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GALLERY LEVEL ONE
Ticketed Admission applies to Level One exhibitions.
AGH Members receive Free Admission to all exhibitions.
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On view January 28 to April 29, 2012
Click here to visit this exhibition's webpage.
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Kristin Bjornerud: Safe Harbour
On view January 14 to May 21, 2012
Curated by Melissa Bennett
 
Kristin Bjornerud’s lyrical watercolours convey myths and legends, dreams and superstitions. This exhibition features recent works including several made during a residency on the island of Gotland, Sweden in 2010 as winner of the Brucebo Fine Art Foundation scholarship, which is juried in part by the Art Gallery of Hamilton. The Foundation was established by William Blair Bruce, a celebrated Hamilton painter of the turn of the 20th century, and his Swedish-born wife, artist Caroline Benedicks Bruce to support young, emerging artists.
During her summer residency, Bjornerud’s immersion in Gotland’s fabled history and mythological atmosphere had great influence on her works, and she incorporated her usual set of female characters drawn from life experiences. The paintings show scenes of women in tableaux, often in a mode of creation or peculiar activity–whether in Making the Land which shows a woman knitting a large textile piece that flows out like a landscape from her lap; or in A Long View, where a woman gazes out at sea, and her view is captured in a surrealistic manner. Bjornerud’s scenes are playful, laden with references to women as producers, and to fables intertwined with historic events.
The artist wishes to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
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Mark Lewis: Rush Hour, Morning and Evening, Cheapside
On view January 14 to May 21, 2012
Organized and circulated by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, as part of the MOMENTUM series
Rush Hour, Morning and Evening, Cheapside (2005), a film work from the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, captures the moving shadows of pedestrians in the slanting light of morning and end of day when the sun, low in the sky, stretches silhouettes magnificently along the ground. By simply inverting the image, Mark Lewis composes a never-ending rush hour, with early morning perambulations sweeping past in continuous movement, right to the "golden hour" that precedes sunset.
The MOMENTUM series touring project has been made possible with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage through its Museums Assistance Program.
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Mark Lewis: Forte!
On view January 14 to May 21, 2012
Curated by Melissa Bennett
Forte! (2010) was filmed as the artist flew over the Italian Alps and a Napoleonic fort. This film will be shown in the Kate and Robert Steiner gallery, complementing Mark Lewis’s film on view in the Southam gallery.
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Mark Lewis is now based in London, England. His work has been shown widely around the world to enthusiastic notices, particularly for his contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale of Visual Art where he represented Canada. In 2007 he was the winner of the inaugural Gershon Iskowitz Prize.
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GALLERY LEVEL TWO
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
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Size Matters
On view November 12, 2011 to June 17, 2012
Curated by Melissa Bennett and Tobi Bruce
Scale—both physical and perceived—plays an important part in how we experience an artwork. Whether we look at an ambitious twelve-foot canvas or a miniature artwork the size of a locket, the dimensions of any given object can both define and condition how we perceive and engage with it. Large paintings can be appreciated either by stepping back to make sense of the whole, or by moving closer to explore the details of the brushstrokes. Conversely, the delicate and diminutive scale of smaller works might offer an intimacy that feels conspiratorial, as we lean in, getting to know our subject.
This exhibition explores the AGH collection from this perspective, as we ask ourselves how scale defines an artwork and, in turn, how size shapes our interaction with objects. Size Matters is largely an exploration, posing questions about what the scale of an object can communicate.
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From Rude to Rodin
Ongoing in 2012
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
The largest and most important segment of the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s European sculpture collection is its rich selection of works by French artists of the nineteenth century, which we celebrate here within the context of our 2011 French Connection theme.
On view for most of the year in the AGH David Braley and Nancy Gordon Sculpture Atrium will be bronzes, terra cottas, and plasters by the masters of nineteenth-century French sculpting, such as François Rude and Antoine-Louis Barye; the mid-century giants Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse; and the later modernist pioneers Aristide Maillol and Auguste Rodin. Along the way visitors will discover the work of sculptors who are less well known today but achieved acclaim at the Paris Salons, including Henri Chapu, Paul Dubois, and Rodin’s contemporary Jules Dalou. In artworks whose subjects range from mythology to everyday life, viewers can appreciate the technical brilliance and dramatic panache of nineteenth-century French sculpture from Romanticism to modernism.
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The Tanenbaum African Collection
Ongoing in 2012
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Due to the popular response garnered by the Summer exhibition Dance of Life, the Gallery will extend its presentation of striking artworks from the African collection of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum on Gallery Level Two. These dramatic examples represent only a fraction of the larger Tanenbaum Collection, which was promised earlier this year as a donation to the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Dating mostly from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and concentrating on ethnographic art from West and Central Africa, the Tanenbaum works on display include a handful of Oceanic pieces produced by the indigenous inhabitants of the island chain of Melanesia in the South Pacific. Visitors will be able to appreciate and understand these works more fully in terms of their conceptual, expressive, and formal artistry, as well as by the intimate connections they hold with the life, customs, and beliefs of the different societies that created and produced them.
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Kim Adams' Bruegel-Bosch Bus
On permanent display
Repeatedly in his work, Canadian artist Kim Adams has explored the patterns of a mobile society, creating works of art that are eccentric hybrids of the readymade. Blending humour, satire and seriousness, he builds “worlds” as a means of social critique. Adams’ installations exist comfortably in the space that divides life and art. His works have been presented in two very different social worlds: in a densely social environment such as a park or street and in a museum setting like the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Neither setting is privileged.
A magnificent visual masterpiece, Bruegel-Bosch Bus consists of a 1960 Volkswagon that appears to pull a post-industrial universe displaying a cornucopia of fantastic and seductive worlds that play with our senses. It was produced over a 7-year span. This futuristic diorama is a permanent fixture in the AGH Sculpture Atrium overlooking the Irving Zucker Sculpture Garden, past Hamilton City Hall and the Niagara Escarpment. Reminiscent of a previous installation by Adams titled Earth Wagons that presented a micro-model North American society fixed on leisure and entertainment, the Breugel-Bosch Bus encapsulates the next whole world picture, a world in which reality and unreality, logic and fantasy, banality and sublimation of existence, form an inexplicable unity. This ‘bus’ is a Kubrickesque megalopolis made of icons symptomatic in present society and draws upon urban fantasies, phantasmagoric, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and a plethora of different times and cultures. Buildings from different epochs are aligned side by side and space becomes an imaginary territory where chaos prevails.
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The Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
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Women's Art Association of Hamilton 116th Annual Juried Exhibition
On view February 4 to May 13, 2012
Founded in 1894, the Women’s Art Association is one of Hamilton’s oldest and most important art associations. 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 through the Gallery’s presentation of the WAAH’s annual juried exhibition. A favourite with the public, the selection of works by jury is always a great mix of works by seasoned exhibitors and newcomers alike. 2012 will mark the WAAH’s 116th annual exhibition; an extraordinary record by any measure.
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*Please note that as a multipurpose space, the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery is an area where photography is allowed by patrons and members of the public in accordance with the AGH Photography Policy. Click here for the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery Information Package.
Also, the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery is a space that can be rented for private or corporate functions and therefore may be unavailable for viewing by the public. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you are interested in viewing this space specifically, please call ahead to ensure the exhibition installed is available at 905-527-6610.
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