Mouse Woman drawing by Luke J. Parnell
The Beat
A monthly newsletter about the art of
First Nations on Canada’s West Coast
Welcome to the twenty-sixth 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. Congratulations to the Cowichan knitters in resolving the dispute over their distinctive style of knit garments.
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Vancouver-based Lakota Sioux artist Dana Claxton opens an exhibition on November 6 2009 To Mark on the Surface and 3 channel video installation at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery in Alberta. Claxton explores the connection between her aboriginal ancestry and current relationships to the land and identity.
“I have attempted to show two ways of rendering and marking on surface. One is in stone and nature, the other on paper. One is considered tribal and the other is considered western.”
For this exhibition, Claxton also created a new video installation based on sacred petroglyph images in Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park and portraits by Nicolas de Grandmaison of First Nations people in the U of L art collection. The show runs until January 8 2010.
For more, see http://www.uleth.ca/artgallery/
Auctions
Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco has a sale of Native American and Pre-Columbian Art at noon on Monday December 14 2009.For more information look under Future Auctions at http://www.bonhams.com
An auction in Toronto on November 26 2009 by Vancouver-based Heffel.com auction house includes early works by Bill Reid. In the sale of Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, a silver bracelet by Reid depicting Bear, Frog, Human, Killer Whale and Wolf, circa 1955, is estimated to sell for $25-35,000. A silver brooch Killer Whale and Humans, circa 1957, is estimated at $9-12,000. A 47 cm. argillite pole by Haida artist Rufus Moody, once in the collection of Marius Barbeau, is estimated at $3-5,000.
The second section at 7 pm includes an early Haida argillite panel from the Barbeau collection estimated at $10-15,000. Also from the Barbeau collection is an argillite carving of a missionary estimated at $10-15,000. A Bear Mother in argillite is estimated at $6-8,000.
On Wednesday November 4 2009, Maynard’s in Vancouver is holding an Antiques, Northwest and Inuit Art auction at 6 pm. Some items of interest are a 19th century argillite pole depicting “Raven atop Bear holding Salmon above Beaver holding Frog”, estimated at $15-2500 and a Tony Hunt Jr. raven ring with abalone inset, estimate $7-900, as well as number of fine baskets. See http://www.maynards.com
Pacific Editions in Victoria is having an auction on November 6 of First Nations art prints, some of them out of print.
See http://www.pacificeditions.ca
Seahawk Auctions are holding an auction on November 21 2009. For more information call 604 657 2072, or see
http://www.seahawkauctions.com/
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City Missouri is opening its newly renovated American Indian galleries on November 11 2009. The galleries are large, more than 6,100 square feet.
The core of the Indian art collection was established when the museum opened in 1933, with major purchases from the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation and the Fred Harvey Company. A recent donation of a Northwest art collection by Estelle and Morton Sosland greatly enhanced the museum’s collection.
One of the outstanding pieces from the Northwest collection is a Haida headdress frontlet, circa 1850, attributed to Albert Edward Edenshaw. An argillite pole by Bill Reid from about 1965 is carved with an eagle, frog, human figures, bear mother with cubs and a killer whale. Their Kwakwaka’wakw Dzunuka “Wild Woman of the Woods” mask is thought to date from about 1870. A hat by Haida weaver Primrose Adams is painted with a shark by Robert Davidson.
Performances by the Kwakwaka’wakw Copper Maker Dancers are on November 14 and 15 2009.
In Nanaimo, the Kwakwaka’wakw Le-La-La Dancers are performing Spirit Journey: Encircling Our Ancestors at the Port Theatre on Thursday December 3 2009. Call 250 754 8550 for tickets.
An exhibition of First Nations art was organized by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, First Peoples of Canada: Masterworks from the Canadian Museum of Civilization. A somewhat different version is now in Osaka, Japan at Minpaku, the national ethnological museum, until December 8 2009. This new exhibition is called Voices from the Land, Visions of Life: Beauty Created by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. This version will also travel to Mexico City from April to July of 2010.
The section of the exhibition about the peoples of the Northwest Coast, entitled The Salmon and the Potlatch People includes a bent box, blankets, masks, spoons and rattles. Modern Northwest carvings and prints from the Minpaku’s own collection are displayed as well as an exhibition of photographs by Akasa Tomoaki of the nature, animals and people of the Northwest. An unusual family activity developed for the exhibition is Transformation Board: “a large screen is mounted on a wall, and when you stand before it, your image will be transformed into a bear or eagle totem pole and projected onto the screen.” See
http://www.minpaku.ac.jp/english/exhibitions/special/canadian/overview.html#topnavi
A recent subscriber to The Beat works at the North American Native Museum in Zurich Switzerland. Loeb Heidrun writes that the museum has about 200 works from the Northwest coast. A pole depicting Raven and Frog Woman carved by Tlingit Nathan Jackson from Ketchikan in 2001 is outside the museum to greet visitors. A mural at the entrance by Tlingit Ken I. Anderson from Whitehorse combines Tlingit formline and Athapaskan floral styles. The museum has art by Musqueam Susan Point, Haida Donald Varnell and recently acquired a piece by Kwakwaka’wakw Bruce Alfred.
A larger new website is planned, but you can learn more about the museum now at
http://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/kultur/en/index/institutionen/native_american_and_inuit_cultures.html
Until December 13 2009, Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology is exhibiting a newly-carved Tlingit style long-tail canoe by Kwakwaka’wakw artist Calvin Hunt. Accompanying text and historical photographs of wooden canoes accompany the display. The canoe will be carrying the Olympic torch across the bay at Port Hardy on the northern tip of Vancouver Island on Tuesday February 2 2010. The Olympic torch is now being carried on a cross-country journey towards Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
An exhibition is being organized at MOA Border Zones: New Art Across Cultures, curated by Karen Duffek to mark the opening of the renovated Museum of Anthropology on January 23 2010. Dzawada'enuxw Marianne Nicolson will be one of the twelve contemporary artists included.
The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Art in Vancouver is hosting a lecture series by some of the artists in its current exhibition Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast, which runs until January 31 2010.
In this series, Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas will speak on Wednesday November 25 2009, at 5:30 to 7 pm.
Kwakwaka’wakw artist Sonny Assu will speak on Wednesday January 20 2010 at 5:30 pm.
Mike Nicoll Yahgulanaas has other news as well. His new book Red: A Haida Manga has sold very well since its launch October 1. Photographs showing the creation of this graphic work are on his publisher’s webpage at: http://www.dmpibooks.com/book/redhttp://www.dmpibooks.com/book/red
Yahgulanaas has opened a solo exhibition in Calgary at the Glenbow Museum until January 24 2010. See http://www.glenbow.org
On Thursday November 5 at noon, a Brown Bag Lunch presentation “Celebrating the canoe as a wonder of Canada” will be made by Dr. James Raffan, Director of the Canadian Canoe Museum.
For more see http://www.billreidgallery.ca
The winners of the 2009 Creative Achievement Awards for Aboriginal Art were honoured at a Vancouver event on October 15. Premier Gordon Campbell awarded distinguished Gitksan elder Earl Muldon the award for Lifetime Achievement. Kwakiutl artists Calvin Hunt, and Richard Hunt, Carrier Nadleh Whut’en Noeleen McQuary, Chemainus John Marston and Haida Isabel Rorick received awards for their art.
The BC Creative Achievement Awards for Aboriginal Art are sponsored by Polygon Homes Ltd. and the Vancouver Airport Authority.
Vancouver Fashion Week from November 3 to 8 2009 will showcase new and elegant work by Haida designer Dorothy Grant. Grant has launched some elegant new designs made in Italian fabrics: a ribbon shawl, a cashmere Killer Whale Shawl and some fine large silk scarves in several colours. The runway show of Grant’s designs will be at 4 pm on Thursday November 5 at Colin Campbell Design Showroom at 494 Railway Street in downtown Vancouver. For more information on Fashion Week, see http://www.vanfashionweek.com
Dorothy Grant’s website is http://www.dorothygrant.com
Tsimshian artist Arthur Vickers has carved a fine Leadership Desk for the office of the Premier of British Columbia, presented on October 28. The desk was created without drawers, in the form of a bent box, its top a lid. The outside front of the cedar desk is painted with a young eagle, and on the other side, male and female humans with arms outstretched, representing the current generation of British Columbians. The side panels depict a future generation awaiting birth.
Like his brother Roy Vickers, Arthur Vickers has a studio and art gallery on Vancouver Island. Arthur Vickers’ Shipyard gallery is in Cowichan Bay. For an image and more of the story, see
http://www.vancouversun.com/Native+artist+designs+premier+desk/2157574/story.html
The Beat October 2009 carried the story of the exhibition Strange Comfort: work by Brian Jungen at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. This is the first solo show of a living artist to be held in that museum.
The MNAI website now includes the critical essays by Paul Chaat Smith and Candice Hopkins from the exhibition’s catalogue, as well as a fascinating blog with photographs by the conservator who helped install the show. See http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/jungen/
The Sydney Biennale is a large and prestigious international exhibition held next in 2010 in Australia, from May 12 to August 1. Next year’s theme is The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age. The Artistic Director of the 17th Biennale David Elliott visited British Columbia recently and is actively interested in certain First Nations artists based in Vancouver.
See http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au
Vancouver
residents and visitors are treated to frequent views of art works by
Musqueam artist Susan
Point these days. The
design on the colourful banners seen on the Cambie Street Bridge and
elsewhere is called Into
the Light. The sculpture
Cedar Connection is
at the Vancouver airport’s Canada Line station, and the 95-foot
long frieze The Human
Spirit is at the
Vancouver Convention Centre.
The Christmas Fair at the U’Mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay is from December 8 to 24 2009. An astonishing number of fine First Nations artists and craftspeople live in Alert Bay and contribute to the sale, which is held to support the Centre. For more information about the U’Mista Centre see http://www.umista.ca
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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, Martin Landmann, Dana Claxton, Michael Nichols Yahgulanaas, Loeb Heidrun, Arti Chandaria, Martine Reid, and others, for your assistance. A hard drive failure in October resulted in some data loss. My apologies if information on your event does not appear; regrettably, it was lost.
The Beat is an independent, not-for-profit project written and published in Vancouver Canada by Ann Cameron. Copyright 2009 Ann Cameron.