Tag: Indigenous
Museum receives major Terra grant for Indigenous/American Art project
Jeremy Dutcher Concert at McMaster
Ursula Johnson: Mi’kwite’tmn (Do You Remember)
Rebecca Belmore: March 5, 1819
Recent Acquisitions
Coyote School – the story behind the title
Jeremy Dutcher’s Performance and his Inspiration
Jeremy Dutcher: Indigenous Operatic Tenor to Perform at McMaster
Coyote School Exhibition Highlights 8 Contemporary Indigenous Artists
Save the Date: June 8, Coyote School Opening Celebration
Recording: “How Far We’ve Come” Panel with Indigenous Art Scholars
Video: Curator’s Talk by Rhéanne Chartrand
Panel Discussion with Leading Indigenous Scholars
MMA Presents Important Works by Contemporary Indigenous Artists in New Exhibition
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.
Presenting ‘Art of Peace’ by Six Nations Artist Elizabeth Doxtater
Waking the Magicians 2015 and Magiciens de la Terre 1989
Waking the Magicians, 2015
In addition to his solo exhibition at the Museum this summer, Artist/Curator Brad Isaacs has selected two works from McMaster’s collection―one by Carl Beam and the other by Richard Long―for the installation in the adjacent gallery. The works are intended to renew questions about land, place, relationships to nature in an art historical context, and the space for indigenous art within the broader contemporary art world. His title for the installation, Waking the Magicians, is a reference to the controversial juxtaposition of works by Richard Long and the Yuendumu language group (Northern Territories), Australia in the 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la Terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou curated by Jean-Hubert Martin. Waking the Magicians continues until August 15, 2015.
Magiciens de la Terre, 1989
“An exhibition loved and hated in equal measure, Martin curated the show to address the fact that there were, as he put it, “one hundred percent of exhibitions ignoring 80 percent of the earth.” He attempted to engage critically with certain aspects of neo-colonial mentality in the West, particularly a resurgent interest in ‘primitivism,’ which Martin felt aestheticized exotic cultures without destablilizing western definitions of fine art, modernism, or identity. The exhibition included works by 100 artists (50 from the so called ‘West’ and 50 from the ‘margins’), attempting to show all on equal footing.” 1
For the 1989 exhibition, Richard Long’s Red Earth Circle was installed beside Yuendumu community’s Yam Dreaming. On this juxtaposition, art historians Ivan Karp and Fred Wilson wrote:
“The sand painting…in front of [Long] left you with the feeling that here were two artists from extraordinarily different places trying to reproduce the elements of the world. But for Long, the elements are base materials themselves, and for the Australian Aboriginal painting, they’re visible signs of the hidden world.” 2
Here is a video of the Yuendumu community installing their work in Magiciens de la Terre
Magiciens de la Terre, 1989 (7′ 50″ clip) from Marco di Castri on Vimeo.
And here is Richard Long installing his work in Magiciens de la Terre
1 “Magiciens De La Terre.” FORMER WEST. BAK, n.d. Web. 20 May 2015. <http://www.formerwest.org/ResearchLibrary/MagiciensdelaTerre>.
2 “CONSTRUCTING THE SPECTACLE OF CULTURE IN MUSEUMS” Ivan Karp and Fred Wilson
This text is drawn from the lecture series ‘Art in context: rethinking the New World,’ sponsored in the Fall
of 1992 by the Atlanta College of Art Gallery and Continuing Education Department. It was originally
published in Artpapers, 17:3 (May–June 1993), pp. 2–9.
http://www.jinavalentine.com/archiving/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Wilson-Karp-Museums.pdf
