Past Archive
Here are a few entries from the past. Search or Sort the archive to view all entries.
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.
Find out more info, watch the Artist's Talk and see photos of the installation in progress: here
Peripheral Vision(s):
Perspectives on the “Indian” image by 19th century Northern Plains warrior-artists and 20th century American artists, Leonard Baskin and Fritz Scholder
August 24 - January 4, 2020.
Curated by Rhéanne Chartrand and Gerald McMaster
Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
This exhibition sparks a visual dialogue between 19th century ledger drawings by Northern Plains warrior-artists and the lithographic prints of 20th century American artists Leonard Baskin and Fritz Scholder.
More information including video shorts and full recording of the Panel Discussion
EVENTS
Opening Reception: September 12, 6 - 8 pm
Curator's Tour by Rhéanne Chartrand: Wednesday, Sept 25, 12:30 – 1:20 pm
A Night of Indigenous Music | Cris Derksen and nêhiyawak: Thursday, September 26, 7 – 9 pm
Panel Discussion: Wednesday, November 20, 6 – 9 pm
• Janet Berlo, professor of art/art history and visual culture, University of Rochester
• Gerald McMaster, curator, artist, author, and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair of Indigenous visual culture and curatorial practice, Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, ON
• Jeffrey Thomas, independent photo-based artist, recipient of the 2019 Governor General Award for the Visual and Media Arts
• Rhéanne Chartrand, curator of Indigenous art, McMaster Museum of Art
Image: White Swan, Apsaalooke, 1851 – 1904, Untitled (White Swan Riding Through Gunfire), about 1890, graphite and colored pencil on wove canvas paper. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Mark Lansburgh Ledger Drawing Collection; Partial gift of Mark Lansburgh, Class of 1949; and partial purchase through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund, and the Offices of the President and Provost of Dartmouth College; 2007.65.93.
it is from here that the world unfolds
Curated by Pamela Edmonds
August 24 - December 14, 2019
A reconsideration of the Herman H. Levy Collection and Bequest spanning five centuries of historical, modern and contemporary art focused primarily on the European canon. Instead of constructing a linear historical survey, individual works and groupings provide points of departure for alternative narratives reflecting transcultural exchange and re-orientations. Presented in recognition of the Levy Collection’s return to McMaster following its cross-Canada tour in the exhibition, A Cultivating Journey highlighting significant artworks donated by the Hamilton businessman and philanthropist in 1984.
More Information.
- Opening Reception: Thursday September 12, 6- 8 pm
- Curator's Talk by Pamela Edmonds: Friday, November 1 at 12:30 pm
- Talk by Dr. Kenneth Montague, Director of Wedge Curatorial Projects / Collector of African diasporic art
Friday, November 15, 12:30 – 1:20 pm - Talk by Merray Gerges, Art Critic and Editorial Resident at C Magazine
Thursday, November 28, 12:30 – 1:20 pm (Rescheduled from Nov 1.)
Image: Henri Matisse, Icarus, Plate VIII from Jazz, 1947, Pochoir on Arches paper. Levy Bequest Purchase. Collection of McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University
COUNTERPOINT: SUMMA 2019
Graduating McMaster BFA Student Exhibition
Guest Curator: Hitoko Okada
LOCATION: The Cotton Factory*
270 Sherman Ave N, Hamilton, ON L8L 6N4
April 6 - 17, 2019
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, April 6, 11:30 am – 3 pm at The Cotton Factory
Following the reception, open hours are April 8 - 12 and April 16 - 17 from 11 am – 3 pm
Since entering the McMaster Studio Art program in 2015, our class has developed and grown both as individuals and as a group. As our time here at McMaster comes to an end, we have the pleasure of presenting our work to the public in a final exhibition. This show is titled Counterpoint, which means, “to combine elements”. With the elements of our practices merging and influencing one another, Counterpoint is a commemoration of experiences and artistic endeavours.
- The McMaster BFA Class of 2019
Norah Andresen, Lucia Cackovic, Jayda Conti, Sean Cooper, Neville Dennis, Deeshani Fernando, Safiyyah Figaro, Deanna Gallo, Meghan Giudice, Andjelija Jancic, Emily Kester, Katherine A. Laird, Caroline Eun-ae Lee, Anthony Lok, Robyn McCallum, Delaney McVeigh, Audrey Pearson, Josh Ravenhill, Jason Lee Rhyno
*McMaster Museum of Art has hosted the Studio Art Graduation exhibition for more than 30 years, but had to close from March 19 – August 23, 2019 for Environmental Systems Upgrades full details. We are pleased that an alternate location has been found for 2019, and look forward to future SUMMA presentations.
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