Current Exhibitions
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GALLERY LEVEL ONE
AGH Members receive Free Admission to all exhibitions.
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The Spectacle of Play
On view May 25, 2013 to January 12, 2014
Curated by Melissa Bennett, Curator of Contemporary Art,
Tobi Bruce, Senior Curator, Canadian Historical Art, and
Dr. Benedict Leca, 18th and 19th-century French art specialist
Play: the word and related concepts yield a dizzying array of meanings, activities and states of mind. In considering this thicket of meanings one might enact a behavior, fulfilling a role in a single event (play) that might be both sporting match and theatrical performance, or indeed part of a constructed persona played out in the real world. Play therefore can mean that we remove ourselves from our conventional contexts, refashion ourselves and our usual roles. But just as one might actively participate in play, the term can also denote a less active time spent in leisure, one more cerebral than physical.
In this special exhibition, the flagship presentation of the 2013 theme World at Play, historic and contemporary artworks present these variations in tandem. An 18 foot salon-style installation of 19th-century paintings redolent of the Parisian Salon—the epitome of period spectacle—will be juxtaposed with a dramatic, oversized black and white film devoted to chess by contemporary Canadian artist Marcel Dzama. Portraits of sports players, and memorable moments in sports history, as well as a contemporary sculpture by Graeme Patterson depicting Daryl Sittler’s famous 10-goal hockey game in 1976 will take us into the heart of the most literal meaning of play: the sports world.
The notion of chance, integral to another facet of play—the gambling table—will be represented by such works as Canadian artist Barbara Steinman's Roulette, an etched glass and brass sculpture in the shape of a roulette table.
In all, the exhibition will range across a multitude of contexts, as well as media, to have us ponder anew the relationship between art and 'play.'
Contemporary artists included in the exhibition are: Barbara Steinman, Rick Pottruff, Joseph Calleja, Alan Flint, Simon Willms, Kristiina Lahde, Aubrey Reeves, Graeme Patterson, Karine Giboulo, and Marcel Dzama.
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Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins:
The Collaborationists
On view June 13 to September 29, 2013
Co-curated by Melissa Bennett and Linda Jansma, Curator, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
The Collaborationists is an extensive exhibition of the multi-faceted works of Canadian artists Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins. Comprised of major installations and kinetic sculptures, as well as a selection of paintings and an audio station, this landmark exhibition highlights the recent production of this highly insightful artist duo. Drawing from the theories of mid-century modernist art, with a focus on information as a subject, the works explore intellectual subjects in a refreshingly playful manner.
Organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Hamilton and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in collaboration with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Windsor.
 
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Alex Colville: Horse and Train
On view semi-permanently
Curated by Tobi Bruce
Alex Colville's Horse and Train occupies a unique place in both the Art Gallery of Hamilton's permanent collection and within the broader Canadian imagination. By far the most asked after work in our holdings, the painting will be installed semi-permanently in order to allow visitors the opportunity to view it on an ongoing basis. As part of the presentation, the iconic painting will be accompanied by select objects and documents to help set the work and its acquisition in context.
Three preparatory studies from the Art Gallery of Ontario, never before exhibited together with the painting, will be included to provide a greater understanding of Colville's working methods. An archival letter from the artist to then Director T.R. MacDonald, written upon learning of the work's purchase by the AGH, allows us to read firsthand how pleased Colville was to have the work acquired by a public institution, and Hamilton in particular. And finally, this intimate exhibition will explore how the work has become such an icon of Canadian art—in part through its repeated and varied reproduction and in part through the inherent strength of the image itself.
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GALLERY LEVEL TWO
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
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The Painter Pictured: French Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Portrait Photographs
Part 1: On view February 9 to September 8, 2013
Organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton
With new technical advances and reduced sitting time portrait photographs were widespread in nineteenth-century France, servicing a broad swath of an increasingly urban population that included many artists. While some became photographers themselves, most benefited from a now ubiquitous medium that not only recorded their work, their appearance and their workplaces, but also assisted them in achieving a heightened social and professional standing.
Comprising select paintings and sculptures from The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the core of the Gallery’s rich holdings of nineteenth-century material, and matched with rare portrait photographs from a French private collection, this special exhibition will provide visitors with a two-fold view of the French nineteenth-century art world. From formal photographic portraits to studio views to casual snapshots of artistic life, the exhibited photographs form a visual record of some of the greatest artists of the period, including Jean-Léon Gerome, Auguste Rodin, William Bouguereau, and Henri Fantin-Latour. Each portrait photograph is placed next to objects of the pictured artist’s creation, allowing us in this way to appreciate specific artworks while peering into the world that gave rise to them.
The exhibition comprises two six-month rotations beginning in February 2013.
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Corporate Members:
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Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky:
The Searchers
On view August 25, 2012 to June 30, 2013
Curated by Melissa Bennett
The Searchers is a startling new installation in the David Braley and Nancy Gordon Sculpture Atrium. Perched upon a high ledge, these five contemporary sculptures modeled after everyday youths look down upon visitors, activating the relationship between object and viewer. Referencing street culture, film, architecture and the occupation of public space, the figures have an enigmatic presence. The works take their title from John Ford’s classic western film wherein male figures are often juxtaposed against an expansive sky. In contrast, these sculptures are seated, decidedly loitering and assessing the scene at once.
Rhonda Weppler (born in Winnipeg) and Trevor Mahovsky (born in Calgary) are collaborative artists based in San Francisco and Vancouver. Their work is featured in two Toronto venues this fall: a solo exhibition at Pari Nadimi Gallery, and an installation at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche on September 29, 2012. |
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The Tanenbaum African Collection
Ongoing in 2013
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 Volkswagen 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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Hamilton & Scourge Sunken Sunset: Images from the Underwater Survey
On view June 22 to November 10, 2013
Presented by the Hamilton and Scourge Society and the City of Hamilton
The epic story of the Hamilton and Scourge shipwrecks is seen in a completely different light through Hamilton & Scourge Sunken Sunset: Images from the 2008 Underwater Survey.
One hundred years before Titanic met its end the armed American schooners Hamilton and Scourge sank in the waters of Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. The exhibit is lit up by vivid red/gold sonar like a sunken sunset; brilliant red 3-D point clouds; hypnotic underwater video; models of the schooners; a painting of the vessels by celebrated artist Peter Rindlisbacher, and more.
Described as floating coffins by the crews who served aboard them, the overloaded vessels were struck by a squall that seemed to come out of nowhere and in a span of moments took 53 sailors to Davy Jones locker! The ghostly images are a haunting and emotional testament to the forever-altered lives of those on board.
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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. 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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