Mouse Woman drawing by Luke J. Parnell
The Beat
A monthly newsletter about the art of
First Nations on Canada’s West Coast
This is the thirty-first issue of The Beat, a free, independent newsletter that brings you up-to-date on the art, artists and events of the First Nations on Canada’s Pacific Coast.
We respectfully acknowledge the Coast Salish Peoples, on whose traditional territories we live and work, and all the First Nations of the Pacific coast.
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The 17th Sydney Biennale in Australia is one of the contemporary art world’s big events. The Artistic Director of the 2010 event, David Elliott, visited Vancouver and chose four First Nations artists from the west coast to participate in exhibitions there: Dana Claxton, Marianne Nicolson, Skeena Reece and Beau Dick. Other artists from Canada are Annie Pootoogook, Kent Monkman and Althea Thauberger.
The theme for 2010 is The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age. The Biennale takes place at several interesting locations: Cockatoo Island (site of Brian Jungen’s work in 2008), Pier 2/3, the Sydney Opera House and the Royal Botanic Gardens. For more about the Biennale, see http://www.bos17.com/
Haida artist Robert Davidson received a signal honour on March 9 2010, with the Canada Council for the Arts announcement that he was among the winners of this year’s Governor General’s award in Visual and Media Arts.
Haida Artist Robert Davidson in 2009
Eagle Transforming: The Prints of Robert Davidson is an exhibition appearing at the Surrey Art Gallery from April 17 to June 20 2010. It was at the Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George BC earlier in 2010. It is a survey of Robert Davidson’s graphic work, which is “deeply imbedded in Haida culture, yet speaks to present-day personal, social and political realities.”
The opening reception is on Saturday, April 17, from 2 to 4 pm. An event with Robert Davidson in conversation with the VAG curator Ian Thom, who organized the show, is on Sunday May 2 at 2 pm, at the Surrey Art Gallery at 13750 88th Avenue, one block east of King George Boulevard. See http://www.surrey.ca
Auctions
Seahawk Auctions will hold a sale on June 5-6 2010 at the Engineers Auditorium in Burnaby at noon, with the preview starting at 9:30 am on June 5. For more information and a preview catalogue online, see
http://www.seahawkauctions.com
Maynards Art & Antiques has recently moved to a larger showroom at 1837 Main Street in Vancouver. An auction will be held there on April 13 to 15 2010, each session at 6 pm. There are several pieces of First Nations art in it. See http://www.maynards.com
Sotheby’s in New York will hold an auction on May 14 2010 at 2 pm of American Indian, African, Oceanic and other works of art from the studio of Enrico Donati. Born in Milan, Donati was associated with European Surrealist artists in New York, and travelled to the American Southwest and to Canada to study and collect aboriginal art. “The mystery and magic of the unknown” fascinated him.
For more information, see http://www.sothebys.com
Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco will have a sale of American Indian Art on June 7 2010. http://www.bonhams.com
Skinner Inc. will hold an American Indian & Ethnographic Art auction on May 15 2010 at 10 am in Boston. http://www.skinnerinc.com
Waddington’s in Toronto reports results from its online auction on March18: a 1974 Joe David silkscreen print sold for $180, and a 1976 Beau Dick Kwa-giulth Owl silkscreen print for $270.
A carved and painted 36” wide Killer Whale panel from 1993 by Joe Campbell sold for $474, over estimate.
See http://www.waddingtons.ca/
Study for Protector 1990
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
Neo-Native Drawings and Other Works by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun at the Contemporary Art Gallery at 555 Nelson Avenue in Vancouver has received very good reviews. Some are:
http://www.canadianart.ca/online/see-it/2010/03/25/lawrence-paul-yuxwelupton/
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story,html?id=2723024
http://www.straight.com/article-299379/vancouver/history-redrawn-and-redressed
The artist’s own website is found at
http://lawrencepaulyuxwelupton.com
A special free guided tour of Yuxweluptun show will be given on its last day, Sunday May 16 2010.
A 40-page accompanying publication with artist statement and essays by curator Petra Watson and artist and writer Peter Morin will be available by May 1 2010.
The beautiful Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre in Whistler BC has changed its Admission by Donation days to Monday for the spring and summer. For residents of British Columbia, the price of one admission entitles the guest to an annual membership, i.e., free admission and other generous privileges for one year.
Squamish Nation’s Chief Janice George will be in the SLCC at 1 pm on April 25 to teach traditional Squamish wool weaving. This workshop is $120 and includes access to exhibits. To enroll, email gwen.baudisch@slcc.ca
The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art opens an exhibition A Tale of Two Artists: Prints by John Brent Bennett and Bill Reid on Friday, April 9 2010. John Brent Bennett was born in 1980 in Massett in the Haida Gwaii. The exhibition “shows how new aesthetic forms develop when the past is seen through the lens of the present.” The show runs to July 11 2010. See http://www.billreidgallery.ca
The Or Gallery at 555 Hamilton Street in Vancouver presents a new exhibition of work by Anishnabe Rebecca Belmore and Terrance Houle April 24 to May 29 2010. The opening is Friday April 23 at 8 pm. The show, entitled Friend or Foe, “explores both the relationship between First Nations and the Museum and the homeless aboriginal body.”
Belmore will present a new video based on a recent performance at the UBC Museum of Anthropology, and another called Victorious.
Houle’s works include a series of pin-hole photographs challenging aboriginal stereotypes at the Calgary Stampede, and a new video, Indian Sign Language.
For more information and gallery hours, see http://www.orgallery.org
For an interview with Terrance Houle, see a blog on Contemporary American Indigenous Artists:
http://contemporaryindigenousartists.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html
A solo show of work by Terrance Houle will be in Burnaby in 2012, with a groundbreaking wrestling theme.
The Native Youth Artists Collective exhibited work created during the NYAC’s drop-in Silkscreen program on March 25 at the Grunt Gallery.
L. Artist Allison Mitten and R. Tania Willard, curator at the Grunt Gallery
at the event on March 25
The exhibition Laid Over to Cover at Presentation House in North Vancouver has been held over to April 11 2010. (See The Beat January 2010.) See info at http://www.presentationhousegall.com
The
Burke Museum
at the University of Washington in Seattle has long been a centre of
study of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art. There is a rare opportunity
to visit the Haida Gwaii with expert Burke Curator Dr.
Robin Wright on a trip to
Gwaii Haanas, home of the Haida people, on the islands of Haida Gwaii
(formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). Tour highlights
include visits to a number of ancient villages, including a visit to
the UN World Heritage site Sgaang Gwaii. For more information,
see:
http://engage.washington.edu/site/R?i=W16pPNwkzA4qDrYqWAMJBw
Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas has an exhibition Solo at the Douglas Udell Gallery at 1558 W 6th Avenue in Vancouver until April 3 2010. The show nearly sold out.
Publisher Benjamin Brown Books sold all stock on hand of The Canoe He Called Loo Taas, written by Amanda Reid-Stevens and illustrated by Yahgulanaas. See http://www.douglasudellgallery.com
Word has it that two of the larger Vancouver museums are in the early stages of planning important First Nations exhibitions, one of the work of Haida Charles Edenshaw, and the other of Haida artwork in silver.
The University of Victoria has opened its new First Peoples House. The Beat October 2008 described the $7 million building, designed by Chipewyan Alfred Waugh and which includes a ceremonial hall, large kitchen, classrooms, reading room, and an elders’ lounge. The 900 aboriginal students at UVic are accorded a special welcome there and it is also a showcase for work by local First Nations carvers. Visitors will note the two welcoming poles by Tsawout carver Doug Lafortune, the entry doors by Squamish Rick Harry Xwa-Lack-Tun, as well as two house posts by Tsartlip artist Charles Elliott in the large hall.
An archaeologist at the University of Victoria, Dr. Quentin Mackie, explores the coastal areas of British Columbia to learn about the history of human habitation and the lives of First Nations ancestors.
He wrote in response to a question from The Beat:
My current research will involve two field projects this summer. In collaboration with Parks Canada and the Haida Nation, I will be working on several archaeological sites in southern Haida Gwaii, with a focus on changing environment and human ecology. Later in the summer, together with Parks Canada and the Hul'qumi'num Treaty Group, I will be running an archaeological training field school in the southern Gulf Islands, with a focus on the small islands which have many archaeological sites but almost no archaeological research.
More information about Dr. Mackie’s work on the ancient environments of the BC coast and related photographs can be found at his website: http://web.uvic.ca/~qxm/Home/Home.html
Artist Dana Claxton presented a new work in Victoria: Wacko: A Disco Ceremony for Michael Jackson at Open Space, 510 Fort St.
Dana Claxton is also the organizer of a Performance and Dialogue Symposium in Vancouver, Unpacking the Indigenous Female Body, sponsored by the Simon Fraser University Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Performances by artists Dana Claxton, Skeena Reece and Lori Blondeau will take place on Friday April 23 at Western Front at 303 E 8th Avenue at 7:30 pm. Saturday the symposium is at the SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1600, at 515 W. Hastings Street from 9:30 to 5 pm, followed in the evening by a performance art event. At the evening event, Lori Blondeau and Skeena Reece will respond to the film A Man Called Horse.
Registration for the symposium is free but you must email ahead to rwwpasst@sfu.ca to register. Please give your name, phone number, institution and affiliation, and indicate which events you will attend. More information is at: http://www.sfu.ca/gsws/Unpacking/index.html
In New York the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian Heyes Center is showing HIDE: Skin as Material and Metaphor, Parts I and II, (See The Beat February 2010.) Part I closes August 1 and Part II on January 16 2011. This exhibition of installations and photography includes work by Canadians Haisla Arthur Renwick, KC Adams and Terrance Houle. See http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/hide/grid.cfm
Fearsome creatures seem to be a strong theme at the moment: the Museum of West Vancouver’s exhibition Monsters runs until May 8, and the Washington State History Museum’s Giants in the Mountains: The Search for the Sasquatch is on until June 27 2010. Both museums include First Nations material. See http://www.westvancouvermuseum.ca
The Washington State History Museum of history is in Tacoma, and their website for the Sasquatch show is http://wshs.pmailus.com/pmailweb/ct?d=LcENbgGhACgAAAQ7AAOwUA
Brian Jungen’s art work Michael 2003 is in the exhibition Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sport at the Art Gallery of Calgary from April 10 to September 4 2010. http://www.artgallerycalgary.org
At Vancouver’s Access Gallery, an exhibition of work by Raymond Boisjoly, The Ever-Changing Light, runs from April 17 to May 29 2010. http://www.vaarc.ca
In Bellingham Washington, there will be a Native Art Market & Demonstration: Weavers Teaching Weavers Art Market on Saturday April 17 at 12 to 3 pm at the Old City Hall Building, sponsored by the Whatcom Museum.
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Comments, news and new subscribers to this free newsletter are welcomed. Please write to: editor@coastalartbeat.ca
Past issues are available at our website http://www.coastalartbeat.ca
Thank you to David Dumaresq, Dana Claxton, Quentin Mackie, Petra Watson, Lyle Wilson and many others, for your assistance. The Beat is an independent, not-for-profit project written and published in Vancouver Canada by Ann Cameron. Copyright 2010 Ann Cameron.