Category: research
Pamela Edmonds’ Essay on Sandra Brewster Published by the Art Canada Institute
Exhibition highlighting the complexities of vaccination opens at the McMaster Museum of Art
McMaster Museum of Art Awarded Major Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Museum launches Curatorial Mentorship Program for BIPOC leadership
Prefix Photo Magazine reviews Peripheral Visions
Artist Panel for Animals Across Discipline, Time & Space | March 19
Artist Talk / In Conversation: Deanna Bowen and Professor Selina Mudavanhu
Celebrating 10 years of The Art of Seeing
Engineering Student Research in the Vaults
Museum receives major Terra grant for Indigenous/American Art project
Museum News: Spring/Summer 2019
Museum of Art Closing for Environmental System Updates
The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) will be temporarily closed from March 19 – August 23, 2019 for major updates to its environmental systems. The shutdown is necessary to ensure the highest standard of care and preservation for the more than 6,000 objects in the University’s significant art collection. The MMA is a Category “A” cultural institution as designated by the Government of Canada. more info
We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to reopening in time for the Fall Semester with exciting new exhibitions. In the meantime, Museum staff will be taking programming ‘to the streets’ with a series of free education programs, including In-School Art Programs (Fully Booked), Mini-University activities, public art projects, campus art tours, and much more. Further details below.
We will be sharing updates and additional programming on this page and on social media channels throughout the closure.
MMA Public Programmes during Spring/Summer include…
GUIDED TOURS & LUNCHTIME ART ACTIVITIES
Presented by the N. Gillian Cooper Education Program
Free. No registration required.
In the event of rain, outdoor activities will be cancelled. Please follow our social media channels for updates.
- Walking Tours of Selected Campus Architecture
Thursday, May 9 at 12 noon | length: 1 hour
Meet in front of the McMaster Museum of Art for a guided tour of buildings in the central campus area from Hamilton Hall to Divinity College.
Thursday, May 23 at 12 noon | length: 1 hourCancelled due to inclement weather
Meet in front of JHE by the clock for a guided tour that will cover buildings in the south area of campus from the Reactor to the Health Sciences Centre.
Wednesday, June 19 at 12 noon | length: 1 hour
Meet in front of the McMaster Museum of Art for a guided tour of buildings in the central campus area. Hamilton Arts Week Event - Walking Tour of Selected Campus Sculpture
Tuesday, June 18 at 12 noon | length: 1 hour
Guided tour begins in front of the Museum of Art. Hamilton Arts Week Event - Outdoor Sketching
Thursday, June 20 at 12 noon | length: 1 hour
Art supplies provided in front of the Museum of Art. Hamilton Arts Week Event
PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS
This summer, McMaster Museum of Art will be commissioning three separate public artworks for the exterior of the building.
Must See Exhibitions Off Campus…
McMaster’s Monet in AGO Blockbuster
McMaster’s Claude Monet painting of Waterloo Bridge has been borrowed by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto for their spring exhibition Impressionism in the Age of Industry: Monet, Pissarro and more from February 16 to May 5, 2019. We are delighted that the work was selected and that we were able to accommodate the request. The painting has just returned from the nationally touring exhibition A Cultivating Journey: The Herman H. Levy Legacy, and following the Museum’s spring/summer closure, it will be hung once again and on permanent display at McMaster Museum of Art (MMA). More info
Counterpoint: SUMMA 2019
Annual McMaster University BFA Exhibition
Guest Curator: Hitoko Okada
LOCATION: The Cotton Factory
270 Sherman Ave N, Hamilton, ON L8L 6N4
April 6 – 19, 2019
Due to the Museum shutdown, the 2019 McMaster University BFA Graduation exhibition (aka SUMMA) will be hosted off campus at The Cotton Factory. Please join us at the Cotton Factory on Saturday, April 6, 11 am – 3 pm for the Opening Celebration and MMA sponsored student awards. Until then, follow the graduating class on Instagram @mcmastersumma2019 for a sneak preview of the artists’ work.
Video: Bertrand Russell Panel Discussion
Bruce Barber: The Bertrand Russell Reading Room
McMaster Museum of Art presents:
Bruce Barber: The Bertrand Russell Reading Room
EXHIBITION AND EVENT
In conjunction with the Undying Hope for this Dangerous World exhibition, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Bertrand Russell archives at McMaster University, the Museum of Art invited Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University professor Bruce Barber to develop an artist project. Barber’s project launches at the Museum in September with a special event and an exhibition environment – complete with recreated version of Russell’s cell in Brixton Prison – highlighting the life, work, and continued relevance of the renowned British philosopher and mathematician.
EVENT | September 18 from 12:30 – 1:20 pm
Bruce Barber, Artist and Professor in conversation with McMaster University faculty:
Virginia Aksan, Professor Emeritus, Department of History
James Ingram, Professor, Department of Political Science
Neil McLaughlin, Professor, Department of Sociology
They will speak about key themes relating to the exhibition including, but not limited to:
- Pacifism and its continued relevance in today’s globalized world
- Feminist Approaches to Bertrand Russell’s philosophy
- Academics, Public intellectuals and Political Activism.
Free and Open to the Public.
Event will be held in the McMaster Museum of Art’s 4th Floor Tomlinson Gallery, in the Bruce Barber installation
Museum’s front desk are happy to provide elevator access.
Seating is limited and is available first-come-first-served
EXHIBITION | September 13 – December 21, 2018
In his concept proposal, Bruce Barber noted another Russell anniversary in 2018:
Russell spent six months in Brixton Prison in 1918 for prejudicing “His Majesty’s relationship with the U.S.A” and where he wrote his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. 2018 coincidentally marks the centenary of the end of the First World War that will be probably reduced to jingoistic celebrations of militarism that would have been abhorred by the philosopher who spent much of his life protesting war.
For the Museum, Barber has devised a reading room environment. The key gallery element is a constructed simulacrum of the Brixton prison cell, furnished with a bed, writing desk, stool and a quote from Russell, realized in neon: “War does not determine who is right – only who is left.” Other Russell quotes will be positioned on the perimeter walls of the gallery space, with two Barber-produced videos relating to Russell, his life and times, and images of the present to raise awareness of Russell’s life and work and continuing relevance in today’s world; the complex ethical issues that surround forms of oppression, terrorism and “war responses” affecting the lives of people globally.
ABOUT BRUCE BARBER
Bruce Barber was born in New Zealand and has worked internationally across performance, installation, film, video and photography since the early 1970s. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at the Paris Biennale, Sydney Biennale, 49th Parallel Gallery NYC, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, Walter Phillips Gallery, London Regional Gallery, Auckland City Art Gallery, Artspace, Sydney, Auckland, London, Paris and Venice (2015, 2017), and is represented in various public and private collections. Barber is the editor of Essays on Performance and Cultural Politicization and of Conceptual Art: the NSCAD Connection 1967-1973. He is co-editor, with Serge Guilbaut & John O’Brian of Voices of Fire: Art Rage, Power and the State. Editor of Condé +Beveridge: Class Works (2008); also author of Performance [Performance] and Performers: Essays and Conversations (2 volumes) (2008); and Trans/Actions: Art, Film and Death (2008); Littoral Art & Communicative Action edited by Marc James Léger (2013). His critical essays have appeared internationally in numerous anthologies, art journals and magazines. Barber’s interdisciplinary art practice is also documented in the publications Reading Rooms (1990) and Bruce Barber Work 1970-2008 (2009).
www.brucebarber.ca
Curators Stephan Cleland and Blair French summarized Barber’s work as “developing propositional and situational works that engage and question social and political regimes of power.”
(From Bruce Barber Work 1970-2008, Artspace, Sydney and Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Manukau)
Journal of Curator’s Travels to Cape Dorset
The publication is here – Rebecca Belmore: March 5, 1819
FAQ in the Midnight Sun Exhibition
Public Lecture: Napoleon’s Maps and the Conduct of War
McMaster University Library presents:
PUBLIC LECTURE
L.R. Wilson Hall (Concert Hall), McMaster University
June 13, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Open to the public, RSVP to reserve a seat.
Napoleon’s Maps and the Conduct of War
Frederick C. Schneid, High Point University
One of Napoleon’s first appointments was as an officer in the Bureau Topographique, responsible for war planning and mapping theaters of war. The development of strategy necessitated proper intelligence gathering, and mapping was perhaps one of its most import tasks. Indeed, Napoleon later demanded up to date maps to determine the deployment and operations of his armies after he became ruler of France. The lecture will explore the relationship between Napoleon, maps and military campaigning in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Included will be a discussion of maps held in the Clifford Map Collection, one of which was presented to Napoleon in recognition of his victory in Italy in 1800.
Frederick C. Schneid is Herman and Louise Smith Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at High Point University in North Carolina. He received his PhD from Purdue University, where he studied under eminent military historian Gunther E. Rothenberg. Professor Schneid’s research specialty is French and Italian military history from the French Revolution to the Wars of Italian Unification. He is the author and editor of sixteen books, and numerous book chapters and articles. Among his publications are European Armies of the French Revolution, The French-Piedmontese Campaign of 1859, The Second War of Italian Unification, Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition and Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns, 1805-1815. He is currently working on a manuscript on Napoleon’s first Italian campaign and writing two chapters for the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars.
Followed by:
Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar and Spy: The Napoleonic Era Maps of
the Honourable Robert Clifford (1767-1817)
Gord Beck, McMaster University
Robert Clifford was the third son of the 4th Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. While serving as an officer in Dillon’s Regiment under Louis XVI of France, he was trained in the most advanced methods of military science and cartography of the age. His knowledge of the inner workings of the French military, coupled with the maps of fortifications he smuggled out of France while narrowly avoiding the guillotine, proved to be of immeasurable value to his English countrymen. His advice was sought by General John Graves Simcoe for the defense of England against a French invasion, and on the formation of a new military college at Sandhurst. Learn the story behind the man, his maps, and how they came to McMaster.
Gord Beck is McMaster University Library’s Map Specialist, and the curator of the Robert Clifford Map Exhibit on view at the McMaster Museum of Art from May 26 through September 1, 2018. He developed his expertise in military cartography over his 20-year period working in the Lloyd Reeds Map Collection, receiving the President’s Award for Outstanding Service in 2014. Gord is a recognized expert in the field of WWI trench maps and aerial photos, and has appeared frequently in the media and as a guest speaker on that topic. He has recently completed two projects with Canadian Geographic involving the creation of a ‘Giant Floor Map of Vimy Ridge,’ and a documentary about mapping and aerial photography in WWI narrated by Dan Aykroyd and entitled, ‘Drawn to Victory.’
Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar & Spy: The Napoleonic era maps of Robert Clifford
New Exhibit Explores Life of Bertrand Russell
Published: McMaster Museum of Art Collection Books
Get to know Van Gogh via Science and Music
Curator’s Talk by Ihor Holubizky Oct 24
A Cultivating Journey: The Herman H. Levy Legacy
New Exhibition: Struck by Likening
Published! Living, Building, Thinking: Art & Expressionism
Video: Curator’s Talk by Rhéanne Chartrand
McMaster’s Art on Tour: On Royals, Retrospectives, and Radiation
Wine, Water, and Oil: Antiquities at McMaster
MMA Appoints Rhéanne Chartrand as Aboriginal Curatorial Resident
The McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) is pleased to announce that Rhéanne Chartrand has been named the MMA’s inaugural Aboriginal Curatorial Resident. Her one-year residency runs July, 2016 through June, 2017.
During the year, Chartrand will develop two exhibitions at McMaster centered on Indigenous art. More specifically, her focus will be contemporary Indigenous artists and the history of curatorial practice related to Indigenous art in Canada. Leading up to the exhibitions, her work at the Museum will include collections research, programming and partnerships with Indigenous communities.
Chartrand has worked with numerous galleries and cultural organizations including Aboriginal Pavillion for Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance, and aluCine Latin Film+Media Arts Festival. She brings rich experience and energy to the MMA residency, as well as a deep commitment to build cross-cultural connections and creative collaborations between Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
“The Museum has a strong history of exhibiting and collecting Indigenous art,” says MMA Director and Chief Curator Carol Podedworny. “We are thrilled to now welcome Rhéanne to our team, to learn from, and to share her voice and vision.”
This Residency was made possible by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost, McMaster University.
Rhéanne Chartrand is a curator, arts administrator, and cultural animator based in Toronto, Canada. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology from McMaster University and a Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. Rhéanne has over six years of experience producing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary exhibitions, showcases and large-scale events. Recently, she served as Festival Coordinator for aluCine Latin Film+Media Arts Festival 2016. As well, she recently curated a performing arts showcase on behalf of Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance and prior to that, served as Artistic Director for the Aboriginal Pavilion, a 16 day Indigenous arts, culture and sports festival that was held in conjunction with the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am / Parapan Am Games. Rhéanne co-directed and co-produced the Aboriginal Pavilion’s Opening Night Showcase alongside Alejandro Ronceria, and solo curated Gazing Back, Looking Forward, a photographic and mixed media art exhibition at Fort York Visitor’s Centre. In addition to Gazing Back, Looking Forward, she has participated in other curatorial projects, most notably as co-curator of Sanaugaq // Things Made by Hand. She has participated on numerous academic and industry conference panels and has guest lectured at OCADU and McMaster University. In addition to her Métis roots in Canada, Rhéanne grew up with a deep appreciation of and connection to Latin American cultures.
