UNews - National Gallery of Canada

Alumni earn spots in Oh Canada exhibition

trevor.kenney — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:35:46 +0000

Oh, Canada is the largest exhibition of contemporary Canadian art to ever take place in the United States. Among the 62 artists included are three graduates of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Faculty of Fine Arts.

Artists David Hoffos (BFA '94), Mary-Anne McTrowe (BFA '98) and Daniel Wong (BFA '03) travelled to North Adams, Mass. at the end of May for the opening of the exhibition.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is known globally for showing the very best art of our time. Occupying a vast network of 19th century factory buildings, MASS MoCA's galleries boast more than 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. With a strong focus on new art, the museum has become a destination for those seeking unique, fresh and challenging encounters with contemporary art.

David Hoffos will show works from his Scenes from the House Dream at Oh Canada this fall.

"We think it is an honour to be included in this exhibition, considering Denise Markonish (the curator of Oh, Canada) did more than 400 studio visits in determining the lineup," says Wong.

Known together as the 'art-ernative' folk-rock band The Cedar Tavern Singers AKA Les Phonoréalistes, McTrowe and Wong have worked collaboratively since 2006. They are among the artists who created new works specifically for the exhibition. In addition to performing at the opening of Oh, Canada, the duo released a new album of songs relating to the museum.

"The album features four songs about and related to MASS MoCA: 'Oh Canada, Oh Canada' is our interpretation of what a theme song for the Oh, Canada exhibition might be; 'MASS MoCA' is about the history of the site that MASS MoCA inhabits; and 'Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With' and 'Truisms' are about Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle and Jenny Holzer, respectively – two artists who have had exhibitions at MASS MoCA. The album cover itself is a riff on Bachman-Turner Overdrive," explains McTrowe.

Though it may come as a surprise to some, Lethbridge is a hotbed for contemporary art production in Canada.

"For as long as I've lived here, Lethbridge has had strong contemporary artists – people who contend on the national and international stage, so I'm not surprised Lethbridge artists are included in Oh, Canada. In fact, I'm honoured to have been chosen, especially considering there are so many great artists here," says Hoffos.

Hoffos has received widespread national acclaim for his large-scale, multimedia installations. From 2008 to 2011 his exhibition, Scenes from the House Dream, toured Canada debuting at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG) and showing at major institutions across the country, including the National Gallery of Canada. For Oh, Canada, Hoffos presents works from Scenes from the House Dream; a snapshot of his practice representative of his larger body of work.

"Oh, Canada is a celebration for the whole country. It's the first time an exhibition like this has happened south of the border and it's never happened in Canada either, so it's a special moment not just for the artists in the exhibition, but also for contemporary art in Canada," he says. "My hope is that this exhibition demonstrates that cutting-edge contemporary art production can happen anywhere, including Lethbridge."

Oh, Canada opened May 27 at MASS MoCA and is on view until Apr. 1, 2013. For more info: www.massmoca.org

This story first appeared in the June 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the entire issue in flipbook format, follow this link.

Lasting Images - Rita McKeough

trevor.kenney — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:29:36 +0000

Rita McKeough was born in 1951 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She received a BFA from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary and a MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design before settling in Calgary, where she currently teaches at the Alberta College of Art and Design.

Rita McKeough, Two Urban Scroungers, 1984. From the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection; Gift of the artist, 1994.

McKeough has been a committed multi-disciplinary artist for over 30 years, and has exhibited extensively in group and solo exhibitions across Canada and internationally, including exhibitions at the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), Plug-In Gallery (Winnipeg), Nuit Blanche (Toronto) and the National Gallery of Canada. In 2009, McKeough was the recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, and the following year was selected for the Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Alberta.

McKeough's practice is informed by her interest in social issues, idealism and a belief in art's ability to spur social change. Her performances and installations – often complex, collaborative efforts – touch on issues such as displacement, domestic abuse and ecological damage. Though her subject matter is often politically charged, McKeough opens a dialogue with the viewer through a disarming sense of humour and play.

Rita McKeough, Urban Uprising, 1984. From the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Collection; P.U.L.P. print gift, 1984.

McKeough's Urban Scroungers multi-media piece creates an interactive environment for the viewer through sound and sculptural objects, and points to McKeough's concern over urban sprawl and the voracity of corporate expansion.

McKeough's newest installation, The Lion's Share, is on view in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Main Gallery until Jan. 5, 2012.

This story first appeared in the December 2011 issue of the Legend. If you'd like to see the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Gallery hosts Hassan's unique view

trevor.kenney — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:53:08 +0000

Four decades of artwork by London, Ont. artist Jamelie Hassan is featured in the installation, At the Far Edge of Words, at the U of L Main Gallery from Sept. 16 to Oct. 29.

The exhibition, which is comprised of key pieces that intertwine her work as an artist with an enduring interest in text, language, memory, personal history and identity, is on a national tour circulated by Museum London.

"As soon as I saw the tour proposal from Museum London, I jumped at the chance to bring this survey of Jamelie Hassan's career to the Gallery," says Dr. Josephine Mills, director/curator. "I have seen Hassan's work in different exhibitions over many years and have always been impressed with how she works with a range of artistic approaches to open up a dialogue about the ideas she addresses in her work. Hassan manages to explore both the specifics of her own locale and personal history, and yet also address bigger issues around hybridity and interactions between cultures."

Melanie Townsend, head of Exhibitions and Collections at Museum London, curates the exhibition.

"Hassan's practice has been distinguished by her use of a wide range of media – ceramics, watercolours, bookworks, photographs, video, and installations – from which she selects an approach best suited to the task at hand," says Townsend. "For example, watercolours, which are swift and portable, occupy much of her work made on the road, while robust installations are often employed to confront the complexity of cultural politics and personal history."

Hassan's work is in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto); Glenbow Museum (Calgary); Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (Vancouver); Museum London (London). In 2001, she was a recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts.

The opening reception for At the Far Edge of Words is Thursday, Sept. 16 at 4 p.m.

The art of illusion

trevor.kenney — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:35:29 +0000

For as long as he can remember, U of L alumnus David Hoffos (BFA '94) has been fascinated with magic, illusion, trickery and deception.

As a child, he was absorbed with movies like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. – watching them as many as 20 to 30 times. Later in high school, Hoffos took in almost every Alfred Hitchhock movie at a local repertory theatre.

"I would pick these movies apart," recalls Hoffos. "It wasn't so much the storytelling that drew me in but the details of technique and craft, the special effects, the mechanics of suspense."

Today, as a nationally renowned artist, Hoffos has carried that fascination with motion picture magic into his practice.

David Hoffos, at home with his unique cat.

His current exhibition titled David Hoffos: Scenes from the House Dream, recently on view at the National Gallery of Canada, combines low-tech ingenuity with old and new media to create vignettes where characters are caught in time and space. Taking up 5,000 sq. ft., it is comprised of 20 installations that Hoffos produced between 2003 and 2008.

"It's a rambling labyrinth of miniature dioramas and life-size projections that create a dreamlike space that viewers walk through," explains Hoffos. "I've created 3-D illusions and effects that don't require any special viewing apparatus, you can walk right up to them and experience the illusions – and even understand how they are created."

Using mirrors, television monitors and other basic devices, Hoffos brings seemingly ordinary scenes to life. In one, a ghostly child rides a bicycle up and down a suburban street, oblivious to the fireworks exploding in the sky. In another, a security guard paces an art gallery like a caged tiger. He checks his watch, plays with his keys, ties his shoes. Then there are other scenes where very little appears to be taking place, that is until you notice the curtains eerily blowing or a strange movement behind a crack in the wall.

"My work is all about this line between illusion and reality, between body and spirit, the physical and the non-physical," says Hoffos.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, Hoffos found inspiration for his work in a recurring dream he had about an interior, domestic space.

C.P. Fail, 2008 Single-channel video, audio and mixed-media installation Photo by David Miller

"I didn't know this when I started the project, but a lot of people have this dream, of this space that changes over time in their lives. It often contains hidden spaces – places that represent the past, the present and the future."

And while Hoffos thought he was simply bringing that dream to life, he was surprised at what emerged.

"Now that it is complete, when I look at this labyrinthine experience, this dreamlike journey, it speaks to the modern conditions of anxiety, depression and addiction. These are things I was not consciously putting into the work, but now, when I go through it, I really feel this melancholy, this sense of waiting, and sense of sadness and nostalgia. I never would have guessed that these sensations would come out of what started as a dream about a house."

In the future, Hoffos sees his illusion techniques moving from the gallery to the stage – expanding to dance, theatre and even rock shows. And the possibility of pursuing a childhood dream to create a feature film always lingers in the background.

"Right now that project is still a fantasy," says Hoffos. "But a lot of my work has come from dreams, so who knows?"

For a look at SAM in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Featured artist: Carl Beam (1943-2005)

trevor.kenney — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:22:11 +0000

Carl Beam was an internationally acclaimed contemporary Canadian artist of Ojibway descent, whose work will survive as a milestone in the development of the Canadian Aboriginal voice on the international art scene.

Beam was born in 1943 at M'Chigeeng (West Bay) on Manitoulin Island. As a child he was sent to the Garnier Residential School in Spanish, an awful experience that would influence some of the powerful imagery used in his later work.

Beam studied at the Kootenay School of Art, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria (where he earned a BFA in 1974) and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta. In 1986, the National Gallery of Canada was the first of the major Canadian galleries to recognize Beam's work with the purchase of The North American Iceberg. From 1983–1992 his work was included in all the landmark exhibitions that altered the segregation of aboriginal art in Canada.

Beam's works can be read as juxtapositions between long held perceptions and challenging alternatives. Early influences during his formal studies included Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. His well known, appropriated images (a pieta, an embryo, Abraham Lincoln, Sitting Bull, a crow, the Pinta and Maria, and Einstein, among others) were cross-cultural symbols that he utilized to convey a universal message about the environment and the relationship between man, nature and the passage of time.

With a linear pattern or formal grid, he tried to visually create the fourth dimension in his work, a spiritual space inhabited by a quiet intellect. That he was an artist of native and white heritage added to the scope of the complex subjects he chose.

Beam's work, executed in diverse media such as drawing, watercolour, etching, non-silver photography, photo transfer, collage, installation and ceramics, has been exhibited throughout North America as well as in Italy, Denmark, Germany and China. It is found in major Canadian and international collections including
the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Art Gallery and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y.

In 2000, Beam was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, and in 2005 he received the Governor General's Award in Visual Art and Media. He died July 30, 2005, of complications arising from diabetes.

Cardiff earns Hnatyshyn Arts Award

trevor.kenney — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:26:12 +0000

Internationally recognized artist Janet Cardiff, an adjunct member of the Faculty of Fine Arts, and her collaborator and partner George Bures Miller are among the recipients of the 2008 Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards.
Cardiff and Bures Miller received a $25,000 prize for outstanding achievement by a Canadian artist in early December.
A jury of arts professionals from across Canada selected the award recipients, including former U of L Art Gallery curator Jeffrey Spalding, now President
and C.E.O. of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.
Cardiff, born in 1957 in Brussels, Ont., and Bures Miller, born in 1960 in Vegreville, Alta., have been practising artists, singly and in tandem, since the 1980s.
Cardiff taught in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Faculty of Fine Arts from 1989 to 2000 and has returned as a visiting artist to lecture. She has a continuing relationship with the U of L as an adjunct professor in the Art Department.
In 2001, Cardiff and Miller became the first Canadian artists to win the prestigious Venice Biennale Special Award for their installation, The Paradise Institute. In the same year Cardiff's solo work, Forty-Part Motet, was awarded the Millennium Prize by the National Gallery of Canada.
They divide their time between Germany and Vancouver Island.

UNews - National Gallery of Canada

Alumni earn spots in Oh Canada exhibition

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