWAY NEARBY:

PHOTOGRAPHS OF CANADA FROM
THE NEW YORK TIMES PHOTO
ARCHIVE With more than 200 archival
images featuring a range of subjectsfrom
national icons to everyday scenesthis
exhibition offers a slightly meta look at
Canadian history, and how this history has 4
been documented and portrayed in the
American press. Ryerson Image Centre, 4 STARING BACK AT THE SUN:
33 Gould St. VIDEO ART FROM ISRAEL,
1970-2012 Some 35 leading Israeli video
3 HERE: LOCATING CONTEMPORARY artists are brought together in this show,
CANADIAN ARTISTS Bringing together which gives a platform to the cultural
3
21 artists working in a range of media, and political work that has been made in
this show looks at the many varied paths Israel and beyond over the last four 3 Brette Gabel
BLANkET (DETAIL)
and stories of Canadian identity, and offers decades. Koffler Gallery, 180 Shaw St.
2017
counternarratives to the often monolithic
Canada 150 story. Aga Khan Museum,
77 Wynford Dr. 4 Hila Lulu Lin
Farah KuFr Birim
NO MORE TEARS (STILL)
1994

AMBERA WELLMANN
TrpanierBaer
Art Toronto 2017 - Booth S9
Schadowen, 2017
Oil on linen
23.5 cm x 23.5 cm
#105 999 - 8 Street S.W. Calgary, Alberta, Canada, T2R 1J5

trepanierbaer.com T 403.244.2066 E info@tbg1.com
Tuesday - Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
vertical half.indd 1 08/11/17 10:41 AM

Explore Toronto
See what the city has to offer
1 2
shop Instead, expect seasonal selections like smoked

Looking through the racks at Ewanika (1083 Bathurst mackerel dip, a wine selection that cannot be matched
St.) feels more like pilfering your elegant friends and the citys most Instagrammed washroom. If you
wardrobe than shopping; theres stylish footwear from feel like eating art, in addition to looking at it, head to
it-girl label Maryam Nassir Zadeh, dreamy knits La Banane (227 Ossington Ave.), where their Ziggy
from Lauren Manoogian and foundational pieces from Stardust Disco Egg gives dessert a glam-rock edge.
the stores eponymous line. SOUVENIR (1232 College Tacos of all varieties are on offer in Kensington Market,
St.) carries a range of productslike ceramics, textiles, including versions on Ojibway-style frybread at Pow
stationery and morefrom local makers; they also Wow Cafe (213 Augusta Ave.) and Baja-style options
stock their own in-house label, and have limited and at Seven Lives (69 Kensington Ave.). Classic French
special-edition products on offer in the gallery-like food is on the menu at longstanding Queen Street West
space. Le Labo (876 Queen St. W.) has finally opened bistro La Palette (492 Queen St. W.), which, as it
a Canadian post, where you can drop by and watch happens, is co-owned by a Toronto artist.
the perfume house mix up fragrances upon purchase
(to help insure a longer shelf-life for the product). get outside
Berczy Park Dog Fountain charts as one of the most
read controversial additions to Torontos landscape; the two-
The newest book-purveyor on the block is Queen tier fountain, designed by Claude Cormier, includes
Books (914 Queen St. E.), where youll be able 27 cast-iron dog statues (and a cat), who spew water
3
to find shelves stocked with titles from local authors into the basin from their mouths. Theres something
alongside international bestsellers, all within the coziest deeply Koonsian about the arrangement, which is worth
environment imaginablethink tree-patterned to dreamy baked goods and coffee. Afternoon coffee dropping by Berczy Park (25 Wellington St. E.)
wallpapers and Persian rugs. Glad Day Bookshop dates that spill over into early evening snacks with a to see. A little further from downtown, Rouge National
(499 Church St.), by contrast, is the worlds oldest glass of wine are, arguably, the very best way to spend Urban Park (1749 Meadowvale Rd., Scarborough) has
queer bookstore; theyve been in business for some 47 a day; the Walton (607 College St.) is perfectly poised incredible beaches, hiking trails and marshes. If you
years, although their Village digs are new. If deep to facilitate these languorous meetings, with pastries want to shop and walk, at the Evergreen Brick Works
discounts are more your speed, theres really nowhere and coffee on offer alongside elderflower cocktails and (550 Bayview Ave.) you can drop by a farmers market
better than used-book retailer BMV (471 Bloor St. terrine. If youre looking for a place that can handle and venture out on a few trails in the Don Valley.
W./10 Edward St./2289 Yonge St.). savoury snacks as adeptly as the sweet options, turn
to Forno Cultura (609 King St. W.), where the citys very
best porchetta sandwiches residefighting words, 1 Queen Books
snack
but we stand behind them. 2 Grey Gardens
Have you ever eaten a semla? If no, you should rectify
3 FIKA Caf
this immediately; the Swedish take on a cream bun
is not to missed, and theyre often on offer at the feast
sweet FIKA Caf (28 Kensington Ave.), which boasts Sure, Grey Gardens (199 Augusta Ave.) may share
an incredibly Instagrammable interior in addition a name with the Maysles brothers documentary
on eccentrics Little and Big Edie Beale, but fear not
theres no cat food dressed up as pt around here.

U Manitoba.indd 1 07/10/17 3:23 PM
R Y E R S O N I M AG E C ENTR E
Photographs of Canada from

The New York Times Photo Archive
CURATORS: GERALD MCMASTER AND DENISE BIRKHOFER
SEPTEMBER 13 DECEMBER 10, 2017
Exhibition sponsors Media Sponsor
FREE ADMISSION 33 Gould Street

Toronto, Canada Unknown photographer, [Trudeaumania, detail,
FREE EXHIBITION TOURS 416.979.5164
Toronto, Ontario], 1968, gelatin silver print (red
overlay added for this ad). The Rudolph P. Bratty
DAILY AT 2:30 PM www.ryerson.ca/ric Family Collection, Ryerson Image Centre

CloCkwise from top left: ca. 1880; and Mysteries of All
Folk art papier mch mask, Nations, a compendium of
Mexico, date unknown; superstition by James Grant,
Taxidermy armadillo in a baby published by Reid and Son,
carrier, origins and dates Leith, Scotland, 1880.
unknown; Wax mannequin
head of a child, France,
museum of fear_ F17_17TSLR.indd 92 08/04/17 12:09 PM

the Griebel brothers Museum of Fear and Wonder
is a tribute to the vanishing world of roadside
attractionsand the enduring appeal of the uncanny
Haunted House
by Eve Thomas
This is how horror stories start. Two brothers buy and renovate an old building in rural Alberta,
then fill it with curious collectibles: A plaster death mask from 1850s Holland. A wooden Ouija
board from 1940s Baltimore. Ventriloquist dummies. Vodou dolls. Garden gnomes. And not just
any gnomesthese are family heirlooms, of a sort. It was Jude and Brendan Griebels ancestor
Philipp Griebel who invented the iconic ceramic lawn ornaments in the 19th century, whimsical
symbols of simpler times in Germany (with an admittedly kitschier pedigree this side of the Atlantic).
One of thems got a liquor bottle; the other is playing an accordion and has these disturbingly
sharp teeth, says Brendan with a grimace.
Theyre painted and put together by hand, adds Jude. Art objects, really, even if theyre
mass produced.
This fantastical biographical note is just one of the details that make up the brothers journey
to their latest venture: the Museum of Fear and Wonder near Bergen, Alberta. The idea crystallized
while they were visiting Guanajuato, Mexicos Museo de las Momias, but really, theyve been
preparing for this project all their livesand have the storage lockers to prove it.
Were not hoarders; were discerning collectors, Brendan says carefully. He is an Arctic
archaeologist mainly based in Cambridge Bay who recently moved to Ottawa to work on the
exhibition Inuinnauyugut at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Jude is an acclaimed Brooklyn-
based artist whose resin sculpturesincluding anthropomorphized houses and hybrid bodies
explore themes of waste, nature, decay and pollution, and whose most recent exhibitions include
Crafting Ruin at dc3 Art Projects in Edmonton and Plastic Ghost, an installation in Jyvskyl,
Finland. Previously, they worked together on a project at North Carolinas Elsewhere museum,
a series called Yellow House that had them photographing objects through a rotting dollhouse.
The brothers interest in oddities was almost a given considering their upbringing. Raised
by a conservator mother and a neurosurgeon father with a thing for medical antiques, they
regularly travelled the world as a family, including a trip in their teens (theyre now in their
30s) that took them to Europe, Asia and Polynesia. Yet while many of the objects theyve collected
come from far-flung placesa Namibian divination basket, a Tibetan kapala (skullcap)the
museum itself is pure Prairie Gothic. The structure (which Brendan is currently filling with
antique display cabinets from shuttered butchers, candy shops and the Hudsons Bay Company)
formerly served as army barracks and, at one point, part of a German internment camp.
The tales and fears of the Prairies come from isolation, harsh winters, how light affects
your day muses Jude, citing the drawings of Marcel Dzama and films of Guy Maddin when
canadianart.ca 93

he recalls their childhood. He describes traditional crafts tailored to as a didact), wont be charging admission and have no plans for a gift shop.
the seasons, games staged in abandoned houses, pranks played in the And while the museum does have a website and Instagram account, they
cornfields, and the road trips of their youth, days of driving broken up only offer a few pictures of select objects shot against plain backgrounds
by small-town attractions. an Inuit shaman belt, two mating flies trapped in amberand glimpses
Anywhere with the Biggest Anything, summarizes Brendan. Places of the space itself. We dont want that many people to come, Jude
that would lure you in. admits, with a laugh. Its not that theyre being difficult, but that theyve
Theyre the last pockets of folk mythology left over from an old world, discovered something important after years of going off the beaten path
says Jude. And sometimes they say more about a place than any formal to museums in peoples homes and private spaces, from a human hair
government archives. collection in Turkey to an erotica museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, that
According to the Alberta Museums Project, the province is home to was also a working VD clinic: the journey itself is part of the experience.
more than 300 museums, most of them in rural areas. Add to them roadside Time is the biggest investment you can make now, and moving through
attractions, and a local road trip could hit everything from Glendons Giant that physical space, says Brendan. If people are interested enough to
Perogy to St. Pauls UFO Landing Pad to the Torrington Gopher Hole come and see it, if its remote, thats already part of it.
Museum, where taxidermy rodents are dressed up and posed in bucolic Jude cites the Museum of Jurassic Technology as an influence in its
scenes: playing hockey, slow dancing, building snowmen. approach to marketing as much as content, in that most of its popularity
In 2017, niche museums are remarkable for their continued existence has been organic, and its converted Culver City storefrontshowcasing
as much as their actual collections, and this long-faded glory is apparent microminiatures and portraits of Soviet space dogsis available to both
in the Griebels most recent acquisition: a gang of famous villains from those whove made the pilgrimage and curious passersby. It was intended
a defunct wax museum in Niagara Falls. Jude and Brendan list off the figures for random strangers to step into, he says.
they nabbed (Lizzie Borden, Ted Bundy)We chose them based on Jude also recently met about 40 kindred spirits at a niche collectors
notoriety and quality, explains Judeand kick themselves over the ones conference in New York, attendees with the sorts of interests that make
they missed (Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy). They speak with the medical dummies look mainstream: a woman who gathers and mounts
glee of kids swapping baseball cards, and yet, its in this discussion that the miniscule tires from toy tractors; a couple thats built a tribute to
they out themselves as anything but exploitative showmen or ironic gore Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan in their Brooklyn apartment; and
hounds. Despite the quirky, even gruesome, subject matter theyve taken Marion Duckworth, a septuagenarian whose collections live alongside
on, they are tactful, even sensitive, when it comes to this project. herplaybills, skeleton keys, Snow White figurinesin a 1600s Dutch
The guy who sold them to us knew how much they meant to kids, farmhouse, the oldest inhabited home in the city, complete with a
growing up. He didnt want to just get rid of them all on eBay, says Jude, graveyard. When asked where his interests lie on a spectrum of strangeness,
before pointing out that most of the wax figures were made in the 1960s, instead of answering, he challenges the question: I dont like the word
by real craftspeople, before Niagara achieved full tourist-trap status. He strange, its boring. Or the word creepy. I prefer to call the objects we
explains how the art form arose from the need for medical models during collect emotionally complicated. Or uncomfortable. There are better
the Enlightenment, when real cadavers got too expensive, weaving in the words than strange to explain the grey area.
tale of Louis Auzoux, a medical doctor who revolutionized the field again It would be too easy to paint the Brothers Griebel as moustache-twirling
with papier mchantecedents of the classic dissectible anatomical eccentrics, but again, where there could be a gotcha theres simply
models still popular today. Auzoux learned his craft from makers of childrens appreciation. And despite what could be called a resurgence of socially (or
dolls in 19th-century Paris. You see the same technique used with two social-media) acceptable interest in the occultthe Twin Peaks revival,
radically different emotional understandings of the human body, says cyberpaganism, podcasts like My Favorite Murder, the #trypophobia tag,
Jude. (Unsurprisingly, the Museum of Fear and Wonder showcases many creepypasta online urban legendstheyre not set on riding that wave.
baby dolls and childrens toys worthy of Mexicos infamous Isla de las Whatevers happening with this resurgence of the supernatural, this
Muecas, or Island of the Dolls.) Internet gothic, we dont want any part of that, states Jude. Its not that
When it comes to the wax figures theyve bought, the brothers are he is totally averse to horror as a genre (he admits to a fondness for visceral,
adamant about one thing: The point is not to make a novelty museum, pre-CGI special effects in movies like C.H.U.D. and The Dark Crystal), its
says Jude. And so the villains wont be displayed in blood-spattered dioramas, that they are presenting objects in what he calls a post-material world.
but instead have been stripped of their costumes, down to their carved limbs And that is, he says, the biggest difference between his personal work and
and stuffed torsos. In short, says Jude, Weve removed the dramatics. this project: the former is about creation, the latter about consideration.
Theyre also not planning on any bold, P. T. Barnumstyle ad campaigns Were trying to highlight objects in the right way. Its only when theyre
or flashing arrows to coax Calgarians to undertake the 90-minute drive to looked at as gimmicky that youre dismissing peoples beliefs. Its about
the museum. In fact, most of the brothers sales tactics would make the respecting them and giving them the right space. Its this approach that
humbug-happy showman roll in his grave. They only plan to open for has Brendan and Jude convinced they can transform visitors fear into
three months in the summer (with an artist- or writer-in-residence acting careful reflection. Or even, if they get it right, awe.

CloCkwise from top left: anatomical body, USA,
Anatomical model eye, 1945; and folk art ape head
created by Somso, West carved from coconut shell,
Germany, ca. 1950; Medical date and origins unknown.
illustration, Turkey, date
unknown; Denoyer Gippert
canadianart.ca 95

grafton tyler Brown was a painter whose identity changed
from Black to white as he moved across the pacific northwest
passing through
by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir
When American-born painter Grafton Tyler Brown opened his exhibition

in Victoria in the summer of 1883, the local paper, the Daily British Colonist,
recognized the magnitude of the event. This being the first true art exhibit
ever opened here representing the province, the artist should not be allowed
to leave disappointed, declared the publication in early July. There were
22 landscape paintings on view in the exhibition, held in the Colonists
new building on Government Street, and most were based on a geological
expedition that Brown had taken the year prior that toured the interiors
of southern British Columbia. Viewed in light of artistic productions they
are excellent, but when inspected by those with whom the scenes represented
were familiar, their fidelity elicited an extra meed of praise, wrote a reviewer.
The Colonist allotted Brown the kind of coverage that would turn contemporary
publicists green with envy. Nowhere in these inches of publicity, though,
does the paper mention Browns race.
The omission matters. The artist himself left no personal papers, so an
understanding of Brown and his life has been gleaned through elision and
second-hand sources. If the Colonist glossed over his race, the publication
most likely considered him white. At the time, there was a small but
established Black community living in Victoria, but an underlying sense
of British (read: white) superiority remained prevalent.
The assumption made about Browns whiteness was not exclusive to
the paper. Over the course of Browns life, his race gradually changed in
official documentation. He was listed as Black in early census reports, but
on his 1918 death certificate he was identified as white. Brown, the first
artist to hold a professional exhibition in British Columbia, was likely only
able to do so by passing.
Brown arrived in Victoria in 1882 from San Francisco, where he had
gathered uncommon success during the two decades prior, building a
reputation for himself as the citys coloured printer. But Brown was
always ambitious. Born to free parents in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in
1841, Brown began his career not as an understudy or an apprentice, but
as an employee at the St. George Hotel, in Sacramento, California. Even
before Brown launched a professional art career, he was a successful
promoter. We noticed last evening some very excellent painting done
by Grafton T. Brown, noted the local paper in 1859, and the artist was
able to parlay this well-received amateur hobby into work as an artist for
a printer in San Francisco, eventually working his way up to owning the
Grafton Tyler Brown in his Victoria studio in 1883
CourTesy royal BC MuseuM and arChiVes (iMaGe a-08775) studio itself. While Brown, one of the better-known painters of the
GRAFTON TYLER BROWN_F17_12TSHR.indd 96 08/05/17 9:54 AM

Grafton Tyler Brown Giants Castle Mountain 1883
Oil on canvas 40.6 x 66 cm COurtesy unO Langmann gaLLery
American West, accrued impressive press during his lifetime, his two-year Brown was professionally radical. His paintings of BC, by contrast, are
sojourn in Canada was virtually unknown until about seven years ago, largely conventional. There are landscapes with carefully rendered inlets
when John Lutz, a professor at the University of Victoria whose research and bodies of water framed by pine trees, or mountain ranges unfolding
focuses mostly on First Nationssettler relations and race relations in BC, across horizons. Brown has created useful historical documentation, but
stumbled across a reproduction of Browns sketch of a farm in Saanich, he worked to please a small market, and made commissions for farmers
the region where the University of Victoria is now located. I was astonished, and landownershis focus during his time in Victoria was to make a
Lutz said. I had no idea there were artists here at that time doing that living. Most of the scenes Brown selects are unpopulated, but occasionally,
kind of photorealistic work. Lutz has since been piecing together details a settlement will appeargiven the time in which he worked, these were
of Browns time in the province, tracking down his missing paintings and often the first few buildings in their respective area. In each picturesque
filling in the biographical blanks. Perhaps it was the brevity of his stay work, there is a taste of Manifest Destiny; a sense that the landscapes
that wiped Brown from the historical record. But, with the exception of Brown captures are ripe for settlement and extraction. When the Colonist
San Francisco, Brown didnt stay anywhere for long. Port Townsend, refers to him as the pioneer artist of this intellectual and refined art, it
Tacoma, Portland and Helena, where he was joined by Albertine Espey, a registers not only in the sense of Browns professional accomplishments,
white woman originally from France, whom he later marrieda union but also his sensibility. Brown, who spent his life defying imperial
that would be controversial, even dangerous, in many states at the time. categorization, made a career out of creating imagery that justified a
All of Browns stops after San Francisco were short until he and Espey colonial ethos. The history of passing, like the history of slavery, is often
reached Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Brown retired from painting. He left mistakenly considered an exclusively American phenomenon. But any
no descendants, and took on no apprentices. But it would be unfair to say close look at Canada reveals the flaw in this thinking. Browns two-year
that he had no influence beyond his own personal success. After all, when stopover in British Columbia not only provides a vital record of the
Brown was introducing the professional exhibition to Victoria, Emily province during that moment, and of artistic success during that era. It
Carr was 11 years old and living mere minutes away on the same street. underscores that histories do not stop at borders.
canadianart.ca 97
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Black women curators have shaped a distinct
conversationresponsive to settler-colonial histories
and the unique experiences of the Black diaspora
the women
RUnnInG the Show
Buseje Bailey Explain Black

1992 Performance with
slide projects, quilts and audio
tape Photo Vita Plume
BLK W Curators _F17_12TSHR.indd 98 08/02/17 10:45 PM

by Yaniya Lee
This spring, Julie Crooks, assistant curator of photography at the Art explicitly with Black Canadian experiences, as well as issues of representation
Gallery of Ontario, put together Free Black North, an exhibition of and resistance. These same concerns have reemerged in many of the
photographs of Black Ontarians dating back to the mid-19th century. exhibitions organized by Black women curators since.
At a related public talk, Crooks, along with interdisciplinary artist Pamela Edmonds, now curator at Thames Art Gallery in Chatham,
Deanna Bowen, poet and scholar Afua Cooper and dance artist and Ontario, has been curating since the late 1990s. Edmonds describes
scholar Seika Boye, described a recurring challenge of doing archival being influenced by Baileys work as an artist, organizer and curator.
research on Black life in Canada. Three of the four women shared similar While in her early 30s in Halifax, she began approaching galleries and
experiences of being turned away by librarians, archivists and other artist-run centres to curate exhibitions that would counter the lack of
gatekeepers of historical artifacts, who patiently explained that the representation of Black artists in her community. At the time there
materials they sought did not exist. After some persistence, each woman werent a lot of curators, so to speak, who would call themselves curators,
found that this was in fact not true: they exist, in dusty boxes, public- she says. It was at the very beginning stages of professional curatorial
record offices and library storerooms. An assortment of documents practice. There werent any degree programs then. Edmonds learned
hidden in plain sight holds traces of Black Canadian history. to balance the interests of the artists and the institutions, and eventually
In the circuit of museums, galleries and artist-run centres in Canada, developed a subversive approach to the latters diversity mandates.
Black women curators like Crooks are rare. Not much has been written I felt at the time a sort of resistance, in a broad sense, to what a
about them. One reason is that Black women are simply not hired. curator does, says Edmonds. It was seen as a position that was going
Two online studies commissioned by this publication lay a delicate to restrict the artist. I was very cognizant of this, of trying to not be
statistical assault on any lingering art-world myth of professional someone who was positioning myself within a hierarchical relationship.
meritocracy. In 2015, Canadian Art found that, overall, the representation As a result, Edmonds learned to negotiate multiple perspectives in
of white men in solo gallery shows was disproportionately high. Two her curatorial practice. A curator is a facilitator between the institution
years later, a study of directorial and curatorial positions determined and the artist and the public. As a woman of colour, I think we are
that visible-minority and Indigenous gallery administrative staff is used to doing that, to always negotiating and interpreting these
severely underrepresented and that gallery management is whiter voices and interests.
than Canadian artists in particular, and the Canadian public in general. Even if it hasnt always been strictly in a curatorial role, Black women
Our national art community is structurally calibrated to privilege in Canada have organized and presented many exhibitions since Black
white men, making the remembering of the contributions of Black Wimmin. In 1997, Bailey returned to her initial curatorial premise
women in the field even more crucial. with Womens Work: Black Women in the Visual Arts at YYZ Artists
According to art historian Alice Ming Wai Jim, the 1989 travelling Outlet in Toronto. In 2000, Edmonds worked with the Sister Visions
exhibition Black Wimmin: When and Where We Enter was the first collective to organize Through Our Eyes at the Art Gallery of Nova
Canadian exhibition to be curated by, and to feature, Black women Scotia in Halifax. The shows significance to the local Black community
artists. Organized by Buseje Bailey and Grace Channer, the show toured was exemplified in a collaborative piece made of found materials from
museums, galleries and artist-run centres across the country. Bringing what was once Africville, which claimed space in an institution that
forward issues of historicity and spatiality, Jim wrote in a 2004 essay, had existed for more than 150 years without ever hosting an exhibition
the exhibition presented itself as a challenge to dominant, traditional by Black contemporary artists. Edmonds later curated Black Body:
Eurocentric politics of aesthetics and representation and its various Race, Resistance, Response at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax in
undercurrents existing in the Canadian art arena, which, in its denial 2001. Meanwhile, Gatane Verna curated Epistrophe: wall paintings
of difference in the name of multiculturalist liberalism, habitually ignored by Denyse Thomasos in 2004 at the Foreman Art Gallery of Bishops
the contributions of artists of colour. Jim describes how the works dealt University in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In 2017, We are the Griots was
canadianart.ca 99

A curator is a facilitator between the institution
and the artist and the public, says Thames Art Gallery
curator Pamela Edmonds. As a woman of colour,
I think we are used to doing that, to always negotiating
and interpreting these voices and interests.
exhibition, which toured to three galleries in southern Ontario. In

Another Place, And Here, curated by Michelle Jacques and Toby
Lawrence in 2015 at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, asked Black,
Indigenous, white and people of colour artists to closely examine the
relationship between where they lived and worked, emphasizing
intersections of identity and place.
Political trends in the art world have shifted in recent years from
identity and representation to diversity and inclusion. Eunice Blidor,
emerging curator and programming coordinator at Articule Gallery in
Montreal, is a part of a younger generation of Black women curators for
whom the Internet has served as a vehicle for research and social
exploration. Blidor describes a general self-awareness among her
colleagues and peers that things arent quite rightthat marginalized
people are often the ones who end up doing the extra work of outreach
and systemic adjustment. Everyone can and should be doing this work,
Blidor argues: You dont have to be a person of colour to understand
people of colour issues, she says, or to want to bring their perspectives
into your centres. Regarding inclusion, Blidor suggests: You dont
have to only have one of them, and you also need to make sure thats
its not just POC visual representation: you have to include them in your
internal structure as well.
The continued work of Black women curators in Canada shapes
a distinct conversation responsive to settler-colonial histories and the
unique experiences of the Black diaspora. Black curators, scholars, critics
and artists are getting together more frequently, learning about each
others practices, and creating projects for the future. Fatonas 2014
conference at OCAD University, The State of Blackness: From Production
to Presentation, was one such major event. In 2015, curators Verna,
Edmonds, Fatona and Crooks joined curators Dominique Fontaine,
curated by Jade Byard Peek at the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax. Sally Frater, artist Camille Turner and critic and scholar Rinaldo
Over time, the thematic focus of these curators exhibitions has Walcott to attend the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor,
expanded beyond representation to include considerations of how as a Canadian delegation.
colonialism, imperialism and capitalism affect us all in unique ways. Trips such as this, part of the continued organizing of Black women
In 2007, curator and researcher Andrea Fatona collaborated with Bowen curators, make their work known abroad, while allowing them to
to curate the touring group exhibition Reading the Images: Poetics of continue their important contributions at home. Blidor puts it best:
the Black Diaspora, in which several artists created new visual vocabularies I really want to just see Black subjects or subjects of colour being
to explore the Canadian nation-states relationships to Black diasporas. repeatedly in the programming. Not because we have to have one each
In 2014, Fatona and Katherine Dennis curated the Land Marks year, but because they actually do great stuff.
Michael Chambers Blinders Dawit L. Petros

opposite, above: 2012 archival digital opposite, below: Jrme Havre sound track, acrylic and
1994 Silver gelatin print Barella and Landscape, print 76.2 x 101.6 cm Six Degrees of Separation chalk Dimensions variable
81.3 x 71.1 cm No. 3, Osbourne, Kansas 2013 Textile, cotton, iron wire, CourTeSy ThameS arT Gallery
copper, ink-jet prints, PhoTo Frank PiCColo

canadianart.ca 101

In the prologue to his recent book, Kouchibouguac: Removal, Resistance
and Remembrance at a Canadian National Park, historian Ronald
Rudin recounts his surprise that no significant work of literature
has ever been produced about the creation of the controversial park
on New Brunswicks east coast. During the mid-1970s, the government-
mandated removal of 260 families from their homes within the
parks boundaries would prove to be a focal point of resistance among
Acadians. They saw only too clearly the parallel to the Great Upheaval
of 1755, when their French-speaking Acadian ancestors were forcibly
deported from the Atlantic provinces by the British. Rudin ascribes
the neglect by historians toward the Kouchibouguac saga to the fact
that Acadian issues have largely been annexed to Quebec, or simply
ignored by the rest of Canada. Fortunately, the Kouchibouguac
story has refused to stay silent, for as Rudin highlights, Acadian
musicians, poets, novelists, playwrights and visual artists have
constantly engaged with the unfolding events, telling and retelling
a story that remains headline news in Acadie almost 50 years later.
Deuxime Dportation
Five decades after Kouchibouguac, acadian artists bring
attention to an ongoing story of expropriation ignored by most of Canada
by Rmi Belliveau
The first phase of land expropriations began in 1969, with families

from two of the seven communities situated within the future park
leaving voluntarily in exchange for paltry compensation from the
New Brunswick government. But other communities resisted and
organized: in 1972, fishermen who would lose access to the parks
waters staged an occupation of the parks offices. Coming in the
wake of the Universit de Moncton protests of 1968, many young
Acadians took up the Kouchibouguac cause, engaging with the events
either on the park grounds or from the intellectual vantage point
of the UdeM campus.
Pete Goguen (195098) was among these young Acadians. His
photographic screenprint sans titre (Kouchibouguac) from the 1975
series Acadie Time, printed while he was still a student at the UdeM
department of fine arts, appropriates the iconic red frame and typography
of Time magazine in order to posit the events at Kouchibouguac as
being of national importance.
Among the 10 known prints in the series, which address Acadian
matters such as the Great Upheaval of 1755 and the shortlived Parti
Acadien (a nationalist political party), sans titre (Kouchibouguac) is the
most literal, showing a mangled red door in a pile of debris by a Parcs Pete Goguen sans titre
(Kouchibouguac) 1975
Canada sign. While some residents at Kouchibouguac took the Screenprint on paper 55.9 x
painstaking route of relocating to lots just outside of park boundaries, 76.2 cm Photo Rmi Belliveau
ARTIST RESISTANCE_ F17_10TSHR.indd 102 08/03/17 1:20 AM

canadianart.ca 103

The Kouchibouguac
story has lived primarily
through the mythical figure
of Jackie Vautour, who
remains subject to artistic many simply left their houses for demolition, leaving behind a highly
symbolic image that would be appropriated by artists from all disciplines.
treatments to this day. Among them, Claude Roussel stands out for returning to the subject of
Kouchibouguac most often during the first decade of the saga, addressing
key moments in the conflict as they made headline news. This socially and
politically involved approach to making art was central to Roussels practice
at the time of the resistance, and is best embodied by his series of resin
sculptures that comment on contemporary Acadian struggles such as the
fight for language equality and the unemployment crisis of the early 70s.
One such work, Kouchibouguac, NB (The Great Uprooting), created in
1975, shows a large lobster claw bearing a New Brunswick coat of arms
and grabbing at bits of debris, which include a doll found at the site of a
former residents torn-down house. Its title is another reference to the
Yolande Desjardins Emma
Great Upheavalcarried out as part of the British military campaign
Comeau 1989 Batik during the French and Indian Waralso known as the Expulsion of the
on silk fabric 101.6 x 77.5 cm Acadians. Before this analogy began gaining ground in the mid-70s, the
Photo Rmi Belliveau
discussion about the expropriated families at Kouchibouguac had been
centred on poor people rather than specifically on Acadiansbut this
was about to change.
On November 5, 1976, news came out that Kouchibouguacs most
famous squatters, Jackie and Yvonne Vautour, had lost their home at the
maw of a government bulldozer. By then, Jackie had become a controversial
figure in the resistance movement, working with various groups for the
cause of the expropriated families but often taking matters into his own
handsan approach that would land him in jail in 1973. Although he
wasnt universally praised within the community, the destruction of his
home struck a chord with many Acadians, including Roussel, who, in
an act of solidarity, met with the resistance fighter following the demolition
to gift him with the aforementioned resin sculpture. A black-and-white
photograph taken that day shows a smiling Vautour holding the work
of art outside of the Motel Habitant, where the New Brunswick government
had temporarily placed the family before forcefully removing them again
only months later.
When the Vautour family illegally moved back to the park in the late
70s (where they remain today as squatters), acts of solidarity in the form
of benefit concerts and demonstrations became the last major breaths of
the communal resistance. The 80s thus marked a transitional if not
conclusive point in the Kouchibouguac saga, with the resistance movement
slowly fading out while Vautour was elevated to an Acadian folk hero. The
attention lavished on him, however, gave rise to feelings that the rest
of the expropriated families had been forgotten in his shadow.
This was partly what motivated Yolande Desjardins to create a series
of batik portraits in 1989 depicting elderly former residents of the park.
Working from outtakes of the NFB film Kouchibouguac (1978), Desjardins
set out to create a motorized kinetic sculpture that could animate six silk
portraits into a single warping image. Despite plans to show the sculpture
on three separate occasions, the project was eventually dropped, leaving
the artist to complete only four portraits as standalone works. Desjardinss
painterly approach to the batik technique of dyeing fabrics creates a crackled
ARTIST RESISTANCE_ F17_12TSHR.indd 104 08/05/17 2:00 PM

and weathered texture that highlights the difficult struggle that each subject
has undertaken. This is most apparent in her near life-sized portrait of
Emma Comeau, which showcases three times as many shades of dye than
the other monochromatic works. Batiks close ties to the hippie generation
and 60s counterculture in North America resonates within these political
portraits, much like protest banners or political flags.
In the decades that followed, the Kouchibouguac story has lived
primarily through the mythical figure of Jackie Vautour, who remains
subject to artistic treatments to this day. In 1993, his central role in Zero
Celsiuss militant anthem Petitcodiac (Petty Coat Jack) brought his story
to a new generation of Acadians in an emerging underground scene that
included visual artist Mario Doucette. Best known for his reinterpretations
of Acadian colonial history, Doucette has strayed from this central subject
matter to include prominent 20th-century Acadian figures such as Louis
J. Robichaud, Michel-Vital Blanchard and, of course, Jackie Vautour. All
three were depicted in a 2005 screenprint portfolio called les rebels, an
homage to Francophone militants. His portrait of the resistance fighter,
titled Ragin Cajun (2005), shows a cartoon-styled Vautour wearing a
bulldozer-branded polo shirt, underplaying the serious persona most
often associated with the resistance leader. A floating banner bearing his
name and date of birth makes it clear that the artist is commemorating
an important figuresubmitting him to the annals of history.
In the new millennium, Kouchibouguac and Jackie Vautour have
become household names in Acadie, where they often return in the form
of ceremonies, documentaries and, once again, headline news. Following
an accusation of illegal fishing in park waters dating back to 1998, Jackie
and Yvonne Vautour have remained in the media throughout the 2000s
as they move back and forth between the provincial courts.
In this new battle, the resistance fighters have taken on a new discourse
claiming Mtis heritage, a claim that the provincial court of appeal
officially refused to entertain in May 2017. As Jackie Vautour, now aged
88, prepares to bring his cause to the Supreme Court of Canada,
Kouchibouguac and its expropriated families should remain in our
collective thoughts as silent victims from an ongoing story that Acadian
artists will no doubt keep deconstructing for many years to come.
Claude Roussel Jackie

Vautour holding
Kouchibouguac, NB
(The Great Uprooting)
1976
above:Mario Doucette
Ragin Cajun 2005
Screenprint on paper
25 x 20 cm
Photo Rmi BelliVeau
canadianart.ca 105

remembering an influential Quebec critic and art historian
who died of aIDS-related causes in 1987through the
marginalia, underlined passages and drawings he left in his books
SpectreS
of ren payant
by Vincent Bonin
BONIN PAYANT -F17_10TS.indd 106 08/04/17 2:06 AM

and his colleagues hoped to build a critical apparatus that would link the
peripheral history of painting in Quebec to its better-known American
and European manifestations.
That same year, French philosopher Jean-Franois Lyotard published
the book-length version of his landmark study La condition postmoderne:
Pierre Ayot Untitled Rapport sur le savoir on the value of university knowledge in computerized
(Portrait de Ren Payant) 1984
Colour photograph 29 x 21.5 cm
societies. Despite the fact that he was in conversation with Lyotard, Payant
remained less interested in the reports observations on the end of the
grand narratives of progress and emancipation. He focused instead on
In his autobiography, Before Pictures (2016), art historian Douglas Crimp an aesthetic understanding of postmodern thinking that could foster
tells the parallel stories of his life as a gay man and emergent art critic in a cohabitation of styles. His friendship with painter Louise Robert, which
New York in the 1960s and 70s. Crimp chronicles his sexual encounters started in the late 1970s, is one instance of the way he recognized the chasm
and love affairs while commenting on the citys burgeoning contemporary of the figural and the discursive in art. Roberts paintings brought together
art scene. In the grey zone between these two narratives, he addresses the gestural abstraction and poetic language written on the canvas in stenciled
emergence of the queer culture that preceded the AIDS epidemics. Quebec letters, referring both to the materiality of paint and the irrepressible affects
critic and art historian Ren Payant, a gay man from the same generation pressing in from outside the frame.
as Crimp, did not leave any memoirs, nor archives, after he passed away It was also during this period that Payant loosened his grip on the
from an AIDS-related disease in 1987. Whats more, he often questioned logical squares and grids that conferred him his early legitimacy. He began
the use-value of biographical narratives in his writings. Payant lived before to appraise more openly the return to figurative expressionism, sculptures
the political uprising of the following decade, which empowered people new theatricality, performance, video and the expanded complexity of
with AIDS to assert their rights, and momentarily fortified solidarity in installation art. Although he was reticent to talk about himself, Payant
the art world. Knowing that the end was close, he assembled his texts, always started to think from the specificity of his own desires. In one
several of which were then unavailable, into the anthology Vedute: Pices essay from 1984 entitled Rhtorique du corps he examined gay magazines,
dtaches sur lart (19761987). Yet unlike Crimp or fellow theorist Craig films and the work of painters Salom, Luciano Castelli and Rainer Fetting,
Owens, who are both firmly canonized and widely read as art historians to question the internalized opposition between pornography and
addressing the representation of gay identity, Payant remains largely eroticism. Being well versed in literary theory (he wrote about Marguerite
forgotten beyond small intellectual circles in Quebec. Duras), Payant was also interested in the way art discourse mediated
Several Montreal artists, critics and historians, who studied or started sensorial experience. He addressed the co-dependence of performances
to work professionally during the 1980s, encountered Payant, either in immediacy and the parallel narratives in which it became enmeshed
a classroom or at a conference. In 1995, I decided to pursue my studies before or after the event. Moreover, he was involved in the many debates
at the Universit de Montral, where Payant had taught art history from at the time on the evolving status of photography in contemporary art
1979 to 1987. During their seminars, Alain Laframboise, Lise Lamarche practices. He raised awareness of the risks of fetishizing the materiality
and Johanne Lamoureux, who had been very close to Payant as colleagues of the image, while cautioning against a return to a banal interpretation
and friends, encouraged us to read Vedute. Though my relationship with of the photographs iconographic documentary content.
him has been mostly mediated through the testimony of others, it remains Despite this openness to the diversity of art practices emerging during
intimate by way of another series of circumstances. Before his death, the mid-1980s, Payants longstanding attachment to the painterly gesture
Payant gave a selection of his books to the universitys library. During my remained a divergent touchstone. While fellow critics, such as Philip Monk,
studies, I intermittently found these volumes in the stacks, their pages described the embrace of figurative expressionism by the market as mostly
marked with his marginalia. I began to imagine the path of a young art passive, and championed artworks promoting the active deconstruction
historian forging his way in the academic and contemporary art world. of various subject positions in the representation of sexual difference,
Through these underlined passages, scribbles and sometimes intricate Payant envisioned painting as inherently endowed with a libidinal economy
diagrams, Payant had a spectral afterlife. beyond gender assignations, resistant to communication and even
From the beginning of his career, Payant attempted to distinguish his commodification. In several instances, Payant wrote or spoke about feminism
approach from the connoisseurship at the root of art historys core as an ally, but it seemed that he remained at the threshold of other aspects
imperatives of attribution and interpretation. During the 1970s in Quebec of the identity politics that fuelled visual arts at the time.
and elsewhere, the field of semiotics bridged the gap between disciplines Thirty years after Payant died, his loss is still deeply felt among those
of the humanities, for better or worse. Payant embraced this turn though who crossed his path, either directly or indirectly. Rare pictures of him
he never allied himself firmly with any single school of critical thought. still circulate, and only a few audio-visual documents exist in which he
Instead, he adapted academic language to new positions and formats can be heard lecturing publicly. During research for an exhibition a few
while discovering contemporary art practices that challenged these years ago, I found the recording of a 1984 conference, Art and Criticism
frameworks of analysis. in the Eighties, organized by Parachute at the Ontario College of Art.
In 1979, Payant co-organized Situation du formalisme amricain, an Payant took part, speaking in English with a Quebecois accent. While
international symposium at the Muse dart contemporain de Montral listening, I tried to imagine what his voice would have been like in his
that reappraised the legacy of Abstract Expressionism beyond American native French. Until recently I believed that the art historian Claude in
borders. While it is standard Canadian art history to mention Clement Denys Arcands 1986 film The Decline of the American Empire was modelled
Greenbergs visit to the Emma Lake workshop in Saskatchewan in 1962 on Payant. In fact, the character was reportedly based on filmmaker Claude
as a pivotal moment in our relationship to avant-garde painting south Jutra. Still, I continue to project Payants features on Claude when
of the border, little has been published in English about the assimilation of re-watching the film. It is from these ghostly traces that resurface in
modernism in Quebec apart from the Automatistes, the Refus global unexpected places and waysand, of course, in returning to his texts
manifesto, and later, the rise of the No-plasticiens. Ultimately, Payant that, for me, Payant echoes with a lasting presence.
canadianart.ca 107
BONIN PAYANT -F17_11TS.indd 107 08/05/17 1:05 PM

take back
the StreetS
Indigenous street art is unsanctioned,
uncensored and rejects the colonial restrictions
of the institutional art world
by Laurence Desmarais and Camille Larive
DecolonialStreet-mural-F17_14TSHR.indd 108 08/05/17 12:08 PM

Contemporary Indigenous art continues to gain institutional recognition
in Canada. We can look to solo retrospectives of Indigenous artists, such
as Alex Janvier at the National Gallery of Canada; Annie Pootoogook and
Duane Linklater both winning the prestigious Sobey Art Award; and the
appointment of Indigenous curators, arts administrators and artists into
key institutional positions, such as Greg Hill at the NGC, or Wanda Nanibush
at the Art Gallery of Ontario. But at the margins of contemporary Indigenous
art writing and historicization, there are also alternative decolonial stories
being sharedthrough unsanctioned Indigenous graffiti, murals, stencils,
wheatpastes and other street-art interventions.
Indigenous street art sidesteps the Western institutions that determine
formalized recognition of a professional artist: the education system,
galleries, arts journalism, granting bodies. Sometimes anonymous, sometimes
collectively signed, grassroots Indigenous street art rejects the restrictions
of the institutional art world that can confine dialogue and expression to
colonially designated spaces. With street interventions, there is no museum
guide, media, administration or teacher to structure the viewers interpretation
of the artwork. Indigenous street art facilitates a direct, uncensored
propagation of anticolonial discourse to a wide public viewership.
Because of a resistance to institutional barriers and restrictions, street
art creates space for the expression of marginalized voices. In a video for
the Unceded Voices street-art project, the artist behind the moniker Red
Bandit speaks of street art as empowering for Indigenous women and women
of colour: My father was a Sixties Scoop kid from the West Coast. Like my
father, I grew up in the city without a Native parent to look up to. Without intricate floral patterns stemming from Athabascan tradition are a form of
any kind of thread to lead me home. Im a mixed baby. I belong nowhere. resistance to daily confrontations with urban colonial systems. They embody
I am nobody, really. I am unwanted everywhere I go. I am a Native child in the possibilities of resistance inherent in Indigenous storytelling.
a world that seeks to erase me, but I will be heard. For urban Indigenous Indigenous graffiti and murals function as a visual and public reinforcement
youth, taking to the streets is an expression of liberation that allows them of resilience in the face of settler colonialism. In Garden River First Nation,
to bypass the struggle of integrating into the colonial art establishment. near Sault Ste. Marie, a train bridge is emblazoned with the anonymously
By foregrounding voices that are typically marginalized within the arts, painted words This Is Indian Landan act of re-inscribing Indigenous
street art intervenes in colonial space with alternative histories. Secwepemc visibility onto a colonized landscape. After This Is Indian Land became
curator Tania Willard explored the use of street art to mark Indigenous widely known, it inspired similar direct action onto colonized landscapes,
presence in public space in the touring exhibition Beat Nation (200814). such as Montreals No Olympics on Stolen Native Land mural by Zig Zag. No
In one of her curatorial statements, Willard wrote, Branding the cityscape Olympics on Stolen Native Land is a strong denunciation of the social cleansing
with spray-bombed Indigenous culture resonates with the idea of territory of street-involved communities by the city of Vancouver in preparation
and reclaiming space in a city whose Indigenous roots are often hidden or for the 2010 Olympics, and the games perpetuation of resource extraction
disguised in a province of unceded Indigenous territories. Beat Nation in the surrounding territories. Anishinaabe artists Susan Blight and Hayden
was such a success within gallery walls because it came from the streets: King have been likewise restoring an Indigenous presence to Toronto streets
along the citys alleys or highway underpasses, where you can stumble by replacing colonial street names with signs featuring Anishinaabemowin
upon Haida formline murals and graffiti by Haida artist Corey Bulpitt (Akos names. For this ongoing street intervention project, the artists remove the
One) and Ojibway artist Larissa Healey (Gurl Twenty Three). citys signposts and furtively affix similar-looking signs that bear Anishinaabe
Anticolonial street art reminds us that cities are also Indigenous territories, place names and stories. In the first action of the series, in 2013, Queen
and that Indigeneity cannot be confined to stereotypical associations with Street was renamed Ogimaa MikanaOgimaa translating to leader and
natural environments, thereby disrupting the nature-culture divide. As Mikana to path. The use of Anishinaabemowin to mark public space changes
Tag Cho Hudn artist Lianne Charlie wrote in the Unceded Voices zine: the context in which urban place names are understood, and thereby opens
Our contributions to the wall, together, attempt to counter the erasure up the possibility for a decolonial understanding of place.
of Native people, places, and lifeways from parts of our homelands that Decolonial street-art practices are a form of grassroots empowerment.
are currently urban centres. Gwichya Gwichin artist Nigitstil Norberts Because street art operates outside of dominant art spaces, it defies the
Underground Resistance (2013), a series of wheatpastes, marks urban spaces necessity of institutional recognition. Street art is an unmediated storytelling
with flower designs based on her grandmothers artworks. Norbert applies medium for marginalized voices to take control of their individual and
her wheatpastes in urban locales where natural elementssigns, she says, collective selfhoods. It enables a thriving contemporary Indigenous urban
of resilience in the cement urban environmentcan also be found. The culture that is accessible to all.
Red Bandit No Silence While Street graffiti by Corey Bulpitt

My Sisters Suffer 2014 Paper, (Akos One) in Gastown,
lead pencil and glue 20.3 x Vancouver March 2017
25.4 cm Photo Maxine Faure Photo @VancouVerScarPenter,
inStaGraM
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The Diaspora
ThaT Never happeNeD
searching for portraiture in the archives of the Komagata Maru
by Aaditya Aggarwal
On a wall in Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall in Jalandhar, India, as part of a loophole in the law, it was ruled that the South Asian men would be
memorial for those who fought against British colonialism, there hangs admitted. Troubled by the verdict, government officials added more
a portrait of Gurdit Singh, the Singapore-based Sikh entrepreneur who, in stringent restrictions to the Continuous Journey Regulation, augmenting
1914, chartered a steamship from British India carrying 376 passengers an already rampant anti-immigrant, white supremacist sentiment.
seeking refuge in Canada. Only 24 made it off the boat. Singh chartered the Komagata Maru, whose passengers included many
In this anonymously created depiction, Singhs features are softened. farmers from Punjab in British India, British Malaya and Hong Kong, to
Still, he wears an expression of insistence. The black-and-white photographs the coast of Vancouver. Of the 376 passengers, 340 were Sikh, 24 were
taken of him following the May 23, 1914, arrival of the Komagata Maru at Muslim and 12 were Hindu, all British subjects claiming entry within the
Vancouvers Burrard Inlet show a man who looks less humble. confines of the empire.
Singh was photographed alongside the mostly Sikh passengers, all Upon the ships arrival, immigration officials surrounded the vessel and
staring bleakly into the camera, their eyes squinting in the sun. German passengers were not allowed to disembark. For two months, the passengers
American photographer Leonard Frank was commissioned by a government were detained on board with little access to food or water. Finally, only 24
agency to capture the stills. In one of Franks photographs, Sikh Men and were admitted to Canada. The remaining 352 were sent back to India,
Boy Onboard the Komagata Maru (1914)exhibited in Komagata Maru: diverting at Budge Budge, a village near Calcutta. There, the British authorities
A Journey to Canada, a show curated by Lally Marwah at the Peel Art responded to the return with gunfire, suspicious that the passengers were
Gallery Museum and Archives in Brampton in summer 2017the subjects Ghadarites, members of the Ghadar Party, a Sikh-led revolutionary anti-
are shown standing like cavalry at ease. colonial group based in North America with the aim to free India from
Physical clues betray the tedium of travel: most of the men wear turbans British rule. On September 29, 1914, in what is now known as the Budge
that are creased along fine, rich folds around their heads, an arrangement Budge Riot, at least 19 passengers were shot dead, and more than 200 were
that feels windswept, cloth loosened by a Pacific drift. imprisoned. Singh managed to escape and lived in hiding until 1921. He
Singh chartered the Komagata Maru on April 4, 1914, after meeting with then surrendered to the police and served a five-year sentence in prison.
a group of immigrants of Indian origin in a Hong Kong gurdwara, the Sikh Most photographic accounts of the Komagata Maru incident frame the
place of worship, one month prior. They were encouraged by news that passengers in relation to the physical contents of the carrier. In one photo,
the previous year, 39 Sikhs had arrived in Victoria via Hong Kong on the they gather by the main mast, heads huddled in conversation. There is
Panama Maru, a Japanese carrier. uniformity in these visuals: the graceful, muted stature of the men, suited,
Initially, the 39 were detained on the basis of the Continuous Journey turbans peaking softly, crushed blazers stationed like old armour.
Regulation, a racist amendment to the Immigration Act of 1906, stating Photographs of the Komagata Maru are characterized by sameness,
that all immigrants must come to Canada via a through ticket and by writes Deepali Dewan in Well Take Your Artifacts but Not Your People:
continuous journey from their country of birth or citizenship. The Komagata Maru in Canadas South Asian Diasporic History. Here,
Worded in shrewd, xenophobic legalese, the act insisted upon a direct, Dewan, the Dan Mishra Curator of South Asian Art and Culture at the
uninterrupted voyage from a country of origin to Canada, making it Royal Ontario Museum, studies the mark of plurality, the replication of
nearly impossible for migrants from South Asia, who would usually stop the migrant, in archival photography.
on the coast of Japan or Hawaii, to immigrate. Regarding Franks Sikh Men and Boy Onboard the Komagata Maru, a
In the case of the 1913 arrivals on the Panama Maru, Vancouver-based widely used photograph that documents the Komagata Maru incident,
lawyer J. Edward Bird was hired on behalf of the South Asian community Dewan notes the still parade of South Asian men, mostly Sikh, assembled
to defend the detained Sikh migrants in court. Because of a linguistic in dark suits on the ships deck. Singh stands with his young son, Balwant.
Komagata Maru-F17_14TS.indd 110 08/05/17 6:24 PM

Leonard Frank Sikh Men
and Boy Onboard the
Komagata Maru May 23 to
July 23, 1914 leonard frank
PhotograPhy ColleCtion,
VanCouVer PubliC library 6231
He is further distinguished from the group by a greying beard and wears an off-white dupatta (scarf) filtered with rose-pink; another, her eyes
significantly lighter shade of outfit. In his book Undesirables: White Canada closed as though in prayer, has a firozi (floral) olive-green and lavender
and the Komagata Maru, filmmaker and scholar Ali Kazimi describes Singh patterned scarf tied around her head.
as a compact man in his mid-fifties, with a keen sartorial sense [that] Another way of remembering what Dewan calls a diaspora that never
kept him looking sharp. happened is by focusing on what is not depicted. The message of the
Edmonton-based illustrator Gloria Ho takes Franks photograph as photographic archive, always mediated through the photographers
a starting point in Faces of the Komagata Maru (2014), a series of portraits lens, routinely fails the subject being captured; it often either victimizes
that imagines the face of each passenger up close, using pastel hues in or demonizes the subject (or both).
watercolour. Hos rendition of Singh is unlike both the original photograph The passengers of the Komagata Maru experience a similar fate in visual
and the unknown artists drawing: in Hos work, Singh is pristine, surrounded memory. Their images shape and design a tragedyan incidentby
by white negative space, his beard unfurling like a tuft of cloud. Also virtue of what each capture fails to register: an ongoing wait. The photograph
noticeable is a deep black patka (inner under-turban), wrapped around his of each passenger unknowingly observes an absence, installing a barrier
head and faded along the pleat. between what one imagines the incident to be and what it was. It feels
Maybe the reading of a portrait rests on its limits, the frame removing right, then, to not be able to know a portrait completely. In a picture of
anyone not seen inside of it. Hos images include two womenpresumably Singh that essays a moment in detention, it feels arresting, even appropriate,
the two married women who also formed part of the passenger list. One to not know everything.
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s P ot l i g h t i Supported by rbC
looking Back
A national survey of 10 artists whose works reinvent history
by Amanda Shore
Basil alZeri
An artist and art educator, Basil AlZeri creates performative home-spaces to express generosity
and hospitality. In The Mobile Kitchen Lab (201216), he video chats with his mother, Suad,
in Arabic while cooking in the gallery space, allowing side conversations between visitors
to mingle with his culinary dialogue. Acknowledging the underappreciated labour of
mothers, the artist demonstrates how the transmission of matriarchal knowledge becomes
obstructed for immigrant families. In Push, Sort, Hang, Dry, and Crush (2014), the artist snips
wild thyme and makes zaataraccording to his mothers recipebefore an audience. He
treats the preservation of culinary techniques as an act of resistance against colonialism.
Allowing discursive interactions to occur naturally, AlZeri encourages conversations about
food sovereignty and cross-cultural exchange through sharing a meal.
Basil AlZeri The Mobile Kitchen Lab 2013 Performance documentation Photo henry Chan
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G E N E R O U S LY S U p p O R t E d b Y R b C
DArcy Wilson
In her ongoing performance series The Memorialist (2015), DArcy Wilson fashions herself
as an accidental explorer, coming across the little-known history of zoology in Atlantic
Canada. She investigates zoological specimens held in museum collectionsin places like
London, Oxford and Washingtonand lovingly touches their preserved bodies or gives them
a photograph of the outdoors. In previous works, she performed elegies for lost wildlife in
parks or galleries in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. She has also composed
lullabies for specimens at the Banff Park Museum. By retracing the thoroughfares of colonial
expansion that displaced animals from Atlantic Canada to Europe, Wilson mourns the
mistreatment of nature through collecting practices. Notes of neo-colonialism arise in artworks
that focus on settler culture and use exploratory strategies. Wilsons work could be understood
as using colonial methods to explore colonial pasts. Her performances document an attempt
to understand tragedy and the cognitive failure that comes with this impossible pursuit.
DArcy Wilson The Memorialist: Museology 201516 Archival ink-jet print 58.4 x 87.6 cm Photo Chris Friel
canadianart.ca 119

Stephanie hier
Realist painting can turn cartoonishafter all, both are forms of hyper-representation. For
Stephanie Hier, a finalist in the 2016 RBC Canadian Painting Competition, the two styles
overlap and give back to each other. Her paintings bear the undeniable influence of Dutch
Realism, but stretch beyond the traditional medium through the use of lumpy ceramic
frames and temporary tattoos. A painted cluster of fruit is overlaid with a little cartoon
paintbrush, cheekily gesturing back toward painterly influences. Ceramic cartoon gloves
dot the floor, pointing perhaps at an element in a painting, or perhaps in no particular
direction. The Toronto-born, New Yorkbased painter has exhibited widely in established
galleries and unconventional spaces, such as an empty storefront in Torontos Galleria Mall,
and at Dead Horse Bay on the south shore of Brooklyn. Whether they are hung on a gallery
wall, on wooden remnants of an old pier or on unfinished drywall, Hiers paintings challenge
conventions associated with two-dimensional images.
Stephanie Hier Hardly Feel Like a Mustard Seed 2017 Oil on linen 1.83 x 1.22 m COurtesy dOwns and rOss, new yOrk

Raven Davis
Canadas 150th birthday fell in the midst of Raven Daviss The De-Celebration of Canada
150 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, an exhibition that critically examined Canadian
nationalist propaganda. In a year marked by gratuitous tributes to Confederation, the
Anishinaabe artist has been staging performances at memorial sites, landmarks and gallery
spaces in response to the publicly funded celebration of colonial genocide. Daviss artistic
practicewith its focus on sustained interventions and durational actionsis in no way
separate from their activism; when encountering Daviss work, passersby might wonder
whether they were witnessing a protest, a performance or a commemorative ceremony.
Appropriately, all three apply. In 2016, the artist sustained a four-day Sacred Fire in Halifaxs
Grand Parade, renaming it Grand Pray in commemoration of the young lives lost to suicide
in Attawapiskat and other Indigenous communities. Daviss practice relies on disruption
and intervention, while simultaneously prioritizing prayer, healing and gathering.
Installation view of Raven Daviss The De-Celebration of Canada 150 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, 2017
canadianart.ca 121

Vicky Sabourin
Vicky Sabourins life-sized dioramas act as theatrical sets for her performances. Her elaborate
folk maquettes are constructed using antiques, found objects, photography, papier mch
and natural matter, creating a whimsical playground meant to incite desire and fear. Sabourin
inserts herself into the setsin the case of Warmblood (2014 ) she crawls into a life-sized
felted horsemaking herself a character in a dark allegory. She also uses a particular French-
settler visual language. At Manif dart in Quebec City this spring, she mimed paddling motions
while sitting in a boat-like armoire and wearing a striped-wool blanket. Her performance
work acknowledges the historical erasure and misrepresentation of women in folk tales,
as well as the ongoing privatization of wilderness.
Vicky Sabourin Warmblood 2014 Wool, earth, stones, vinyl print, rope and performance
courtesy galerie trois points photo guy lheureux

AnnA Heywood-Jones
Anna Heywood-Jones tests the dyeing properties of plants through practice-based research
in dyeing and weaving. She builds regional lexicons of colour through trials and studies,
exploring the ways in which plant life bears the marks of history. Vestiges (2015) is a textile
installation that explores spaces of temporary neglect, specifically the site of St. Josephs
Church in Halifaxs North End. Heywood-Jones dyed fibres using plants that grew where
the church was demolished in 2009, before the site was excavated in 2015, and in doing
so highlighted both the rapid pace of gentrification in the area as well as the clumsiness
and inefficiency of expansion. Bearing witness to the passage of time, Heywood-Jones acts
as a geologist, a textile artist and a botanical archivist.
Anna Heywood-Jones Vestiges 2015 Wool, silk, American elm, goldenrod, hammered shield lichen and staghorn sumac
2.27 m x 55.9 cm x 55.9 cm Photo Byron DAuncey
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Erika DEFrEitas
Erika DeFreitas often collaborates with her mother. Her performative actions explore habits
of ritual, and her portraits visualize moments of penitence. A Visual Vocabulary for Hands in
Mourning (2013) acts as a study, recreating common postures that hands take up in times of
grief. Her 2016 exhibition at Torontos Gallery 44 featured portraits of her mother weighed
down by 300 beaded rosaries, which the two women had strung together by hand. Her use
of textiles extends to her series Teleplasmic Study with Doilies (201011), in which DeFreitas
uses her mothers and grandmothers doilies to mimic archival images of seances in 1920s
Winnipeg, which show fabrics emerging from participants mouths. In these seances, lost
loved ones animate the fabrics through spiritual intervention, and in her versions, DeFreitas
postitions herself in reverence under the weight of her ancestors labour.
Erika DeFreitas A Visual Vocabulary For Hands in Mourning (no. 65) 2013 Digital ink-jet print 45.7 x 30.5 cm
Photo Daniel ehrenworth

Colin lyons
What appears to be a space-age rainwater-collection system outside of Dawson City, Yukon,
is actually a prototype for a low-tech artifact-conservation unit. In 2015, Colin Lyons created
Time Machine for Abandoned Futures, an inefficient off-grid lab with a battery powered by
etching acid, designed to clean industrial objects scavenged in an area that witnessed decades
of dredging. Lyons was born in the rust belt of Windsor, Ontario, and he highlights the
impermanence of industry by creating anti-monuments to the ruins of North Americas
manufacturing past. In 2013, his kinetic sculpture The Conservator was installed in the Soap
Factory, a former warehouse complex reclaimed for the arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Lyonss machine polished a rusted I-Beam in the gallery. The work points to societys attempts
to sanitize industrial heritage sites for urban renewal, and the artists chemical experiments
reference his training as a printmaker. He takes etching chemicals beyond their traditional
boundaries and acknowledges the role of printmaking in heavy-duty art production.
Colin Lyons Time Machine for Abandoned Futures 2015 Gold rush artifacts, Plexiglas, aluminum, copper sulphate,
soda ash, copper plates, zinc plates and wire 2.74 x 4.27 x 2.44 m
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AzzA El SiddiquE
In her recent exhibition Lattice Be Transparent, Azza El Siddique tapped into the nostalgic
properties of scent. In the basement of 8eleven Gallery, drips of water fell onto a pile of
henna. Surrounding this installation were burning pots of Bakhoor (incense), an aroma that
elicited a powerful sense of recognition in the artist when she encountered it in a store in
Toronto. The materials in El Siddiques sculptural assemblages act as clues that point toward
memories of her past, traits of her family and details of her diasporic experience as a Sudanese
Canadian. At first glance, her assemblages of fabrics, mesh and concrete blocks appear to be
abstract material explorations in form and balance. But for El Siddique, each element
specifically references an incident or story. She works with rigid materials in a way that makes
them appear pliable and fibrous, referencing her fathers work as a pulp-and-paper scientist.
Acting as sculptural portraits, her works demonstrate a nuanced approach toward visualizing
personal history and family ancestry.
Azza El Siddique a/s/l 2017 Glass, privacy film, cinder blocks, vinyl, safety netting, latex paint, plastic cord, thermoplastic,
spray paint and hydrocal Dimensions variable Photo Yuula Benivolski

Chun
Chun
hua
hua
Catherine
Catherine
Dong
As a regular participant in biennials and festivals worldwide, Montreal-based Chun Hua
Catherine Dong is positioning herself as a key player on the international performance art
circuit. On the heels of her exhibition Visual Poetics of Embodied Shame at Ace Art Inc.
in Winnipeg, she is preparing for another solo exhibition at Modern Fuel in Kingston in
2018. Every time the artist travels she builds on the ongoing series I have been There (2015),
in which she lies on the ground covered in Chinese silk-brocade fabric. It is customary in
Dongs hometown in China for daughters to cover their lost elders in this manner, and given
her uncertainty as to whom she will be buried by, she opts to bury herselfpublicly and
repeatedly. In To Begin (2016 ), she struggles to hold a pile of history books, repeatedly
dropping them and recording the exact time of her failed attempts. Highlighting the
inevitability of collapse in todays sociopolitical climate, Dongs repeated failures cause
a momentary release, and her durational performances investigate how the body acts
as a mediator throughout time and space, and across borders.
Chun Hua Catherine Dong I have been There Manchester 2016 Performance and photography
Photo Ines Valle
RBC is passionately committed to supporting emerging artists across Canada and internationally,
and is proud to partner with Canadian Art on this Spotlight series.
canadianart.ca 127

a surrealist
in the
Gaspsie
by Jonah Samson
Surf at Perc Rock postcard,

n.d. H.V. Henderson,
West BatHurst, neW BrunsWiCk
Andre Breton _F17_12TS.indd 128 08/03/17 12:27 AM

Perc Rock, the massive limestone formation off the tip of the Gasp depicts a female figure kneeling by a small pool of water with two urns,
Peninsula in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, has existed for 375 million years, the contents of which she pours into the water and onto the land to
and in 15,000 years it will have completely collapsed into the sea. Water nourish the earth and continue the cycle of life. It is one of the most
that accumulates in the crevices of the rock freezes each winter, causing positive cards in the Tarot deck, and is a symbol of faith in the future.
hundreds of tons of stone to detach annually, and the rhythmic lash of For Breton, the stories of Melusina, Isis and The Star represented the
the tides is a constant source of erosion. The impermanence of something keys to transforming the world. These female figures demonstrated that,
so imposing is unnerving. Its existence has spanned countless lifetimes, in the darkest of times, there is always a light, and that this light is
and yet its longevity is not limitless. unquestionably feminine. It was clear to him that only a feminine
It was this destructive process that inspired French Surrealist Andr worldview could remedy the destructive, masculine powers that had
Breton to write Arcanum 17, his meditation on love, war and resurrection, brought Earth to a place of such darkness.
during a journey to Gasp in 1944. Breton, his wife and their daughter The time has come to value the ideas of woman at the expense of
left France in 1941 due to the Nazi occupation, and moved to New York those of man, whose bankruptcy is coming to pass fairly tumultuously
for the duration of the Second World War. Although Breton had escaped today. It is artists, in particular, who must take the responsibility, if only
the atrocities of Europe, he was personally devastated when his wife to protest against this scandalous state of affairs, to maximize the importance
subsequently left him and took their only child. Several years later, while of everything that stands out in the feminine world view in contrast to
still in the United States, Breton fell in love again, with a woman who the masculine, to build only on womans resources, Breton wrote in
had also a suffered terrible personal loss after her only daughter had Arcanum 17. Those of us in the arts must pronounce ourselves unequivocally
drowned. In their burgeoning relationship, each of them found the against man and for woman, bring man down from a position of power
optimism to rebuild their shattered lives. It was the flourish of love born which, it has been sufficiently demonstrated, he has misused, restore this
out of terrible loss that Breton projected upon the shifting political power to the hands of woman.
landscape of France. One must go to the depths of human sorrow, discover Writing this while on the Gasp Peninsula (a name that was likely
its strange capacities, he wrote in Arcanum 17, in order to salute the derived from the Mikmaq word meaning lands end), Breton, one
similarly limitless gift that makes life worth living. Just as he had been could imagine, was burdened by the aggressive history of the place itself.
renewed by love, Breton believed the occupation of France by the Germans It was here in 1534 that Jacques Cartier first planted a cross to claim the
would energize the Resistance Movement to regain Frances liberty. In a land for the king of France, despite the presence of the Indigenous peoples
world fighting off the dark burden of war, he believed that rebellion could already on ita moment that marked the beginning of European violence
be attained through poetry, liberty and love. While in Gasp during the in the region. This troubling history and the destruction wrought during
fall of 1944, Breton poetically viewed the slow-motion crumbling of Perc the Second World War caused Breton to proclaim that artists had an
Rock as the physical representation of hope in those dark times. It became obligation to assist in the transfer of power of men to women. This call
a powerful symbol of the constant changes he observed in nature, and was radical: not a declaration for the equal rights of women, but rather
of metamorphosis itself. All things, must, on the outside, die, but a power an assertion of the superiority of woman over man. Breton believed that
that is not at all supernatural makes death itself the basis for renewal, women were closer to nature, and therefore feminine values provided
he wrote. In the flap of a butterflys wings, in the bloom of the rose after the natural forces that were necessary to bring peace and harmony to
winter, Breton found evidence of resurrection. In Arcanum 17, Breton the planet. Bretons coupling of femininity with nature would be
describes natures limitless ability to transform, and accounts of Perc challenged 30 years later by Sherry Ortner who wrote, Woman is not
Rock are interwoven with folk tales, mythology and the occult. in reality any closer to (or further from) nature than manboth have
There is the tale of Melusina, the French spirit who would appear as consciousness, both are mortal. So perhaps our hope lies not in the
a woman, but was cursed to transform each week into a figure that was divergence of masculine and feminine, but rather in the expansion of
half-woman, halfwater serpent. And the story of Osiris, the Egyptian our collective consciousness. Humanitys aspirations for liberty must
god of the dead, who was resurrected by his wife, Isis. And of course the always be given the power to recreate themselves endlessly, Breton
Tarot: the books title, Arcanum 17, takes its name from the 17th card of wrote. Thats why it must be thought of not as a state but as a living
the Tarots Major Arcana, also known as The Star. Traditionally, this card force bringing about continual progress.
In 1944, while Canadian troops stormed the beaches of Normandy,

Andr Breton retreated to the Gasp Peninsula, where
the French Surrealist would write Arcanum 17
his bracing meditation on love, war, resistance and resurrection
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how digital archives and social media
reassemble and resist the standard histories
of queer communities
The ARChIVe ACTS up

by Evan Pavka
Histories of sexuality are rarely, if ever, sexy. Instead, they are commonly are not a recent phenomenon. When you look back and see the way in
marked by violence, silence and limited archival privilege. With few archives which digital infrastructure was shaped, theres a long history of the queer
dedicated to queer histories spread across the countrythe Canadian and trans communities use of online spaces and online technologies,
Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto being the most notable, with others media historian Cait McKinney says, discussing her research into the Critical
including the Manitoba Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Paths AIDS Project that developed early software linking proto-Internet
Manitoba, Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria, Archives boards to share information regarding HIV/AIDS that the government and
of Lesbian Oral Testimony held at Simon Fraser University and the Archives medical industries had censored.
gaies du Qubec in Montrealhow can queer histories past and present, It seems fitting, then, that activist engagement with computing would
which are increasingly enmeshed with digital technology, be remembered? extend to the current expansion of social-media archives assembling,
Archives in general are centred on two guiding questions: What is distributing and archiving material on the periphery of queer histories.
important to remember and how? Processes of archiving and remembering ButchCamp (@butchcamp on Instagram), run by Lisbon-based artist Isa
are deeply human and are embedded with the same biases and subjectivity Toledo and Los Angeles and Arnhem-based graphic designer Rosie
that make us what we are. Where the importance of historic material is Eveleigh, is one archive that catalogues butch identity through film,
dictated by the custodians of the archivemuseums, universities and media, anime, music and more. The account features posts ranging from
libraries, among othersand defined by the heterosexual, colonial and a 1928 self portrait of Lotte Laserstein, accompanied by subcultural meta-
Eurocentric logics they represent, the surge of digital-born material has data hashtags #dykesandtheircats #softbutch, to press photos of Canadian
complicated the how of remembering. crooner k.d. lang in a lime-green sweater embroidered with HOMO.
In recent years, many archives have implemented digitization efforts Instagram provides a more complex platform for the culturally frivolous
to make their holdings more accessible and to preserve digital objects before and historically serious to overlap and interact. Unlike the canonized
their inevitable degradation. Memory metaphors are often applied to these history-makers found in institutional collections, the camp eye of the
forms of archiving and storagethe memory of computer servers, for Instagram archivist makes relevant the cultural tropes, identities and
instanceyet they remain as unstable as human recollection. In time, individuals that official structures often disregard. Digital-born material is
images disappear, links expire, files corrupt and hard drives degrade. naturally oriented toward divergent communities and networks of meaning,
Alongside these precarious digitization efforts, digital media has become a focus that in turn grants them cultural significance. ButchCamp is one
a powerful tool to present revisionist histories of non-heterosexual presence among a larger cohort of social-media anti-archives, such as Instagram
that resist the authority of the parallel, material archive while extending accounts Herstory (@h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y) and LGBT History (@lgbt_history),
the previously limited control queer people have over their histories and that attempt to debunk the false authority of institutional holdings, providing
interpretations. These entanglements of authority, control and technology alt-historical narratives that remake unseen queer cultural constellations.
QueerArchive-F17_11TS.indd 130 08/05/17 1:31 PM

A press photo of k.d. lang posted by @butchcamp, an Instagram
account run by Lisbon-based artist Isa Toledo and Los Angeles
and Arnhem-based graphic designer Rosie Eveleigh.
Yet the fleeting immediacy of social media and the codified language we imagine the past as this dark horrible period, but it wasnt like that.
used within it remains a constant reminder of the fact that the archive These men were just living their lives and dealing with it. All the
can be expunged at any momenta consequence of the ephemeral media documents in the world are not going to tell you that.
that otherwise fills queer archives, along with all that was lost or resisted Coming as close to an oral history social media can provide, the Aids
archiving along the way. The ways we engage with the history of queerness Memorial (@the_aids_memorial)another Instagram-based archive
and the history of social movements is about the kind of media those crowdsources photographs and obituaries of men and women who lost
movements were using to do their work, McKinney says. There is a real their lives to AIDS. Accompanying captions detail personal and social
challenge in how we are documenting, or failing to document, all the livescomplications surrounding stigmatization of the disease, engagement
queer cultural production that is happening in our moment. There is an with social movements and easily overlooked descriptions of raising
impermanence to the work and a real tension in wanting to preserve it, children or family memoriesextending, humanizing and resisting the
but it being impossible. often whitewashed grand narratives of queer pasts.
While Instagram grants what appears to be an almost infinite access to In response to Stefan Cookes tribute to his father, Alan Cooke (193389),
archival logicsavailable at any moment to any individual with Internet for example, which reminisces on the elder Cookes travels down the
accessit still succumbs to the heterosexual and patriarchal structure of Mackenzie River and his affinity for listening to Mozart in his Montreal
the physical archive. The platforms user agreements and regulations dictate apartment, one commenter remarked: I felt like I could see a life in
the content that can and cannot be sharednotably censored are female snapshots through your story.
nipples or graphic sex actsunlike Tumblr, which has become home to As an archive of trauma, as opposed to things, the account reminds us
more explicit and exciting archival projects. Researchers such as Jen Jack that histories do not exist in objects or images but in the complex relationships
Gieseking are even collecting Tumblr posts by trans people as important and memories shared between the people they embody. And, that even
archives of sexual and gender identities. small moments captured in grainy family photographs are monuments.
Whether physical or digital, receptacles of memory ultimately rely For French philosopher Jacques Derrida, the hetero-patriachal archive
on oral histories to commemorate the community structures from where was a source of powerin the control and dissemination of material
their holdings originate and to complete the image of the past when artifactsthat social media now challenges in its access, network and
and where the archive fails. People are devoting all their time to the instability. These fragile, digital-born anti-archives emphasize that the
archive, but they need to be out there with their tape recorders interviewing process of telling our histories, frequently through intangible and appropriated
people, says cofounder of the Archives gaies du Qubec Ross Higgins, means, is as important as the physical traces left behind. As feminist scholar
recalling the 30 interviews he conducted during his doctoral dissertation and writer Sara Ahmed suggests, Perhaps when you put the pieces back
on pre-liberation, queer male life in Montreal. What I learned was that together you are putting yourself back together.
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QueerArchive-F17_11TS.indd 131 08/05/17 1:32 PM

InvIsIble colours
A groundbreaking film and video festival made for and
by women of colour in late 1980s vancouver stands
as an important precedent for the return of identity politics
Rosemary Heather in conversation

with Zainub Verjee
The personal trajectory of Zainub Verjee over the past four decades intersects with cultural moments that continue Still from Tracey
to resonate. Born in Kenya and educated in the UK, Verjee arrived in Canada in the 1970s to study economics at Moffatts Nice
Coloured Girls (1987),
Simon Fraser University. A close collaborator with Ken Lum in the early years of Vancouvers photoconceptualism which made its
movement, and with Sara Diamond on a history of womens labour in British Columbia, Verjee also helped build Canadian premiere
the international profile of the Western Front, worked on early digital initiatives at the Canada Council for the Arts at InVisible Colours
CourteSy roSlyn
and Department of Canadian Heritage and is an artist herself. In 1989, she co-founded, with Lorraine Chan, InVisible oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Colours (IVC), an international festival in Vancouver dedicated to film and video by women of colour. A landmark
event of its time, IVC assembled works by then-emerging artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Gurinder Chadha, Alanis
Obomsawin, Merata Mita and Mona Hatoum. IVC and the issues it foregrounded is one reason why, from Verjees
perspective, the identity politics of today is in large part a return to a conversation that started in the 1980s.
InVisible Colours-F17_8TS.indd 132 08/05/17 1:10 PM

Rosemary Heather: Its been almost 30 years since you staged InVisible RH: Was this conversation also happening in Vancouver at the time?
Colours, with more than 100 films and videos by artists from 28 countries
and 75 international delegates in attendance. The event focused on global ZV: Indeed. For instance, from the 1970s onwards, Chilean women in
issues around diversity and representation. What do you think has changed the exile community established themselves in Vancouver. Their activism
in the intervening time? Have we seen any progress? against the Pinochet dictatorship influenced multiple sites: Simon Fraser
University, artist scenes and centres, literary circles and left movements.
Zainub Verjee: InVisible Colours emerged amid contestations on nation Pinochet was, after all, the poster boy of the neoliberal regime!
building and the making of a global neoliberal order, as much as the social In 1987, I started working at Women in Focus Society (WIF), a feminist,
and political upheavals of the late 1970s and 80s that foregrounded race, arts and media centre devoted to womens cultural production in film,
gender and the politics of cultural difference. IVC was primarily about the video and the visual arts in Vancouver. I recall the WIF exhibition Mujer,
contested history of the modernist aesthetic and modernism in the visual arte y periferia [Women, art and periphery], in 1987, raising complex
arts and the making of the contemporary conditionas a historical questions about the gestures of Chilean women under dictatorship as
markerfor the decolonized world. It asked: Who was defining this marker? well as the placement of womens art.
To reduce that conversation to diversity and representation can undermine It was within these larger contexts that I noticed there were no works
the deeper issues of contested art histories and the politics of aesthetics. by women of colour in WIFs distribution collection. This overwhelming
The reality today is that embedding oneself into such a discourse is still absence of the voice of women of colour in the Canadian context led to
a massive challenge for people of colour, particularly women. the first conversations that ultimately took the form of IVC.
RH: So IVC was essentially informed by that eras worldwide push for RH: This sense of tumult at the end of the 1980 s produced other
decolonialization, but with a stronger emphasis on discourse, correct? exhibitions that were equally influential to the direction of IVC. Can
you talk about that?
ZV: IVC was made, not found; it was historically produced and was
historically productive. Post-war decolonization led to a global societal ZV: The two-year period leading to IVC in 1989 became coterminous with
upheaval. There were transatlantic responses in the art world: In New other exhibitions of equal critical import. In Paris, in response to the
York, for example, the Museum of Modern Arts controversial Primitivism colonial ethnography of MoMAs Primitivism exhibition, Jean-Hubert
in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, in 1984, can Martin curated Magiciens de la Terre, presenting works by more than
be read in context of the ascendancy of two generations of Black artists 100 Western and non-Western artists from 50 countries. In London,
(this includes South Asians) in the UK in the early 1980s. Their contrasting Araeens The Other Story invoked multiple modernities. And in Ottawa,
relationship to modernism, and opposition to anticolonial and postcolonial Gerald McMasters In the Shadow of the Sun framed Indigenous
politics, resulted in the making of the Black British Arts movement. contemporary expression without any apology, offering a definitive
In Canada, the 1951 Massey Report frames this nation-building project, moment in the contemporary art history of Canada.
and despite its multiple flawsprimarily its Eurocentric orientation
remains well entrenched today. The failure of the 1970 Royal Commission RH: Canada has long branded itself as a successful multicultural experiment.
on the Status of Women led to a flurry of counter-events with the emergence Is there any truth to this idea? Or does a new conversation have to happen?
of second-wave feminism. Race also became a major element in this What would the terms of that conversation be?
collective endeavour and shook the cultural institutional apparatus.
IVC was a forerunner of these phenomena. ZV: The managerial template of multiculturalism emerged from the
political expediency of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and
RH: You worked with cultural theorist Stuart Hall, who was a key inspiration Biculturalism in the 1960s. Today, it is philosophically defunct. Politically,
for Black British Artsthe radical political art movement founded in the however, it is still used to package difference as a recited truth! This
UK in 1982 and inspired by anti-racist discourse and feminist critique. elastic sense of multiculturalism is central to the recasting of racism today.
How did Black British Arts influence IVC? Given the increased anxieties around race, we keep seeing the fault lines
every now and then, as in the recent controversy around a so-called
ZV: Since I was from London and hooked into that scene, I closely followed Cultural Appropriation Prize. Primarily, this call to reward cultural
Lubaina Himids set of three exhibitions beginning in 1983 and culminating appropriation is flippant and a distraction from deeper issuesincluding
with The Thin Black Line at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in the term representation. We continue to invent or quarrel over words!
1985. Together they addressed Black invisibility in the art world and Diversity is a very homogenizing term; the culture of liberal individuality
engaged with the sociopolitical and aesthetic issues of the time. conflates difference as pluralism!
Over that decade, artists and thinkers such as Hall, Sonia Boyce, Hanif Over the past few decades we have created new vocabularies that
Kureishi, Kobena Mercer and Rasheed Araeen, and institutions like the promote an assumption that this issue has been addressed. Institutional
Black Audio Film Collective, Sankofa and Third Text, were other major amnesia has settled in with a normalizing effect. Today, Truth and
influences. They informed me about the agency I had as a person of Reconciliation is an important marker, but there is a danger in misreading
colour and how I could use that position to intervene on the racialized the growing ascendancy of the identity politics. A wrong reading of history
gender issues of cultural production and institutional discourse that had will create conditions for it to be consumed and pigeonholed by the same
been unleashed by globalization and a new neoliberal order. liberalism with no emancipation in sight for generations to come.
canadianart.ca 133
InVisible Colours-F17_8TS.indd 133 08/04/17 2:11 AM

This
womans work
in western Canada, women sculptors
render visible the weight of hidden labour with industrial materials
by Ginger Carlson
Vancouver-based Vanessa Browns 2016 body of work The Hand of Camille calls into question the
visibility of women and their erasure from art histories and institutions. Browns exhibitiontitled
after 19th-century French sculptor Camille Claudel, whose work was largely overshadowed by
her lover Auguste Rodin and remained in relative obscurity until the mid-20th centuryreflects
on the often-invisible labour that comprises art- and exhibition-making through a series of
sculptures fabricated primarily in steel. Executed in delicate geometric and figurative forms, the
works push their thin armatures to stretch beyond the conventional semiotics of steelwhich
attribute weight and dimension as indicators of successand instead evoke the subtleties and
tactility of the medium. A simultaneous exploration of form and of the gendered idiosyncrasies
involved in working with industrial materials, The Hand of Camille poetically reinserts the female
hand that produces as a counter to those other hands that have often appeared more visibly.
The subject of visibility is of considerable relevance to women artists working in sculpture
with industrial materials. In some cases, women are highly visible, by virtue of the anxieties of
working in mostly male spaces or with mostly male fabricators. In others, they are hardly visible
at all. They exist as preparators and artist assistants whose labours and hands fade into the
background, or as artists in their own right, whose works are nonetheless unacknowledged or
underappreciated. While Browns practice operates within a unique set of historical, political and
social circumstances, her inquiries into material and artistic status also have great bearing on
sculptors working in Alberta, where the oil and gas industry has made steel and scrap metals, as
well as heavy industrial and metal fabrication technologies, more readily available than in other
art centres. In Calgary and Edmonton, two counterpoints in the Prairies catalyzed by access to
industrial materials and deeply entrenched Modernist art histories, there have been many important
and influential women artists working with these materials who have remained only modestly
recognized and appreciated outside of the province.
Katie Ohe was one of the first artists to work in the field of abstract sculpture in Alberta. She
has lived and worked in Calgary for the majority of her career since graduating from the Alberta
Catherine Burgess Echo
College of Art and Design in 1957. Ohe has established herself as an icon of considerable generosity, 2012 Steel and granite
while mentoring and teaching at Mount Royal College, the University of Calgary and ACAD over 2.03 x 1.6 x 1.88 m overall
K OHE_ F17_16TSHR.indd 134 08/05/17 12:58 PM

canadianart.ca 135
K OHE_ F17_14TSHR.indd 135 08/03/17 1:06 AM

Katie Ohe Zipper 1975 opposite: installation view
Welded steel, chrome, of Vanessa Browns
mechanical rotary parts The Hand of Camille
2.39 m x 76.2 x 76.2 cm at Wil aballe art Projects,
Photo Serita rana 2016 Photo DenniS ha
regional tradition, Catherine Burgess has similarly forged a path into

the medium, a generation after Ohe, as one of only a handful of women
artists working in steel. While Burgess initially created formalist work
in line with her male peers, motherhood acted as a catalyst for reexamining
the narrative and subconscious potential of her sculpture. Like Ohe,
Burgess was a mentor and teacher to emerging artists, in her case, at the
University of Alberta. Burgesss public sculptures wind through the
downtown core and into the suburbs, with large-scale projects in
Edmonton and suburban Sherwood Park alongside collaborators Sandra
Bromley, Walter Jule and Royden Mills. Her most recent public sculpture,
Return (2001), located on Jasper Avenue, gracefully twists and turns
upwards from its base, three spiralling stacks of 393 individually cast
aluminum rings.
Like Brown, Ohe and Burgess perform and unfold their sculptural forms
to encompass and expose the matrix of steels mutability and its potential
for intimacy. Ohes sculptures respond and move with the viewer, inviting
touch and participation through tactility and performance. Pushing against
the static monumentalism often implicated in large steel sculptures, her
works are forged with interaction in mind and invite us to experience the
potentiality of form in space, through spinning, rocking and leveraging
precise weights toward continuous motion. Burgesss sculptural forms
the course of her nearly 60-year career. These practices will continue at the poetically articulate philosophical and psychological concepts, constructing
Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, a charitable society dedicated to the promotion objects where thin steel, bronze and other metal armatures frame a
of contemporary art, which, in addition to housing an art gallery and a counterweight of voids and spaces. In her exhibition Absence / Presence
sculpture garden, will be a mentoring and research centre, providing studio (2012), for example, steel and metals converse with stone while thin planar
space, a residency program and access to Ohe and her husband Harry steel shapes open up the walls and floor space of the Art Gallery of Alberta,
Kiyookas library and sculpture facilities. like absences that enter into the unknown and invisible.
Recognition of Ohes work came gradually. While she has participated Ohe and Burgess, alongside other pioneering artists working in sculpture
in exhibitions, primarily in Alberta and outside of Canada, and has and installationBromley, Lyndal Osborne and Isla Burns in Edmonton,
completed many high-profile public-art commissions, her visibility has Rita McKeough and Shelley Ouellet in Calgary and Kainai-Blood artist Faye
not yet reached the level befitting an artist of such regional importance HeavyShield, to name a fewhave contributed much over the last 40 years
and influence. On the University of Calgary campus, generations of to the forging of space and the mining of visibility for women artists working
students have touched and rotated her seven-foot-tall steel-and-chrome in Alberta. The prevailing theme, here, is of a multiplicity of hands working
Zipper (1975) in the hopes that it might render luck and magic. At ACAD, together toward greater celebration and exposure of diverse practices; the
Janets Crown (2001), a tribute to Alberta artist, educator and mentor Janet expansion of networks, resource sharing and mentorship; and unsettling
Mitchell, overlooks the city and spins gently among a constellation of dichotomies to make space for new readings, new counter-histories and
stainless-steel stars. new systems of equity. They prove that the process of making visible is not
In Edmonton, where abstract formalist steel sculptures have a distinct a monolith, but a multiplicity.

Executed in delicate geometric and figurative forms,
The Hand of Camille stretches beyond the conventional semiotics of steel
and instead evokes the subtleties and tactility of the medium.
canadianart.ca 137

We Lost
An entire GenerAtion
indigenous peoples remain ghettoized within,
and largely absent from, what we
consider to be AiDs art. Here, we highlight
four artists lost to the disease
by Lindsay Nixon
IndigenousAIDSart_ F17_11TSLR.indd 138 08/02/17 11:23 PM

Issues of white supremacy as they pervade queer and trans communities were brought to national
attention during the 2016 and 2017 Toronto Pride parades when Black Lives Matter Toronto
intervened to demand an end to the corporate integration of uniformed police officers into Pride
festivities. In doing so, BLM TO firmly reminded us that before Pride became a parade, it was
a riot: Stonewall protestors were queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of colour, and
they were led by trans women of colour who armed themselves with bricks and rocks against
an increasingly violent police force.
Issues of inclusivity within queer and trans communities arent limited to Pride festivities.
Ultimately, they permeate the arts as wellsuch as through AIDS art. The necropolitics of AIDS
art flared up in 2015 when the exhibition Art AIDS America opened at the Tacoma Art Museum
with relatively few Black artists in the show, even though the Black community experiences
some of the highest HIV rates in the US. Die-ins at TAM were organized in response.
Within the borders of Canada, Indigenous peoples are currently facing an AIDS crisis, and
represent the highest statistics per capita of HIV-positive individuals and those experiencing low
CD4 levels associated with AIDS. Yet Indigenous peoples remain ghettoized within, and largely
absent from, what we consider to be AIDS art. The decimation of our communities experienced
at the height of the AIDS crisis is a contributing factor to Indigenous erasure in AIDS art. Jolene
Rickard once tearfully told me, When you lived in New York [in the 1980s and 1990s], you just
lost so many friends. A participant in Archer Pechawiss BigRedDice corroborates, giving a greater
sense of the devastating impact: Not many people realize that we lost an entire generation.
Queer Indigenous artists who have responded to love, sex, death and AIDS continue in the oral
histories of contemporary Indigenous art communities. This sampling of Indigenous AIDS art
cannot capture the enormity of its scope: all the AIDS quilts made in Indigenous communities
across Turtle Island; the touring exhibition Native Survival: Response to HIV/AIDS, curated by
Joanna Osbourne Bigfeather, which first appeared at Gallery of the American Indian Community
House in New York and featured work from Ryan Rice, Skawennati and Nadema Agardthe
documentation for which was destroyed in a fire; or the HIV-prevention basket Doris Peltier gifted
me that was part of a series woven by relatives in what is now known as colonial New Zealand.
What I hope this selection of works can offer, at least, is a window into the beauty, grit and
truth these Indigenous artists, and so many others, offer to AIDS art.
Ren Highway, New Song New Dance, 1982/88
June Scudeler has done extensive work historicizing the work of Tomson Highways long
overshadowed brother, Ren Highway. New Song New Dance, choreographed by Ren Highway
in 1982, was performed in 1988 with Alejandro Ronceria and Raoul Trujillo. It was organized into
three acts. In the first act, Andante, the dancers grow from being young boys in residential school
experiencing unspeakable abusealways intermingled with moments of boyish wonder and gay
curiosityto being men in the city, where they struggle to find a space for themselves and navigate
the temptations of city life, like the exhilaration of anonymous sex in public washrooms.
Ren Highways curatorial notes for Andante contain words like, hanging addiction/desire;
shit/washroom sex; bondage; slapped down; and shaming. Highway was conceptually
making a connection between BDSM sexthe erotic fascination found in acts of bondage,
shaming and anonymous sexand complicated histories of sexual abuse associated with
Ren Highway New Song... New residential school. In doing so, he was creating a space to work through histories of trauma in
Dance 1982/88 Archival
photograph 15.7 x 23.4 cm
a safe and consensual environment. In one scene, the choreographers visualize the tension of
Courtesy frank lennon/toronto struggling to fit their Indigenous bodies into white customs by getting tied up and choked by
star/Getty imaGes
canadianart.ca 139

New Song... New Dance was conceptually connecting BDSM sex
to abuse associated with residential school, creating a space to work
through histories of trauma in a safe, consensual environment.
their necktieswhat Highway called necktie abuse. In another, the photo series taken of various landmarks on Hastings Street in the Downtown
dancers repeat a squatting motion when the men engage in public sex, Eastsidea ground zero for the AIDS crisis in Vancouver during the 1980s
which relates back to the same squatting motion the dancers evoke when and 1990s. One particular photo was taken in front of the Roosevelt Hotel,
being rubbed in shit at residential school. New Song New Dance was a and shows a figure whose head is wrapped in plastic walking down the
defiant form of intergenerational trauma play and agential sexuality at sidewalk. Vancouver is the backdrop to an invisible but ominous cloud
a time when stigma and fear reigned. that suffocates and entangles Maskegon-Iskwewhe needs condom-like
Andantes opening scene has naked dancers basked in white light, and protection from it.
this is described in Highways curatorial notes as, the question of life and
death and why...I reach up for the death figure...we mirror each other...I Archer Pechawis, BigRedDice, 2005
accept fate and continue. As Scudeler thoughtfully notes, Its hard not
to think of his HIV-positive/AIDS status as he symbolically goes into the BigRedDice, and Archer Pechawiss practice as a whole, is an archive of the
light, since effective antiretroviral drugs were not available until 1996, six simultaneous shift in Indigenous art toward digital mediums and themes
years after his death. of love, sex, gender and intimacy. This shift became pronounced during
the late 1990s, but was already underway in the early 1990s with work by
Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, archived works, artists such as Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, Pechawis and Sheila Urbanoskis
late 1980s to early 1990s Net art project isi-pikskwewin ayapihkssak.
BigRedDice is an interactive website and, much like Pechawiss work
Cree-French-Mtis art theorist, curator, writer, new-media practitioner and itself, is an archive of sorts: an HIV/AIDS archive that transports the viewer
performance artist Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew left this world in 2006. He through a collection of considerations, fears, desires and provocations
was a seminal figure within contemporary Canadian Indigenous arts shift about HIV/AIDS that are recorded in video responses. The visitor repeats
toward digital and media art, and the Indigenous Net art and networked the motion of rolling the dice by clicking on an image that plays a video
art movements of the 1990s. Though Maskegon-Iskwew is well known for loop of dice being rolled, and then navigates a collage of video clips that
his writing and Net art, there is a robust archive of his earlier installation are populated depending on what number the visitor rolled.
and photography works completed from the late 1980s through the early BigRedDice uses the Internet as a space for connection and peer education
1990s, maintained by Vancouvers Grunt Gallery. around HIV/AIDS a web of connection remarkably close to the concept
In Body Wrap, for instance, Maskegon-Iskwew would wrap himself of extended kinship. This web becomes a catalyst for intimacy, knowledge
with white, cloth-like material, and photograph his body hanging in sharing and community response to HIV/AIDS. But this isnt your mamas
various positions in a warehouse in East Vancouver. In doing so, Maskegon- HIV education video. Pechawis makes a point of collecting responses that
Iskwew compares his body to a corpse, at times even positioning his body are heady and complex, and grapple with provocative issues such as HIV
on a wall as if it were art, with a somewhat humorous effect. culpability, pervasive stigmatization around sex resulting from the AIDS
The humour is in the irony, of course. Its a full-circle experience: crisis and the publics misperceptions about AIDS. One of the video
Maskegon-Iskwew attempted to create work that reanimated the queer participants even baits the judgmental viewer and plays on their biases,
Indigenous body during his life, but what remains of him in this world saying, You know obviously Im a ditch pig you can see semen oozing
are commodified representations of the dying Indian propped up on out of my ass. Im getting loads after loads of cum. Cmon. Put two and
gallery walls. two together figure it out. Where do you think Im at?
In another series, Maskegon-Iskwew photographs himself naked in a With BigRedDice, Pechawis facilitates a dialogue between people of
bathtub that is only half-filled with water. He is wrapped in a plastic bag varied relatedness to HIV/AIDS, mirroring the online dialogue around
and gasps for air. Red twine binds him. Plastic wrap also appears in another HIV/AIDS that became accessible with newly available web technologies.

Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew
Untitled ca. 1990s
Courtesy Grunt Gallery
Terry Haines, The Aboriginal Video Quilt, 2005 the individuals lost during the height of the AIDS crisis, and those whose
lives have been affected by their HIV-positive status. Hainess installation
Secwepemc-Welsh-Tsilhqotn-French artist Terry Hainess work is considered was meant to be a digital version of an AIDS quilt, and consisted of five
seminal in the realm of Indigenous AIDS art, and Hainess partner, Aaron monitors as well as mixed-media panels made of fabric, beads, Scrabble
Rice, now holds the archive. Haines homed in on issues of HIV/AIDS tiles, ribbons and fun fur, making for a humorous intermingling of
throughout his multidisciplinary practice, and he had built a rich career ceremonial, trade and aesthetic materialsan urban Indigenous raver
that was poised to explode. Haines picked up the new-media practices of vibe, if you will. Haines completed his last work, Coyote X, in 2013, weeks
the generation of Indigenous artists before him who defiantly split from before his death. Coyote X finds Haines on a Vancouver beach spray-painting
the Indigenous art community that preceded them, creating a stringent rocks collected from the shore with red positive signs: a homage to the
generational divide between those who moved into digital mediums city that defined his experience of contracting and living with HIV, nearly
and those who did not. 30 years after Maskegon-Iskwew similarly marked East Hastings. In making
The Aboriginal Video Quilt is a mixed-media installation completed by The Aboriginal Video Quilt and Coyote X, Haines created his own digital
Haines for an artists residency at VIVO Media Arts Centre (then Video In) squares for the AIDS quilt, which is now pieced together by his lover Aaron
in Vancouver. The concept for The Aboriginal Video Quilt derives from the Rice, just as the squares of textile-based AIDS quilts were sewn into place
AIDS Memorial Quilt project, intended to memorialize, square by square, by the kin who mourn those we have lost.
canadianart.ca 141

During the Second World War, millions of artworks and
cultural artifacts were stolen by the Nazis.
Thousands of these ended up in Canada, but only a handful
have been repatriated. This is the story of one
VOYAGE OF A LADY
by Blair Mlotek
In 1652, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, a Dutch portraitist of the Golden Age, painted his Portrait
of a Lady. Three centuries later, in Nazi Germany, the painting would figure in the midst of
a heated battle in the name of another ladys justiceone who was stripped of all that she loved.
Alma Salomonsohn didnt want to believe the rumours. She refused to leave Berlin to join
her sons in the United States until the day her friend, physicist Max Planck, came to her door.
If you ever want to see your sons again, he told her, you have to leave the country now.
It was summer 1939. Planck had come to Salomonsohns home in downtown Berlin to warn
her of Hitlers plans to shut Germanys borders. Finally convinced, Salomonsohn fled to London,
grabbing just one small painting, while leaving instructions for the packing and shipping of the
restamong them a Rembrandt, works by Brueghel and Ruisdael and Versproncks Portrait of
a Lady. In September, the Second World War began. The crate of paintings never arrived in London.
Half a century later, the Verspronck would rejoin Salomonsohns family, but not before it
passed through unnamed hands and went on an extended Canadian sojourn far from its rightful
owners. As the Jews of Eastern Europe were in flight or worse, the Nazis plundered their homes.
This included art: the Nazis saw the export of important art as the theft of German culture; if
a painting was deemed unworthy, it would be impounded or burned. Much of this looted art is
still lost, and thousands of works have ended up within Canadian bordersbut only a handful,
thus far, have been repatriated.
In 1943, the Allied armies formed the Monuments Mena group made famous by the 2014
George Clooney filmwith the mission to protect cultural treasures from the vagaries of war.
After the armistice, the group was able to recover and eventually repatriate millions of plundered
objectsusually to the governments of the countries they were taken from and not to their
original owners or descendants. Often these pieces ended up in national collections or were sold
without a trace of paperwork. As the stolen paintings migrated around the world, Jewish survivors
started new lives. Art was not top of mind.
Arthur and Alma Salomonsohn had purchased Versproncks Portrait of a Lady in 1909. Arthur
was a partner at the Disconto-Gesellschaft bank, which later merged with Deutsche Bank. The
couple enjoyed a large apartment in central Berlin as well as a country house, both of which were
filled with art. Arthur died in 1930. Later, when Alma fled Berlin for London, the painting was
Nazi art_ F17_15TS_HR.indd 142 08/05/17 1:43 PM

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck
Portrait of a Lady 1652
Oil on canvas 96.5 x 69.7 cm
COurtesy Art GAllery Of HAmiltOn
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Nazi art_ F17_14TS_HR.indd 143 08/04/17 1:38 AM

No questions were asked about the paintings
provenance. The 1980s were a very different time,
says Lucian Simmons, head of provenance and
research at Sothebys. No processes were put into
place to ensure the art trading hands had
the proper paperwork to confirm ownership.
sold at a Frankfurt auction in 1941, with the proceeds going to Nazi offices at it as she fell asleep each night. A few years later, Peter and Sarah decided
in Berlin-Brandenburg; the owner identified only with the untraceable to get the painting restored, and, after dropping it off in Paoli, Pennsylvania,
initials F.L. Alma would never see Portrait of a Lady again. During the war, Sarah got a call from the restorer. Mrs. Solmssen, do you realize what you
Alma would join her children in the United States, leaving behind the have here? the restorer asked her. It was by Adriaen Jansz van Ostade,
wealth she enjoyed in Berlin. She changed her name to Alma Solmssen. a 17th-century Dutch painter of peasant life who was likely the student
In the late 40s, Solmssen began efforts to retrieve her paintings. She of Frans Hals. Sarah often considered the photos shed seen of Almas home
compiled a list of the artworks she had packed before leaving Berlin and in Berlin, with paintings hung, salon-style, all over the walls. Thoughts of
enlisted a lawyer to track them down using photographs and a statement all that Alma lost were always brewing and simmering. The topic of art
of confirmation from Carl George Heise, director of Kunsthalle Hamburg, looting stayed on her radarshe had been reading books and keeping
that he had seen the works at her home. The search proved fruitless; the newspaper clippings. Sarah knew that Peters Omi remained an important
family decided to forget the paintings and move on. figure in his life, even after her death when he was young. By searching for
The Verspronck reappeared in 1986, when it was purchased by Dutch Almas painting and learning about her past, she felt that she got a chance
and Flemish Old Master dealer Johnny Van Haeften from an art runner to know her. The more she learned, the more she couldnt get over the
with the last name of Knig. As in 1941, the owner did not want to be injustice of it allthis theft on such a grand scale.
known. Van Haeften wasnt able to sell the Verspronck through his London In 1996, Jost von Trott zu Solz, a Berlin lawyer famous for working with
gallery, so he sent it to Sothebys for their Important Old Master Paintings restitution cases, approached the family. He worked with a cousin of the
auction in New York in June 1987. No questions were asked about the Solmssens to reclaim their art, and became aware that the Solmssens had
paintings provenance. The 1980s were a very different time, says Lucian missing art as well. Sarah and Peter met with von Trott zu Solz in New York,
Simmons, head of provenance and research at Sothebys. No processes were where he explained that a Swiss hedge fund would pay for the historical
put into place to ensure the art trading hands had the proper paperwork research in exchange for a percentage of the paintings worth. With nothing
to confirm ownership. to lose, the Solmssen family went ahead.
With funds from its volunteer committee, the Art Gallery of Hamilton Due to the high fees associated with getting a painting back, percentages
bought the painting for US$58,000 at this auction. They owned a small of its worth are often used as payment. For many trying to recover stolen
Dutch collection already, but wanted a portrait to expand it. The work went art, the legal costs make pursuing restitution prohibitive. There is a class
on to become one of the small gallerys prized possessions and was included element to all this, Marc Masurovsky, who co-founded the Holocaust Art
in many exhibitions. Restitution Project, explains. In some cases, a paintings worth is not enough
to interest law firms and is never fought for at all. Masurovsky says that
In 1991, Sarah Solmssen was poking around her mother-in-laws attic in this is the case for 90 per cent of people with lost art.
Philadelphia, in search of something to hang in her new home, one she The Solmssens were in the fortunate position to afford the legal fees
shared with husband, Peter, Almas great-grandson. They came across the out of pocket. Sarah became the liaison with the lawyers. They sent a list
one painting that Alma had brought with her from Berlin to London. based on Almas original letterthe first piece, by Italian early Renaissance
Sarah, you might like this, her mother-in-law said. The painting was dark painter Alesso Baldovinetti, hung in Berlins National Gallery. When the
and dirty, had been left out of its frame and was very yellowed. It depicted claim was sent, the gallery handed it right over. German law is clear with
a country inn, with travellers on horseback being greeted. Sarah brought restitution: the painting had Almas husband Arthurs name burned onto
it home and hung it in their new master bedroom, where she would stare its backand the Gemldegalerie had put their stamp right next to it.

Everett Parker Lesley, Jr. (left) (ca. 148990) to its home
of the Monuments Men in Krakw, Poland, in
returning Leonardo da Vincis 1946 CourtEsy MonuMEnts
Lady with an Ermine MEn Foundation
The art world began taking the topic of Nazi-looted art seriously in the with a list of recommendations for Holocaust-era property in Canada.
1990s. In 1997, when Masurovsky co-founded the Holocaust Art Restitution Masurovsky was in attendance, and says, It was one of those rare moments
Projectwhich conducts research on looted works, assists claimants and where there was a desire from all parties to come up with a product, or
seeks improvement of legislationthe issue could no longer be ignored. at least an outcome.
A year later, the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets saw If even a small part of the plan made at the 2001 conference had been
44 countries come together to establish 11 principles on art restitution and acted upon, he says, it would place Canada at the forefront of the art-
provenance practices. Each promised to implement the development of restitution movement. Canada only started taking action in 2013, after
a national process. Dr. Mario Silva was appointed chair of the International Holocaust
Meanwhile, Maria Altmann, heir of the Bloch-Bauers, laid claim to Remembrance Alliance on behalf of Canada.
Gustav Klimts painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, her aunt. The 2015 film The Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization began a project
Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren as Altmann, tells the tale: Altmann involving six of their member galleries. They worked on identifying
started a long and ultimately successful legal battle with Austria for the provenance gaps, and their research enabled galleries to create best-practices
painting. A Matter of Justice, a conference held in Ottawa in 2001, ended restitution guidelines. Masurovsky says that filling in the gaps in provenance
canadianart.ca 145

There is no real legal obligation for a gallery to give
back paintings, and therefore no consequences.
The art market and galleries must realize, as
Marc Masurovsky, co-founder of the Holocaust
Art Restitution Project, says, that what they
are working with has a taint of genocide on it.
Installation view of Maria the expropriation of

Eichhorns Unlawfully Acquired property formerly owned by
Books from Jewish Ownership Europes Jewish population
in the Rose Valland Institute and the ongoing impact
(2017) at Documenta 14. of those confiscations.
The interdisciplinary project MarIa EIchhorn/SoDrac
(2017) PhoTo MaThIaS VoElzkE
researches and documents
is a big job to do on a grant of $191,000, which is how much was allocated again. A new curator, Benedict Leca, began at the gallery with a stack
from Canadian Heritage. Moira McCaffrey, executive director at the of high-piled papers, all about the Verspronck. The Art Gallery of Hamilton
Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization, says that they were happy notified Peter and Sarah in 2015 that the painting would be returned.
to have the grant and to be able to do this work. This is a particularly Leca says that it was clear what had to be done. Its a red flag when theres
important project and in an ideal world there would be a lot more money a 30-year gap in a paintings history. He believes you cant be on the
for individual galleries to conduct provenance research of their own. wrong side of history.
The guidelines became available in June 2017. Braun and Leca have the same answer when asked if they were upset
Canada also participated in the conference that culminated in the to see the painting go: It was the right thing to do. Leca maintains that
Terezin Declaration of 2009, where the role of the national government although a long time passed between the initial claim and the restitution,
is deemed essential. According to Masurovsky, Canada has only made the gallery took all the right steps.
an expression of goodwill and, as of yet, has shown an unwillingness to
return stolen property. The fight is far from over for the Solmssens. They continue to look for
Without public policy, institutions remain unaccountable. Outside Arthur and Almas paintings, and right now their focus is on a Brueghel
of Canadian common law, there is no legal obligation for a gallery to give that is at a museum in Seattle.
back paintings, and therefore no consequences. The art market and galleries But for now, they have their Lady. While the gallery processed the
must realize, he says, that what they are working with has a taint of documents for the portraits return, Sarah researched how to have the work
genocide on it. shipped: it would cost $5,000 expensive. They figured they could just
pick the work up. As Sarah explained to Peter: We have a Yukon Denali
In 2003, von Trott zu Solz, the Solmssens lawyer, sent a letter to the Art lets just lay her in the back. Peter thought she was crazy, but they did it.
Gallery of Hamilton claiming Versproncks Lady belonged to the Solmssens. The Solmssens pulled into the service bay of the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Everyone at the gallery was shocked. one morning in July 2015.
Imke Gielen, the lawyer currently working on retrieving the Solmssens The 400-year-old painting sat wrapped in the back of the car. Peter,
paintings, explains that the first thing that needs to be established is Sarah and the Verspronck went first to pick up Sarahs parents in northern
the circumstances of how the piece became lost. Even with all the proof, Michigan. Sarah wanted to stop in Wisconsin, where some of their old
the gallery needed to be convinced that this painting was the same one horses still lived. The route took them across Lake Michigan, Versproncks
that left Almas hands in Berlin. Lady in the hold of the ferry. Sarah said goodbye to an old horse, who died
Christine Braun, collections manager at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a few months later. They went on their way, leaving the work in their car
says that it is normal for restitution to take a while. A large, grey accordion in garages deemed safe, or carrying the work into hotels. It sat wrapped
file marked Verspronck at the Art Gallery of Hamilton attests to the until getting to the Solmssens second house in New Mexico, where they
back-and-forth research and correspondence conducted over the years keep an organic farm.
between the gallery and von Trott zu Solz. They brought the work into the study and laid it on the carpet, cutting
Von Trott zu Solz died a few years after sending the first letter to the Art open the thick packaging with an X-acto knife. With tears in her eyes, Sarah
Gallery of Hamilton, and the case ran cold for about five years. lifted the painting up while Peter snapped a photo. Taking her place on
During this time, the gallery didnt reach out. In 2011, Sarah pushed the wall next to some of the art she kept company with in Alma and Arthurs
the firm to do something, and Gielen started corresponding with the gallery apartment in Berlin, Versproncks Lady was finally home.

canadianart.ca 147

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ENCOUNTERS
Canadian Art Encounters brings leading
international speakers to Canada.
This fall, three acclaimed writers appear in Toronto
for talks that focus on art writing: from historical
to personal, from theory to fiction.
ISABELLE GRAW
The Value of Painting
Monday, October 2, 7 p.m.
Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St. W., Toronto
ISABELLE GRAW IS A GuEST Of THE GOETHE-InSTITuT
MAGGIE nELSOn
In Conversation with Sheila Heti
Friday, November 17, 7 p.m.
Baillie Court, Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St. W., Toronto
PRESEnTED In PARTnERSHIP WITH
for tickets and information,visit canadianart.ca/encounters
Presented By
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Its no wonder that tourists flock to the workspace
of painter Francis Bacon, recreated in Dublin,
or travel along the rue Hippolyte-Maindron to enter
Giacomettis Parisian sculpture studio. On occasion,
though, a studio is more than just a place where
works are completed; its a work in and of itself.
Such is the case with the small wood-framed home
of self-taught painter Maud Lewis, who has long
been a national icon, but is only starting to gather
the international acclaim she deserves.
Lewis was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, in 1903.

She was small, born with a curved spine and
suffering from severe arthritis, and she preferred
time alone to the company of other children. It
was during these hours of solace that Lewis began
painting, first creating Christmas cards for her
mother. Little could she have known how important
this self-taught education would be.
After marrying labourer Everett Lewis and moving

into his tiny, one-room home in Marshalltown,
Nova Scotia, Lewis lived and worked in this space
from 1938 until her death. It was here that she
created and sold her sunny compositions, building
a reputation for herself and attracting attention
from the national press during her lifetime.
A Visit with MAud But Lewis didnt just create work and sell it out
of the home; she turned the home into a work
At hoMe of art. Bright birds and butterflies soar across

the front door; a garden of painted tulips blooms
along a windowpane. Inside, Lewiss modest
workstation, a small wooden chair next to
Artists' studios can be revealing spaces. Inside, a window, sits as she left it. Most surfacesfrom
the stair banisters to the ovenare covered in the
you can catch a rare glimpse into the creative signature colourful and cheery designs of Lewis,
process, and see the objects that surround and the few belongings speak to a simple life.
and even influencethe developing artwork. The house itself is now tucked within the Art
Gallery of Nova Scotia. After Everetts death,
the building was left empty and began
deteriorating. A fundraising campaign helped
move the house into storage, where it was
carefully restored, before being placed into a new
gallery at the AGNS, where it has been housed
since the mid-1990s. No attention to detail
was spared: original wallpapers were researched
and replicated, the belongings that Lewis had
left behind were restored, and objects identified
in photographs and film documenting Lewis
were acquired.
It was a big project for a little house, but the

building is so much more than just a structure.
Museums across the country have plenty
of Lewis's paintings, and Hollywood now has
the Lewis blockbusterbut only the AGNS
has the little painted house, which, ultimately,
was the greatest work of Lewiss lifetime.
MAud Lewis
Maud Lewis's Painted House
Maud Lewis's painted house at the art Gallery of nova scotia.
PurcHased by tHe Province of nova scotia, 1984 a1998.1
is PerManentLy on disPLay at tHe
courtesy art GaLLery of nova scotia PHoto steve farMer art GaLLery of nova scotia
ARt GALLeRY oF NoVA sCotiA

1723 Hollis street, Halifax, nova scotia
info.desk@novascotia.ca
artgalleryofnovascotia.ca
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Right: Michel Thomas Henry Lambeth (1923-1977), Joyce Wieland (close-up) (detail), date unknown, An Agency of the Government of Ontario
Gift of Av Isaacs, Toronto, 1994, Art Gallery of Ontario, 94/452, Estate of Michel Lambeth

ADVERTISEmENT
Finalists for Canadas Biggest Photo Prize

Offer New Visions of the World
1 Hank Willis Thomas After Identity, What?

2012 Aluminum letters on wood
and ink-jet print 2.03 x 1.07 m
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND JACK
SHAINmAN GALLERY
2 Taisuke Koyama Untitled (Rainbow Form

02) (from the series Rainbow Form,
part of Rainbow Variations) 2009
Archival pigment print 90 x 60 cm
TAISUKE KOYAmA
3 Raymond Boisjoly Station to Station

(detail, 1 of 5 prints) 2014 Five-screen
resolution LightJet prints mounted
on dibond Each 45.75 x 61 cm
COURTESY CATRIONA JEFFRIES
4 Liz Johnson Artur Untitled (from the

series Black Balloon Archive) 19862010
1 2 4
Dazzling rainbow colours abstracted were selected from a longlist of 30 of Boisjoly, an artist of Haida and Quebecois
from close-up photographs. A glamorously international nominees by a jury of three descent, colonial narratives and historical
posed woman juxtaposed with the experts. The jury consisted of artist certainty are complicated; nowhere
question, AFTER IDENTITY, WHAT? Ken Lum and curators Sophie Hackett is this clearer than his From age to age,
Intimate, candid images documenting and Eva Respini. as its shape slowly unravelled series,
the African diaspora. Found videos on which subverts found source material that
an iPhone transformed with otherworldly There is little in common, at first glance, highlights museological approaches to non-
glitches by a flatbed scanner. These in the works of each of the four artists. Western objects, which are often severed
are a few of the bodies of work highlighted But close examination of their practices from their context in institutions.
in the 2017 Aimia | AGO Photography reveals that they all carefully upend and
Prize, Canadas largest photography deconstruct expected Visitors to the AGO can see work by
award, which is co-presented by the narratives about their worlds. each of the finalists in an exhibition curated
data-driven marketing and loyalty analytics by Hackett. The exhibition is open from
company Aimia and the Art Gallery of Take the Unbranded series by Thomas, September 6, 2017 to January 14, 2018.
Ontario (AGO). which uses archival advertising materials, Voting begins in person at the AGO after
but alters them so that the companys the exhibition opens and on the Prize's
Now celebrating its 10th year, the prize logos and actual products are erased, website beginning on September 13, 2017.
awards $50,000 to the winner, who offering a clever skewering of consumer The winner will be announced on
is selected by public vote. Viewers will culture, particularly as it intersects December 4, 2017.
have a tough time making a selection with race. Or look to Koyamas colourful
this year: the four finalists are images; they may appear entirely abstract,
exceptionally strong. but their source material is often lifted
from the shifting urban landscape of
Each of the 2017 finalists hails from Tokyo. Within Arturs oeuvre, a nuanced,
a different country. Liz Johnson Artur diverse depiction of Blackness mounts a
(Ghana/Russia), Raymond Boisjoly counterpoint to the frequently problematic
(Haida Nation/Canada), Hank Willis Thomas representations of Blackness throughout
(USA) and Taisuke Koyama (Japan) the history of the medium. In the work
AimiaAGOPhotographyPrize.com @AimiaAGOPrize
AIMIA-AGO vs16.indd 1 08/10/17 7:08 PM

Anthony Burnham
16 septembre 4 novembre 2017
Pierre Dorion
11 novembre 2017 6 janvier 2018
Galerie Ren Blouin

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514.393.9 969 g.rb@videotron.ca
www.galeriereneblouin.com
avec lappui de la SOdec

Howard Podeswa: Still Life with Paper Balint Szako: Blood Orange Art Toronto
september 7 to october 14 september 7 to october 14 Solo Booth S02: Jaan Poldaas 19722017
Main Booth C52: Gallery Artists
october 27 to 30
birch contemporary
129 tecumseth street, toronto, canada m6J 2h2
416.365.3003 info@birchcontemporary.com

reviews recent exhibitions, books, films and more
168 CANADIAN AND

INDIGENOUS ART: Canadian and indigenous
169
1968 TO PRESENT
THE DEATH AND LIFE art: 1968 to Present
OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON NatioNal Gallery of CaNada, ottawa
170 CAN THE SINGLES
the National Gallery of Canadas recently reinstalled contemporary art galleries
JOI T. ARCAND
open with anishinaabe artist Carl Beams The North American Iceberg (1985).
171 FREE BLACK NORTH its a fitting narrative start to a curatorial project (which includes the parallel
MAPS AND DREAMS exhibition Canadian and indigenous art: from time immemorial to 1967)
172 56 ARTILLERY LANE that aims to amend the historical record on Canadian and indigenous art.
173 THE SKIN WERE IN Beams soaring multimedia work was, after all, the first piece by a first Nations
174 NEVER PRECIOUS artist purchased by the NGC (in 1986) for their contemporary collection. the
IN SEARCH OF EXPO 67 iconic work offers a pointed commentary on the history of colonialism in North
americasystematic racism and dispossession of indigenous landsand it is
175 HUMAN ACTS
how those events continue to echo into the present that gives the work, and
its place at the opening of this exhibition, such a resonant critical charge.
for the latest exhibition reviews, visit organized thematically by medium and chronology, the reinstallation is
canadianart.ca filled with correlations and counterpoints. Betty Goodwins heavily layered
Tarpaulin No. 3 (1975) hangs in one gallery opposite a colourful felt-appliqu
textile from 1976 by inuit artist Marion tuuluq. tuuluqs human, animal and
spirit figures stand in stark contrast to Goodwins chalky-grey minimalism
Reviews_F17_16TSLR.indd 168 08/04/17 3:32 PM

Indigenous arts community feel this rethinking of our national collection
is long overdue. Only time will tell if this re-visioning is not just part
of a celebratory moment, but rather a milestone on the long journey
to decolonization. WAHSONTIIO CROSS
The DeaTh anD Life

of Marsha P. Johnson
DAvID FRANCE, NETFlIx, 2017
I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in
jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation and you
all treat me this way? What the fucks wrong with you all?
Sylvia Riveras wordsshouted from the stage of a 1973 Christopher
Street liberation Day rallyare a damning and still-relevant condemnation
of an increasingly depoliticized and homonormative queer rights movement.
In The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, the failures of that movement
are cast in stark relief from Rivera, who, much like Grace Coddington
opposite Anna Wintour in The September Issue, is positioned as a tender,
nuanced individual who thanklessly sacrificed much of herself for an
shuvinai ashoona Untitled opposite:Carl Beam The North
unappreciative cause.
(50 Years Co-op) 2009 American Iceberg 1985 acrylic, The film follows victoria Cruz, an activist working with the New York
Coloured pencil and black felt photo-seriograph and graphite City Anti-violence Project, as she exhumes the case of the unexplained
pen on wove paper 1.58 m x on Plexiglas 2.13 x 3.74 m death of Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, one that was ruled a suicide
76.5 cm both images Courtesy
NatioNal gallery of CaNada but widely thought to be a murder. Johnson is more symbol than subject
gift of robert Kardosh
representing different artistic traditions that celebrate womens roles in

maintaining the social and cultural fabric through labour, teaching and
creativity. In a sunlit atrium, Beams Voyage (1988), a 1:5-scale model of
Christopher Columbuss ship the Santa Mara, lies immobile, its frame
reminiscent of sun-bleached whale bones. This uneasy feeling is echoed in
the second-floor galleries, where Brian Jungens Vienna (2003) and Shapeshifter
(2000), two whale skeletons transformed from white plastic lawn chairs, are
suspended lifelessly overhead. The scale and placement of these pieces
command contemplation on enduring themes of exploration and movement,
expansion and extinction.
One of the greatest moments in the exhibition is its incorporation of Inuit
art into a contemporary context. Too often in galleries, Inuit drawing and
sculpture has been labelled as artifact rather than fine art, wrongfully portrayed
as part of a static, untouched culture. Formerly housed on the NGCs ground
floor, contemporary Inuit art now takes its rightful place with the rest of the
national collection. Michael Massies uni-tea (2000), a silver-and-ebony teapot
sculpture, combines imagery of an ulu knife and a narwhal tusk, incorporating
Inuit and Western artistic influences. A remarkable sculptural drawing from
2009 by Shuvinai Ashoona depicts people holding hands around its triangular
surface, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Kinngait Studios. Displayed
alongside Ed Piens personal drawings created daily from 1999 to 2010, and
layered architectural drawings by Alison Norlen, these works show an interplay
of the individual and collective experience of time across places and cultures,
bringing about a sense of diversity as well as unity.
Without prior knowledge of Indigenous history in Canada, some of the
messages in the exhibition can get lost. European exploration and expansion
happened at the expense of Indigenous peoples, and the effects of colonialism
continue and need to be rectified. The exhibition is subversively critical, but
the critique needs to be more overt and unapologetic. Many of us in the
Diana Davies sylvia ray

rivera and marsha P.
Johnson at City hall rally for
gay rights, april 1973
NyPl Catalogue id b14442517
canadianart.ca 169

reviews
in the film, fondly remembered through the memories of her friends and
family but regrettably not heard from, as archival footage is scarce, limited to
the occasional sassy quip.
That said, its crucial to not reduce Johnson to a snappy joke. Johnsons
activism was direct and tangibleshe gave away the clothes on her back,
galvanized a disenfranchised community through STAR (Street Transvestite
Action Revolutionaries) and created a space on East 12th Street that did the
often underrated work of clothing, housing and feeding trans people.
An ongoing issue in Marsha P. Johnson is that for the supposed emphasis
on Johnsons life, less than half of the movie is dedicated to it. Cruzs investigation
is well intended and fulfills its duty to Johnsons memory, but ultimately leads
nowhere, not to a resolution or even a moral. As a result, regurgitating the
details surrounding her death emphasizes trauma rather than resolves it,
underlining the ongoing state of emergency for trans and gender non-
conforming people.
But Frances film accomplishes its mission, drawing an important comparison
to contemporary cases of violence against trans women of colour. For every
charge that Pride fails to represent a certain group, Marsha P. Johnson reiterates
the fact that trans women put everyone else before themselves. Its high time
we returned the favour. vIDAL WU
CAN THE SINGLES

MUTE/SPOON, LP, $36.99
Collecting records is, in many respects, a form of indulgent nostalgia. Think the relentless, machine-like pulse of the late drummer Jaki Liebezeit.
of the albums we never had, but wish we did, the ones loaned out but never The first three sides of this set deliver the CAN of memory: psychedelic/
returned and others that simply disappeared into the dustbin of history. With funk-infused hits alongside lesser-known, equally trance-inducing tracks.
vinyl back in fashion, its easier than ever to fill in that personal back catalogue. From there, memory begins to fade, particularly on the disco and instrumental
Record stores abound with re-issued LP classics and out-of-print rarities tracks from the late 1970s and 80s, where edge gives way to excess, and
pressed on heavy-duty vinyl with extensive liner notes, album artwork and the mind drifts to the next forgotten record on the list. BRYNE MCLAUGHLIN
bonus digital versions. Yet no matter how deluxe these new editions might
be, can they ever replace the lingering memories of the first?
This triple-LP set of B-side singles by krautrock pioneers CAN is a perfect
case in point. Founded in the late 1960s in Cologne, with influences that range JoI T. ARCAND
from keyboardist Irmin Schmidts corruption by Fluxus art and the Warhol- WALTER PHILLIPS GALLERY, BANFF
era Chelsea Hotel to Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukays studies with composer
Karlheinz Stockhausen, CAN has long been considered a seminal fusion group, The first time I saw one of Joi T. Arcands illuminated signs in Cree syllabics
an art-rock collision of compositional sensibilities and spontaneous experimentation was at Wood Land Schools second gesture for Drawing a Line from
driven by the improvised vocals of Malcolm Mooney, then Damo Suzuki, and January to December. It bathed Elisa Harkins in pink light as she performed
electronic rave music about a peyote ceremony, and shone on
Tsema Igharas as she handled rebel-rock rattles made of clay and
sewn hide. The hot-pink electric glow of the neon encompassed
Marianne Nicolsons The Sun is Setting on the British Empire (2016)
positioned over Brian Jungens drawings of gay subculture inspired
by Grindr profiles, so that the fall of the British Empire is brought
about by gay sexcreating an ambience for the Indigenous feminist
performance and curation throughout.
After the gesture, Indigenous women and non-binary folks
lined up to take photos in front of Arcands work. When I asked
Arcand if she had created it for such an audience, she said, The
content and underlying meaning of the words may get lost when
folks are using it as a prop. In that context, it could say anything.
But what it does say is very deliberate and intentional. While
each installation in the series takes on a different meaning
depending on where it intervenes, Arcands intention with her
series is also to illuminate an ongoing and internal dialogue that
centres on her personal relationship with the Plains Cree language.
Installation view of Joi T. Arcands

illuminated sign at the Walter
Phillips Gallery, Banff, 2017
Photo RIta tayloR

Arcands Banff installation, which spells out a phrase given to
her by Cree teacher Dolores Sand, will be the third in a series, and
there is a fourth underway. The artist resists translating her syllabic
installations into Englishan adamant assertion of Indigenous
presence. While the colour of Arcands Banff installation matches
the snowy tops of the national parks mountains, thereby creating
an association with the known touristic and commercialized landscape
of Banff, this is a familiarity disrupted.
Advertising aesthetics become a medium to intervene on
colonized space and unsettle presumed ownership over the territories
Banff now resides on. For a fleeting moment, the settler viewer who
cant read syllabics and doesnt know the Plains Cree language is
Other. They are forced to uncomfortably consider their relationship
to the land they stand on, and what their presence has cost Arcand
and the Plains Cree people: their words. LINDSAY NIXON
Free Black North

ArT GALLErY OF ONTArIO, TOrONTO
Photography has long been contested ground for us Black people

when it comes to issues of race and representation. While photographys
complicity with white supremacy dates back to its initial emergence
in the early 19th century, Black people have simultaneously used
the medium as a site of political and cultural resistance. Understanding
that early photography was being deployed to document the
scientific fact of racial difference and white racial superiority, Black
people savvily responded to the lynching postcard, the eugenicist
archive and the criminal mug shot by harnessing photographys
evidentiary authority in a corrective move that art historian and
critic Sarah Lewis has dubbed representational justice.
Lewis focused on this complex relationship between photography
and, specifically, the African American Black experience, as guest
editor of the much-lauded Vision and Justice issue of Aperture. But
despite the persistent Canadian myth of Its not as bad up here,
the recent exhibition Free Black North, at the Art Gallery of Ontario,
excavated a Black Canadian history that demonstrates a similar
urgent imperative at work in southern Ontario in the 1800s. Up here,
Black people were reclaiming Black narratives too, pursuing what
could be called a politics of positive self-representation.
Curated by Julie Crooks, the Art Gallery of Ontarios new
assistant curator of photography, this impressive selection of more
than 30 studio portraits presented Black men, women and children
living in Amherstburg, St. Catharines and the Niagara region in
the mid-to-late 1800s. The photos were culled from collections at Unknown photographer [Unidentified
Brock University and the Archives of Ontario and offer a rare look women, Niagara Falls backdrop]
18801900 Tintype 6.4 x 5.1 cm
at Black Canadians of that era, many of whom were descendants of formerly CoUrTesy BroCk UniversiTy ArChives
enslaved Black people who had escaped from the southern United States.
The tintypes, cartes de visite and cabinet cards in the exhibitionmost no
larger than a trading cardbear all the hallmarks of formal portraiture of the
era. Sitters are suited up and beautifully gowned, with shoulders erect and
many holding the cameras gaze with assurance. Their diminutiveness is arresting,
Maps aNd dreaMs
AUDAIN GALLErY, VANCOUVEr
commanding a certain intimacy from the viewer in order to be seen; no matter
the familiarity or comfort level with Blackness, these images beckon the viewer How do we demonstrate respect for land? Do we show it loyalty by
to get close and to engage with these individuals on their own terms. remaining over many years or generations, depending upon it for livelihood
But with so little known about both subjects and photographers of these and sustenance? Do we offer meaningful observations of its culture and
images, the repetition of absence in the captions proved a haunting lament landscape, acknowledging that which sets it apart? Do we defend it
within the gallery: Unidentified woman, unknown photographer; against resource extraction that would have it emptied, exploited without
Unidentified couple, unknown photographer; Unidentified man with a forethought of impact?
cigar, unknown photographer. Though these Black people were seeking to Maps and Dreams, co-curated by Brian Jungen and Melanie OBrian,
assert their humanity, these factual omissions concede the restrictions to our considers the territory of the Dane-zaa people of northeastern British
full inclusion in Canadian history. As seductive a strategy as it remains, Columbia and features the work of nine artists from the region. They
respectability politics will not save us. MICHLE PEArSON CLArKE represent Indigenous and settler perspectives through sculpture, photographs,
canadianart.ca 171
canadianart.ca 171

reviews
Karl Mattson Plan /

Response (detail) 2016
Oil and gas compiled plan
map, Marlin .45/.70 cal.
Rifle and Winchester
.30/.30 cal. rifle PhOtO
Blaine CaMPBell
56 ARTILLERY
LANE
RAVEN ROW, LONDON, UK
History has a habit of repeating itself

sometimes as a tragic accident, and
sometimes with intention. At Raven Row,
curators Amy Budd and Naomi Pearce
trod the latter path, gathering more than
60 participants in a salutary restaging of
A Womans Place, an obscure feminist
exhibition held in 1974 that has all but
disappeared from historys annals.
56 Artillery Lane is named for Raven
Rows Spitalfields townhouse address, but
it also pays homage to the humble venue
of A Womans Place: 14 Radnor Terrace
was a small house in Lambeth converted
painting and conceptual works, and are akin in expressing an intimacy of place. into a large-scale installation by feminist art group S.L.A.G. (South London
The exhibition owes its title to Hugh Brodys anthropological book of the same Art Group). At the time, 14 Radnor Terrace was the central hub for a group
name, first published in 1981, chronicling his 18-month stay among the Dane- of lesbian feminist squattersit housed the South London Womens Centre,
zaa that began with research for a land-use and occupancy study funded by whose clients were a fluctuating and itinerant community of women,
the Canadian government. More than the sum of its technical findings, the according to an essay in the Raven Row publication compiled by Amy
book emphasizes the authors personal narrative, designating its odd-numbered
chapters as attempting to follow a route selected by the people. The Maps
and Dreams exhibition also emphasizes the personal. Jack Askotys photographs
document his community in and near the Doig River First Nation. Taken with
disposable 35-mm cameras, the images exemplify the quirks associated with
simple point-and-shoots with fixed-focus lensescharmingly soft, or warm,
with a hot flash. They convey an ease of transport, going perhaps where larger
cameras dare not toon hunting trips, around campfiresoffering glimpses
that amount to a compelling portrait of regional life.
Emilie Mattsons The Placenta Canoe (2006) sits in the centre of the gallery,
lending the exhibition a sun-bleached, earthy scent. Its armature of intertwining
willow branches fastened with wire is wrapped with translucent fibreglass
sheeting and muscular dark red forms. Built with the assistance of her two
sons, the canoe was paddled by the Mattsons on a swamp near home, then
left to evolve in the elements as an outdoor sculpture for some years.
Family is also at the root of Peter von Tiesenhausens works comprising
pages from a legal exchange with oil and gas industry representatives as well
as aerial images of his land. Beginning in 1995, von Tiesenhausen worked
toward copyrighting his property as an art piece; while he didnt formally
succeed, he managed to fend off encroaching pipeline efforts. In a 2014
interview in Vice, von Tiesenhausen blamed a nearby gas leak for family health
concerns, and mentioned his son as motivation for hope and resistance.
While focused on a specific region, the tensions between culture and
industry highlighted by the exhibition implicate adjacent contexts. Notable
installation view of Fiona
is the Audain Gallerys location within the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts,
Clarks The Other Half
named for a mining company with operations throughout the Americas. (199799) at Raven Row,
Through its consideration of personal relationships to land, Maps and london, UK PhOtO
Dreams suggests the need for a careful engagement by industry with the MaRCUs J. leith
stories of a regions people, particularly as they pertain to the pace of resource

exploration and extraction. LUCIEN DUREY

Desmond Cole in a still from
Charles Officers 2017 film
The Skin Were In Courtesy
Tobin. Just as history tends toward repetition, time is bent on bringing about 90th parallel proDuCtions
change. New developments drove residents out of 14 Radnor Terrace, and photo Chris romeike
the community that surrounded it was scattered. 56 Artillery Lane moved

into the space that history left vacant, playing on the original shows theme his birthplace of Red Deer, Alberta, to visit an African immigrant family on
of the domestic lives of women by organizing gallery levels as rooms in a their one-year anniversary in Canada. He returns to Ferguson, Missouri,
household. Morag Keil and Georgie Nettells Punks Not Dead Its Different where the non-indictment of the policeman who murdered unarmed
(2015) arranges copper-painted furniture, oxidized with urine, alongside 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014 instigated protests. Cole describes
reproductions of Viennese Actionist screenprints, and on the top floor, usually participating in those protests as the pivotal point in his journalism, when
closed to the public, Martine Syms hung custom-made curtains alongside her his activism became unapologetic.
three-channel video installation An Evening with Queen White (2017). In a particularly profound scene in the film, Browns friends take Cole
In The Other Half (199799), Fiona Clark chronicles her physical and mental to the intact traces of a former slave auction block and lynching site.
transformation after a car accident: a visual record, in embroidered rags, of Together, they memorialize Brown and countless other victims of anti-Black
times ability to heal historys blows. The artwork served as a sombre reminder police brutality, known and unknown, over Browns memorial plaque.
when, three days after 56 Artillery Lane closed, a devastating fire ravaged Cole introduces us to the core members of Black Lives Matter Toronto
Grenfell Tower in North Kensingtonevidence of Londons ongoing housing and their response to Toronto police fatally shooting Andrew Loku, a
crisis, and of history singing out its tragic chorus once again. ROSIe PRATA 45-year-old father of five, in the hallway of his apartment within seconds
of seeing him holding a hammer. He shows us footage of BLM TO
disrupting a police services board meeting during which police mishandling
of the evidence is debated a year after the chief of police refused to release
The skin were in the murderers name.
Cole says this is evidence of a police culture that resents Black people
CHARLeS OFFICeR, 90TH PARALLeL PRODUCTIONS, 2017
and denies the systemic racism in policing, even though 97 per cent of
The first step in confronting anti-Blackness in Canada is to dispel the perennial officers are cleared by the [Special Investigations Unit]. He adds that while,
myth that, relative to America, it does not exist here. In the documentary since 1990, at least 35 per cent of people fatally shot by police since 1990
The Skin Were In, screened on CBC Firsthand, journalist and activist Desmond are Black men, they tend to be seen as the threat rather than the subject
Cole teams up with director Charles Officer to, as Cole puts it, draw a straight of crisis. What is this perfect victim that everybody needs before its murder
line from the history of our struggle in this country to today. in the first degree? Cole implores when he visits Lokus grieving sister in
The film is framed around Coles critically acclaimed 2015 Toronto Life essay, suburban Saskatoon.
The Skin Im In, an expos of rampant anti-Black profiling and carding He visits the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Shelburne, Nova Scotia,
practices by Canadian police. 240 years of history tells me that Im not wanted where the first race riot was recorded a year after the Black Loyalists arrived
here, Cole says in the film, as he seeks out hidden information and listens in 1783 and set up the largest free Black settlement in North America.
and relates to his subjects narratives about how anti-Blackness affects the Panels in the centre document Black slavery in Canada, a part of history
minutiae of their lived experiences and their intergenerational trauma. Coles that Cole asserts many Canadians are unaware of, despite its profound
journey takes him across the countryfrom his local Toronto barbershop to impact on the standing of Black people living in cities across Canada today.
canadianart.ca 173
canadianart.ca 173

reviews
in a lecture, canadian parliamentary poet George elliott clarke links the canadian design suggests, if not a void, then, at most, an absence. a
policing of Black people to the history of restricting slaves freedom of movement. consultant might argue that the industry suffers a branding problem. Yet
its crucial to understand how oppressors still get away with marginalizing Black for the summer months, the charles H. scott Gallery fought this erasure
people, he says. Brush up on history, he urges, because if you understand history by filling the space with items of anonymous, though canadian, origin.
nobody can lie to you. the knowledge of history is dangerous. the knowledge there were no constraints on the function of the various items, and the
of history is radical, he says. this resistance to the persistence of amnesia is result was slightly ad hoc. there was a red and yellow plastic uke-a-tune
precisely coles starting point for his unravelling and unsettling of the (a ukelele); tins of rogers Golden syrup; travel pennants collected at
quintessentially canadian narrative of tolerance. an unfortunate glance at the canadian tourist spots, such as penticton and diefenbaker lake; and
comments on the cBc page streaming the documentary is a testament to the a librarys worth of old eatons catalogues among the odds and ends.
dire need for the rallying cry that The Skin Were In issues. MerraY GerGes the effect was like stumbling into an immaculate garage sale. this
sensibility seemed self-evident when looking over the list of objects in the
show, where provenances are listed as, Found at garage sale, or
craigslist. But despite their mundanity, the ephemera are undeniably
neVer precIoUS: seductive. the catalogues, which constitute the backbone of the exhibition,
make for fascinatingif not entirely illuminatingperusing. a natty floral
anonYMoUS DeSIGn loungewear set for $4.99 caught my eye, and left me wondering if id
crossed the line from exhibition viewing to window-shopping.
In canaDa What argument does the exhibition set out about canadian design?
cHarles H. scott GallerY, VancouVer primarily, that its worth a closer look. on the whole, the objects are a little
saccharine, and, unsurprisingly, the eatons catalogues hardly offer a diverse
a reference to nordic design immediately conjures an image: clean lines, look at canadian life. Which is not to say that the ephemera arent enjoyable.
organic materials, the all-important hygge factor. other nationalities have Guest curated by Bonne Zabolotney, i began to feel, looking through the
similarly recognizable design characteristics: the pastel, ornate tendencies of plates and appliances, that it was as much a portrait of an individuals
the French; the embellished oak and rough tweed of the Brits. By contrast, interests as it was a revision of history. caoiMHe MorGan-Feir
In Search
of expo 67
Muse dart conteMporain de Montral
While the rest of canada marks its sesquicentennial, in

Montreal, this anniversary has been overshadowed by the
citys 375th birthday and, more poignantly, the 50th
anniversary of expo 67. For Montrealers, expo represents
a lost utopian moment of prosperity and optimism for
Quebec and their city in particular. its relevance is also
broader: expo stands for all the utopian possibilities of the
1960s, the high point of Marshall Mcluhans global
village and a moment when youth counterculture,
technological optimism and a uniquely canadian brand
of paternalistic humanism, sponsored by corporations and
the state, could all coexist without apparent contradiction.
While the Mccord Museum, stewart Museum, centre
de design de luQaM and the Biosphre (at the site of
Buckminster Fullers original dome for the us pavilion at
expo) are presenting historical displays, the Muse dart
contemporain de Montrals in search of expo 67 is
composed entirely of works by contemporary artists, most
commissioned for the occasion, that reconsider the
significance of the event from the vantage point of today.
some of the included works express muted criticism
of the nationalist project that informed expos futurism,
as well as the sexism that went along with it, but the
sentiments on display are predominantly wistful, melancholic
and nostalgic. cheryl sims Un Jour, One Day (2017) is a
retro-electronic music video cover of expo 67s theme,
performed by the artist in a blue jumpsuit inspired by
Various Canadian pennants

(from family collection) Courtesy
emily Carr uniVersity of art
and design Photo tori sChePel

Cheryl Sim Un jour, One Day
(still) 2017 Three-channel
digital video installation
5 min 27 sec
HUMAN ACTS
HAN KANG, GRANTA
PUBLICATIONS, 224 PP.,
$25.95
Historyespecially traumatic
historyis written in the body, on
the body, through the body. It
persists not only in a physical sense,
but in a spiritual one, body being
inseparable from soul.
Man Booker Prizewinning
author Han Kang makes this much
clear in the pages of her powerful
novel Human Acts. The book,
originally published in Korea in
2014, in the UK and Canada in
2016, and in the US in 2017, takes
the mass killing of protestors during
the 1980 Gwangju Uprising as a
point not only of departure, but
also of continued return.
After you died I could not hold a funeral, / And so my life became a
Expos hostess uniforms and accompanied by snapshots from her parents funeral. This couplet, written by a character in Kangs multi-voiced narrative,
honeymoon at the event. David K. Rosss large-scale video projection, As signals how certain events do not stay contained in a single timespan, but
Sovereign as Love (2017), uses a drone camera to follow the path of Expos spread through multiple ones, echoing and refracting and shivering through
now-demolished monorail, passing through mostly derelict spaces absent of corps and corpses alike. One early chapter of the novel is narrated by a
the avant-garde architecture and thronging crowds they once held. boy whose body has been dumped into the bottom of a mass grave. One
Most impressive is the recreation of Graeme Fergusons Polar Life, originally late chapter is narrated by the boys mother: spoken by a body that gave
presented over 11 screens in Expos Man the Explorer Pavilion. Digitally restored way to body, by a body that remembers body despite itself.
for three screens and a static viewer (the original audience sat on a rotating The self-reflexivity Han Kang brings to writing about this traumaone
stage), Polar Life has the side effect of emphasizing the striking disparity of that she did not directly experience herself, though she was born and
support for creative freedom between 1967 and now. Expos artists were given grew up in part in Gwangjuis particularly wise. One character critiques,
carte blanche for extravagant projects; the artists of In Search of Expo 67 resists and questions a researcher
were handed their subject matter as an assignment. Of course, many of the who aims to record and transcribe
included artists were already doing research-based work on archival materials. her uprising story some 20
Some pieces, like Jacqueline Hong Nguyns excellent 1967: A People Kind of years later.
Place (2012), were even looking at Expo 67 in advance of this curatorial brief. Another character, whose body
The downside to a show of contemporary works based on archival materials was tortured with repeated jabs
is the nagging sense that original artifacts and documentation would be more of a ballpoint pen during his
rewarding than new art. And, in general, the art here involves less historical imprisonment, narrates his chapter
contextualization than one would expect. As if to make up for it, Charles to just such a researcher.
Stankievechs installation, Until Finally O Became Just a Dot (2017) condenses The author herself becomes
a museums worth of Expo-related ephemera into one room. Deeply absorbing, a character called the Writer in
Stankievechs connect-the-dots between the Whole Earth Catalog, LSD, NASA, yet another chaptera writer
Fuller, McLuhan, Pink Floyd and more demonstrates how contemporary artists who has haunting dreams after
win back their autonomy by assuming curatorial methods, though I was left reading accounts of the violent
wishing that the didactic material was more evenly distributed. massacre in the streets of her
Ultimately, In Search of Expo 67 reflects on the loss of a utopian horizon home city.
in culture, the impossibility of believing, as Canadians once apparently did, The reader, too, is a body
that things are getting better. As such, it is disappointing that the show marked by historyand marks
doesnt offer more to hope for. Where the federal government once bankrolled history on others. This is one
countercultural dissidence, artists are now subject to the bureaucracy of implication of many which may
official curatorialism. Cultural workers can criticize #Canada150, but well haunt readers after experiencing
still apply for the grants. SAELAN TWERDY Human Acts. LEAH SANDALS
canadianart.ca 175

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Backstory
Casting the ConferenCe

by Craig Leonard
happen is impossible to forecast, says Seth Siegelaub. Siegelaubs

accurate anti-prognostication is matched by the obscurity of the
conferences goings-on, due in large part to the poor audio and
video quality of extant documentation. Even still, there has been
ample institutional use-value in citing its roster of participants
Joseph Beuys, Lawrence Weiner, Michael Snow, Carl Andre, Robert
Morris and N.E. Thing Co., among otherswithout excavating
the actual substance of the debates. The videotapes verify what
is known of the conferences legend: discussions were held in the
colleges boardroom, while students and other interested parties
watched on a video monitor in the gallery below; and the separation
of panellists and students, which remained contentious from the
outset, dramatically incited students to pour into the boardroom,
in effect, bringing the conference to an end.
Yet, beyond setting and story, the videotapes also contain
a record of rich, though fragmentary, dialogue that provides first-
hand revelations of some of the participants commitments
regarding art and politics at the time. Beuys criticizes Andre for
What makes an era, a scene, a reputation? To reproduce a smooth demonstrating an undialectical one-sidedness (Einseitigkeit)
and reasonable picture of the past is to be complicit with exploitable while Andre accuses Beuys of endorsing exactly the political
narratives in the present. While the backward gaze can seem correctness that gets you the war in Vietnam. Weiner badgers
glorious when past events achieve mythic importance, it is only painter Richard Smith to see art as historical artifact instead of
through historical critique that we gain a firm foothold to challenge something with transcendent value. Morris denounces the falsity
the inherent contradictions of established beliefs. of the conferences political and artistic claims, warning students
Take for instance the tantalizing whispers of something called and his peers about the importance of context and the power of
the Halifax Conference. In the Nova Scotia College of Art and information. And, in a climactic disruption, a telegram arrives
Designs history, the conference is within a vaunted canon that from the Womens Art Workers (signatures included Lucy Lippard),
includes the Projects Class, Lithography Workshop and NSCAD condemning the absence of women at the conference (minus
Press. For some, these references point to another time when Ingrid Baxter as one half of N.E. Thing Co.). It states: Pay your
neoliberal rationality did not dominate and an enlightened dues. We are due for ours.
administration was in lockstep with subversive concerns; for When one replays the conference today, its dormant substance
others, they are only dusty citations that are irrelevant to comes to light, alongside the chance to redress its glaring blind
contemporary matters. Against the hyperbole of the former and spotsits hubris, heroism and hierarchy. By dramatically
the myopia of the latter, a re-examination of the conference embodying these contradictions it becomes possible to finally
provides a reflection on the limits of institutional discourse, while cast them aside.
exposing the contemporary art worlds political ambivalence.
On October 5 and 6, 1970, the conference hemorrhaged Craig Leonards Casting
the Conference, a five-part
aesthetic and ideological conflict during its gathering of renowned
theatrical re-enactment
artists, organized by gallerist, publisher and impresario Seth of the 1970 Halifax
Siegelaub. As described in the original press release: The Halifax Conference, was staged
at Anna Leonowens Gallery
Conference was conceived as a means of bringing about a meeting
in June 2016.
of recognized artists representing diverse kinds of art from different
parts of the world, in as general a situation as possible. What will
Backstory_F176TS.indd 188 08/04/17 1:11 AM

"In my recent work, I engage with historical objects through making my own fake antiques and
replicating or including items from museum collections within my installations.
The process of copying and the handling of these objects are ways to re-activate history
and to question the modes of cultural production and consumption."
KAREN TAM
Artists make history.

They comment on, challenge and critique it too. RBC is proud to have supported artists like
Karen Tam through the RBC Art Collection since 1929. We continue to applaud their success as
they bring new perspectives to the legacy of Canadian art and shape our future.
Karen Tam, Long Island Doorstopper / Over the Moon in a Rather Tatty Old Cardboard Box, 2015 Acquired by RBC in 2016
Learn about artists we support at rbc.com/emergingartists
/ Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. VPS97182
IBC - RBC vs4.indd 1 07/19/17 5:34 PM


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canadianart

The Idea of History

cov__F 2017_18TS FINAL COVER without bar code.indd 1 08/10/17 2:22 PM

102 Deuxime Dportation

critic is remembered In 1944, Andr Breton retreated industrial materials to

by Jonah Samson by Ginger Carlson

conversation with Zainub Verjee

contents_F17_13TS.indd 11 08/05/17 5:06 PM

112 Artist Project

this page, above:

this page, below:

contents_F17_13TS.indd 13 08/05/17 5:06 PM

amanDa shoRe is a freelance writer and curator based

Jonah samson lives on Cape Breton Island. His

CamiLLe LaRive is a community art organizer and street

LauRenCe DesmaRais is a Montreal-based art historian

aaDitYa aggaRwaL is the programming coordinator

vinCent Bonin is a writer and curator living in Montreal.

kathaRine LoChnan specializes in 19th- and early

Contributors F17_7TSHR.indd 18 08/05/17 2:22 PM

Amy Corner Advertising Sales Director

NAtIONAL ADvISORy BOARD

Canadian Art is published by the Canadian Art Foundation

A part of Canadian Art's Indigenous editorial

an Ontario government agency

We acknowledge the support of the Government of Canada; the Canada Council

Masthead_fall17_8.indd 20 08/11/17 12:23 PM

THE ARTISTS STUDIO

123 King Street West, Hamilton 905.527.6610 info@artgalleryofhamilton.com

AGH_HARTMAN_FP_CAN_ART_ad_8.875x10.875.indd 1 2017-07-25 2:24 PM

October 19, 2017 - January 21, 2018

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N.E. Thing Co. Double

Previews_F17_19TS_LR.indd 37 08/02/17 11:13 PM

In this interdisciplinary exhibition, the co-curators

The Remai Modern celebrates its

Ryan Gander Drawings from

Previews_F17_19TS_LR.indd 38 08/05/17 1:06 PM

Drawing from the gallerys collection of Indigenous art

Shauna mccabe: Shelley Niro

Previews_F17_19TS_LR.indd 39 08/02/17 11:14 PM

This Halifax-based artist collective

BARBARA LOUNDER: The initial debris-field

Jennifer Chan foot in mouth

During the run of Jennifer Chans exhibition

JENNIFER CHAN: The objective of the locally hosted

JeNNiFer cHaN a lot of ennui and privilege; Im realizing that people

Previews_F17_19TS_LR.indd 41 08/02/17 11:14 PM

Previews_F17_19TS_LR.indd 43 08/02/17 11:15 PM

RBC Canadian Painting Competition

Learn more at www.rbc.com/paintingcompetition

RBC CPC vs7 - nxt to gatefold.indd 1 07/29/17 3:23 PM

Co-Chairs Co-Chairs Montreal Micah Adams

ad layout blank page.indd 1 08/31/17 1:12 PM

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I like images and forms

Coloured pencil on paper, 14 x 11 in., courtesy the artist

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whAT You CAn

Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 x 1.5 in., courtesy the artist, RBC Canadian

ory. Painting Competition Finalist, 2016, Estimate: $3,500 Moyra Daveys

C-print, 10 x 8 in., courtesy the artist and greengrassi,

ad layout blank page.indd 1 08/31/17 1:20 PM