2010 Exhibition Archives
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January 16 to May 9, 2010
Posing Beauty in African American Culture
Curated by Deborah Willis and organized by Curatorial Assistance, Pasadena, California
Ushering in the AGH’s Vital Africa theme, Posing Beauty explores the contested ways in which African American beauty has been represented in the media in both historical and contemporary contexts. Throughout the Western history of art and image-making, beauty has been idealized and challenged, and the relationship between beauty and art has become increasingly complex within contemporary art and popular culture. This exhibition of photography challenges the relationship between beauty and art by examining the representation of beauty as a racialized act fraught with meanings and attitudes about class, gender, and aesthetics.
Posing Beauty examines contemporary understandings of beauty by framing the notion of aesthetics, race, class and gender within art, popular culture, and political contexts. This exhibition features works drawn from public and private collections and will be accompanied by a book published by W.W. Norton. Artists in the exhibition include Carrie Mae Weems, Hank Willis Thomas, Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Eve Arnold and Edward Curtis.
Dr. Deborah Willis is a Professor and Chair of the Photography and Imaging Department at New York University. She was named among the 100 Most Important People in Photography by American Photography Magazine.
After closing at the AGH on May 9, 2010, Posing Beauty in African American Culture will travel to Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Mass., the Newark Museum in New Jersey and USC Fisher Museum of Art in Los Angeles. The Art Gallery of Hamilton is currently the only Canadian venue.
Exhibition Partner: TD
Media Sponsor: The Globe and Mail
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January 16 to May 9, 2010
Ritual Evidence: Tim Whiten
Curated by Melissa Bennett
Tim Whiten’s artistic practice, developed over the past forty years, has consistently probed transcendental themes related to rituals and relics. Using authentic human skulls, his sculptural pieces cause an arresting encounter. Featured works from the AGH collection are Ram, Canticle for Adrienne, and Siege Perilous. Upon first encounter, the works may appear unsettling in their gravity, but in fact they invite the viewer to engage in personal reflection on one’s place in the physical world. To experience the essence of Whiten’s practice, the viewer can interact with Ram. To understand the work, the viewer must kneel at the height of a human skull perched on a cedar log. This act of kneeling is akin to the act of supplication. Peering through an aperture placed in the skull, one can see his or her own reflection in addition to a close-up view of the skull. This combined imagery suggests that above one’s self, there is a superior being. Canticle for Adrienne was made when Whiten’s daughter Adrienne was a child playing in his studio. The form of this work reflects the shape of her crib, and also plays on the idea that one must always work from what has been historically pre-determined. Siege Perilous is a wooden chair with skulls mounted on its arm rests. This work generally represents a seat of power and betrayal, and specifically references the person who betrayed Christ and the thirteenth seat at the Last Supper. This exhibition of Whiten’s work is commanding – both spiritually and visually.
Whiten is a highly prolific senior-career Canadian artist who has influenced generations of artists through his position as Professor of Fine Art at York University since 1968.
His works have appeared in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. He is represented by Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto.
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January 16 to May 9, 2010
Arctic Passion: The Inuit Art Collection of Christopher Bredt and Jamie Cameron
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
This segment of the ongoing AGH Collectors Exhibitions Series features selected works from one of the best private collections of Inuit art that exists today in Canada — the collection of Christopher Bredt and Jamie Cameron in nearby Toronto. Assembled over many years, this notable collection includes comprehensive holdings from different areas like Baffin Island and Baker Lake, revealing a side to Inuit art that many of us do not usually recognize: the rich variety of Inuit visual expression — extending to materials and subjects, as well as intentions, meanings and moods. Bredt and Cameron, respectively a hardworking practitioner and professor of law, possess an intimate relationship with these objects they have collected together and live with daily — the couple’s collection expresses both their passionate appreciation of the forms of Inuit art, and their uncommon understanding of Inuit art’s development and cultural context. The AGH is proud to usher in 2010 with this public presentation of choice Inuit sculptures and prints, which comes on the heels of the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of catalogued Inuit prints in 1959 — at Cape Dorset, one of the major locales to be represented with singular breadth in the Bredt and Cameron collection.
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January 30 to May 24, 2010
End of the American Road: Terence Byrnes
Curated by Melissa Bennett
Premiering in Canada, Terence Byrnes’ photographic series Springfield, Ohio: The End of the American Road yields surprising views of small town America. Byrnes has been photographing the people and places of Springfield for over forty years. On his annual visits, he looks for things that might often be overlooked, and many of his images show people living in poverty. Byrnes has formed enduring friendships with the many locals who are unlikely to escape Springfield’s tight orbits of class and race.
Often compared to the work of Walker Evans, Byrnes’ images are moving in their depiction of the lives of the citizens of Springfield. The images are at times flecked with humour, or tenderness, or plain, if shocking, realities of American life. On display are black and white and colour photographs taken from 1966 up to the present, showing the evolution of people and place while Byrnes’ unassuming presence remains a constant.
Byrnes is a Montreal-based artist and author. His photographs have been exhibited in Canada and the USA.
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January 30 to May 24, 2010
david merritt: sham
Curated by Melissa Bennett
David Merritt’s works are playful, serious, humorous and conceptually weighted all at once. He examines the relationship between the way words are used, and the way they appear when written. Taking the words of popular songs, he charts them in intricately drawn diagrams, making connections between the many songs that use the same phrases, such as "last train". Interwoven lines, supplemented by many erasures, place an authoritative yet absurd order on the content of pop songs. Merritt’s signature sculptural works are also on display: delicate forms are made from unraveled lengths of sisal rope. Battling the tensions between heavy and light, some of the sisal sculptures also incorporate language, working with the themes of music, and the connections between words, meanings, and their visual presence in popular culture.
Merritt’s work has been exhibited in Canada and internationally, including at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Textile Museum of Canada and TENT CBK, Rotterdam. He is based in London, Ontario and is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication co-published with Museum London, the Art Gallery of Windsor, and the MacLaren Art Centre.
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April 24 to August 15, 2010
Robert Mason
Guest Curated by Shirley Madill
Robert Mason was a Hamilton-based artist who influenced a generation of artists in this community. This large-scale exhibition brings together over forty works from public and private collections including the last suite of works he produced prior to his death in 2005. Expressed through painting, installation, photography and sculpture, Mason’s interests can be contextualized within larger artistic movements in North America such as land art and painterly abstraction. Recurring motifs and themes in Mason’s paintings include the landscape, trees, the night sky and migration. His large outdoor installation pieces, including the placement of caribou sculptures in the water at Hamilton’s Cootes Paradise, evoked his sensitivity and concern for the natural environment in the face of increased industrialization. Known for his dedication to arts and education in Hamilton, Mason is remembered and honoured through this exhibition that uncovers significant stages in his career.
 Click here to download the Robert Mason exhibition pamphlet (PDF).
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April 10 to August 15, 2010
Shaped by Light
Curated by Tobi Bruce
Shaped by Light brings together the work of four historical Canadian artists who journeyed to Africa during the first decades of the 20th century, and for whom these excursions resulted in distinct bodies of work. Including the work of James Wilson Morrice (1865 – 1924), John Lyman (1886 – 1967) and Robert Pilot (1898 – 1967), the exhibition explores how the North African experience variously shaped their painting practices. Favoured destinations for these Canadians included Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, where the unique and magnificent light at times utterly transformed the artists’ palettes. Will Ogilvie (1901 – 1989), the fourth artist included in the exhibition, was born in Cape Province, South Africa and as such his connection to the continent and its people runs more deeply, with his work taking on an altogether different character. His closely observed and masterful Xhosa Women Washing (1932), reproduced here, grew out of a series of sketches and watercolors made on the spot at the river below Ogilvie’s family farm in the early 1930s. Of this painting, the artist wrote some years later of his intention to "convey... a mood or feeling expressive of these people in their own environment."
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The Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery
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January 30 to March 7, 2010
Selections from AGH Art Rental & Sales
A selection of new works to the AGH Art Rental & Sales Programme, including metal work, abstract, landscape and figural painting. Featured artists include Adam Colangelo, Elizabeth Lennie, Greg Benz, Laura Culic, among others.
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March 13 to May 16, 2010
Women’s Art Association of Hamilton 114th Annual Juried Exhibition
Founded in 1894, the Women’s Art Association is one of this city’s oldest and most important art
organizations. Ties between the WAAH and the Art Gallery of Hamilton are formative and longstanding,
stemming back to the formation of the AGH in 1914, in part through the tireless efforts of early WAAH
members. The strong relationship between our organizations continues with the Gallery hosting the
WAAH’s annual juried exhibition. The 2010 show will mark the Association’s 114th, quite an achievement
for any cultural organization. |
May 20 to June 27, 2010
Follow Your Art V: SAGE Student Association
Continuing a very rewarding collaboration between the SAGE Program at Strathcona School and the Art Gallery
Hamilton, students and teachers have once again made a series of visits to the gallery in preparation for Follow
Your Art V. Over the course of the year they worked closely with the Gallery, touring and studying AGH exhibitions
and creating work inspired by the themes and artists presented. This year’s exhibition is diverse, including painting,
assemblage sculpture and photography and reveals the talent and creativity present in these young artists.
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July 3 to August 29, 2010
Angels of Colour: A Youth Project Celebrating the 175th Anniversary of Stewart Memorial Church
Youth from the Stewart Memorial Church community have collaborated on a large scale mural that shows images of angels of colour. The piece is a comment on stereotypical images of angels as white and cherub-like, and is created with the artistic direction of Roger Ferreira. The work represents unity of the sacred and the secular; of historic stereotypes and contemporary understandings; and unity of mainstream art practices and marginalized practices such as graffiti art. The mural shows what Black History means to Stewart Memorial Church; and in turn what Stewart Memorial Church means to Hamilton.
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