Past Archive
Here are a few entries from the past. Search or Sort the archive to view all entries.
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.
Curated by Dr. Spencer Pope
Ongoing (Closing temporarily March 9 - August 23 during Facility shutdown)
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".
Domestic Vessels from the Greek and Roman World
Ongoing (Closing temporarily March 9 - August 23 during Facility shutdown)
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.
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
* * * * *
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.
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
Ursula Johnson: Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember)
Organized by Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery
Curated by Robin Metcalfe
McMaster Museum of Art | September 13 – December 8, 2018
PUBLIC PERFORMANCE: Sept 20 – 21, 11 am – 3 pm and Sept 22, 12 – 3 pm
an endurance performance by the artist in the gallery
Ursula Johnson’s practice ranges from fine craft and traditional Indigenous art forms through performance and installation. Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember) examines ideas of ancestry, identity and cultural practice. Johnson deconstructs and manipulates the function and image of Mi’kmaw basketry, using traditional techniques to build non-functional forms.
In Mi’kwite’tmn, Johnson creates three distinct spaces. A “Museological Grand Hall”, “Archive Room” and “Performative Space”.
Ursula Johnson is an Interdisciplinary Artist from Nova Scotia with Mi’kmaw Ancestry. She graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design with a BFA and is currently based out of Eskasoni Nation. In 2017, Johnson won the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s biggest contemporary art prize.
The exhibition was produced by Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Halifax, in collaboration with Unama'ki College and with support from the Government of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts. The artist wishes to acknowledge support from Arts Nova Scotia.
Image: Ursula Johnson, Upmetuk, O’pltek Form, 2012. Black Ash, Maple Wood, Sweetgrass, 21 x 15 x 15 cm, Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: Wendy McElmon
Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar & Spy:
The Napoleonic era maps of Robert Clifford
From the Collection of McMaster University Library
Curators: Gord Beck and Jason Brodeur
May 26 – September 1, 2018
Public Lecture: Frederick C. Schneid and Gord Beck. Details & RSVP info
While the Honourable Robert Clifford (1767-1817) was an officer in Dillon’s Regiment of the Irish Brigade serving Louis XVI of France, he acquired training in the most advanced methods of military science and cartography of the age. This 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 great value to his English countrymen.
This exhibit presents a selection of maps from the Clifford collection, some on public view for the first time since they were acquired in 1969.
Rebecca Belmore: MARCH 5, 1819
From the collection of McMaster Museum of Art
May 10 – August 18, 2018
Since 1987, Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore has addressed history, place, and identity through her consistently powerful and provocative multi-disciplinary works of art.
March 5, 1819 is a recently acquired video work that considers the frantic final moments before Demasduit, a young Beothuk woman (later renamed Mary March) is captured by colonists at Red Indian Lake in Newfoundland. Her husband Nonosabasut dies trying to save her.
Belmore’s re-enactment of this historical moment in contemporary dress, places the viewer into the middle of the event – as both witness and perpetrator – effectively bringing the historical struggle of Indigenous peoples in Canada viscerally into the present.
Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe/Canadian) is internationally recognized for her performance and installation art. Belmore was Canada’s official representative at the 2005 Venice Biennale, received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Art in 2013, and was awarded the 2016 Gershon Iskowitz Prize.
The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Project
Organized by the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery
Principal Investigator and Artist/Researcher: Donald Lawrence
Curator: Josephine Mills
Artists: Dianne Bos, Lea Bucknell, Ernie Kroeger, Holly Ward and Kevin Schmidt, Carsten Wirth, and Andrew Wright
May 10 – August 18, 2018
During summer solstice 2015 in Dawson City, Yukon, the Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Festival brought together an international group of artists and other researchers interested in cameras obscura and related optical phenomenon as a meeting place of art and science, cultural and wilderness settings, learning and play.
Curated from the results of the festival, this exhibition includes one of the actual cameras obscura; images projected by several of the devices; documentation of the event; and new work produced by the artists in response to the initial research.
<more info>
Gordon Bennett, Be Polite
Organized and circulated by IMA Brisbane
Levy and Tomlinson Galleries | January 11 – May 12, 2018
CURATORS’ TALK by Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh from the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia: Thursday, January 11, 12:30 pm
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, January 11, 6 – 8 pm
Drawn from the Estate of Gordon Bennett, the exhibition presents a selection of works on paper including drawing, painting, watercolour, poetry, and essays from the early 1990s through to the early 2000s. Though rarely seen in exhibition contexts, Bennett’s drawing and script form the foundation of his practice. Paper is the site where imagery, words and ideas often found their first expression before being combined into the large-scale conceptual paintings for which Bennett is known. Despite their intimate scale, works in Be Polite embrace rich layers of Western and Australian Indigenous art history and contemporary politics, a direction Bennett played a leading role in developing throughout the 1980s and continued to explore in his successful career. As noted by the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, in their press release for their presentation of Be Polite in summer 2017, “the shared colonial histories with Canada and in particular the plight of local First Nations are set in dialogue across continents. Issues, events and histories are given compelling voice in these provocative and often disturbing images.” In his 1996 text “The Manifest Toe” Gordon Bennett wrote:
I abhor violence, and I have little compulsion to glorify it in any case, so I thought of the depiction of violence as a way to disturb firstly the complacent acceptance of Australia’s sanitized history, and secondly, through the shock of that disturbance, to “jolt” the spectator “out of accustomed ways of perceiving the world” and perhaps foster empathy and understanding of contemporary issues that affect all of us as human beings.
Gordon Bennett (1955–2014) was of Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic descent and one of Australia’s most visionary and critical artists. He has been the subject of major solo presentations and retrospectives at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (touring, Europe), 1999–2000, Griffith University, Brisbane (touring, Australia), 2004–2005, and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (touring, Australia), 2007–2009. International recognition and attention for Bennett’s work has been growing with his inclusion in the acclaimed dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel in 2012, and the 8th Berlin Biennale in 2014.
Gordon Bennett, Be Polite is organized and circulated by the IMA, Brisbane where it was first presented in October 2015 and toured to the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2016. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, and McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton are the sole Canadian exhibition partners. The exhibition is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, Australia Council for the Arts, Ministry of Communications and the Arts through Visions of Australia, The Estate of Gordon Bennett, Milani Gallery, and Sutton Gallery.
Image: Gordon Bennett, Notes to Basquiat: Boogie Man, 1998, acrylic on paper, 120 × 80 cm. Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett, Brisbane. Photography: Carl Warner © The Estate of Gordon Bennett.