Current & Upcoming
Undying Hope for this Dangerous World: Bertrand Russell in perspective
Curated by the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library
May 26 – December 21, 2018
This exhibition will explore the life of Bertrand Russell, one of the foremost public intellectuals of the 20th century, through artwork, artefacts, photographs, and his own personal papers with a particular focus on his political activism and personal relationships.
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Archives at McMaster University.
Bruce Barber: The Bertrand Russell Reading Room
Tomlinson Gallery | September 13 - December 21, 2018
In conjunction with the McMaster Russell Archives 50th anniversary exhibition, the Museum invited Nova Scotia College of Art and Design professor Bruce Barber to develop an artist project.
For the Museum, Barber has devised a reading room environment. The key gallery element is a constructed simulacrum of the Brixton prison cell, where Russell spent six months in 1918 for prejudicing “His Majesty’s relationship with the U.S.A". It is 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.
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, and more and is represented in various public and private collections. 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) www.brucebarber.ca
READING ROOM EVENT
Tuesday September 18, 12:30 – 1:20 pm
Artist Bruce Barber in conversation with McMaster University faculty and members of the public 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.
Virginia Aksan, Professor Emeritus, Department of History
James Ingram, Professor, Department of Political Science
Neil McLaughlin, Professor, Department of Sociology
Troublemakers: Angela Grossmann
Curator: Lynn Ruscheinsky, PhD | January 17 - March 9, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 17, 6 - 8 pm
Artist/Curator Talk: “Hello Dolly” Friday, January 18th, 12:30-1:20 pm
Artist Angela Grossmann in conversation with Curator Dr. Lynn Ruscheinsky
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The 68 works presented in Angela Grossmann’s Troublemakers address the role that performance plays in the transgression of gender and social expectation, the stigma of the unruly body and the disciplinary power of shame.
Throughout her career Grossmann has sought to re-create and re-dress the marginalized, the misunderstood and dispossessed with her strongly “feminist” dynamic mixed media works that intervene in both the physical form and visual experience of subjectivity. Troublemakers continues with this project exploring concepts relating to the “wanting to be” and “not wanting to be” of identity.
The re-make is at the heart of her undertaking. From her large found photo archives, which include vintage mug-shots (retrieved from the trash at the closure of the BC Penitentiary), risqué images of women posing in cheap motel rooms, sentimental portraits of children, tweens and toughs, her interventions strategically alter their meaning or potential meaning by dislocating them from their “normal” or expected context. Through the snip of her scissors, the deconstruction and reconstruction of body parts, the addition of doll’s clothes, feathers and felt hats, Grossmann blurs the borders between the unconscious and the purposeful and the finished and the unfinished. Certainly the most prominent, most creative and unspoken attraction in Grossmann’s work is her exceptional ability to create believable characters triumphant in their troublemaking. Her passionate provocations imply the possibility of other subject positions and with them the possibilities that the edicts of power are capable of being resisted, rewritten, and even reversed.
The show includes new and past works from Grossmann’s exhibitions: Mistress Works (2017), Models of Resistance (2015), Alpha Girls (2006), The Basement Show (2003), Corrections (2000), and Smaller than Life (1987-ongoing).
Angela Grossmann is a Vancouver-based visual artist. Over the last two decades her paintings and collages have been the subject of more than 20 solo shows in Canada, the U.S. Europe and Japan beginning with the Young Romantics Exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery (1985). The Art Newspaper (June 2006) included Grossmann on a list of 100 artists who have most influenced students at art schools in Britain (culled from 11 leading British art schools). Recently her work has been featured in three Vancouver Art Gallery exhibitions including Unreal that showcased her miniature surrealist paintings. A series of her collages were featured in a solo booth at ArtToronto 2015.
Grossmann's work has been the subject of numerous scholarly articles including: Princeton Press: The End of Innocence: Picturing Her (Dr. Loren Lerner), Le Mois de la Photo: Memoires and Testimonies (Dr. Martha Langford), Hobo Magazine: Alpha Girls (Sean Starke): Flesh for a Fantasy ( Danielle Egan), Canadian Art Magazine: Portrait a Toughs (Deborah Campbell), Canadian Art, Whitehot Magazine, the Vancouver Sun, the Georgia Straight and Border Crossings reviewed Grossmann’s Models of Resistance.
Alongside her solo career Grossmann continues collaborations with the Futura Bold collective, its members including: Attila Richard Lukacs, Graham Gillmore and Douglas Coupland - to date the group have launched six major self-initiated projects.
Michael Allgoewer: 1514
January 17 - March 16, 2019
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, January 17, 6 – 8 pm
ARTIST’S TALK: Thursday, February 7, 12:30 – 1:20 pm
Taking Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 print, Melencolia 1, as an inspiration and starting point, this installation by Hamilton-based artist Michael Allgoewer deconstructs Dürer’s image into discrete sculptural elements; with oblique references to Judd, Johns, Kiefer and Beuys.
Image:
Michael Allgoewer
detail of Wings
photograph
30x30 inches
collection of the artist
The Artist would like to acknowledge the support provided
through the City Enrichment Fund.
Jaime Angelopoulos: Oblique Choreography
Curator: Ivan Jurakic
January 17 - March 16, 2019
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, January 17, 6 – 8 pm
Artist Jaime Angelopoulos gives physicality to personal emotions and social behaviours through her sculpture and impossibly intertwined drawings.
Jaime Angelopoulos is a Toronto based artist who has exhibited widely with recent solo exhibitions at the MacLaren Art Centre (Ontario), Judith Norman & Alix Art Gallery (Ontario), Parisian Laundry (Montreal), MKG 127 (Toronto), and Musée Regional de Rimouski (Quebec). She received her MFA from York University and studied sculpture at Meadows School of the Arts (Dallas, TX). She was awarded the inaugural Hazelton Sculpture Prize in 2013 and has participated in numerous artist residencies including KulttuuriKauppila Art Centre (Finland). Her work can be found in numerous collections in Canada and internationally.
Ernest Daetwyler
The Boat Project/everythingwillbefine
Artist Garden | 2018 – 2020
Canadian artist Ernest Daetwyler will build a site-specific work in the Museum’s Artist Garden this summer. He will transform pieces of driftwood into a boat form, embedded with a steelcut text message, creating an environment for both active engagement and reflection. The surreal and poetic installation is intended to symbolize a time of change, challenges, and the existential fluctuations that life can present.
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Domestic Vessels from the Greek and Roman World
Ongoing
This new antiquities exhibition presents a picture of daily domestic life in the ancient world through objects familiar to Greek and Roman households. All vessels are drawn from McMaster Museum of Art's permanent collection.
Curated by Dr. Spencer Pope
Ongoing
This is an exhibition of twenty-two coins, mostly from the Roman Republic, dating back to Alexander the Great. They are significant for both their value to McMaster's Teaching Collection and their provenance. The Collection was generously gifted to McMaster University by McMaster astronomy professor Ethan Vishniac, who inherited it from his grandfather, renowned photographer Roman Vishniac.
Image: Vishniac 12: Roman Orichalcum Coin of Emperor Galba (AD 68-69)
OBVERSE: Laureate head of Galba, facing right, "IMP SER GALBA CAES AUG TR P".
REVERSE: Libertas (deity representing Liberty) standing left, holding pileus and rod, "LIBERTAS PUBLICA SC".