Upcoming Exhibitions
 
|
GALLERY LEVEL ONE
Ticketed Admission applies to Level One exhibitions.
AGH Members receive Free Admission to all exhibitions.
|
Europe’s Exoticized East
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
On view May 22 to Septmeber 6, 2010
Europe’s Exoticized East presents a diverse array of lush visions created by 19th-century European "Orientalists" — the name given during the period to artists who specialized in Near Eastern and North African subjects. The exhibition utilizes as a base the rich selection of Orientalist paintings and sculptures in the AGH Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection of European Art, which includes the painters Jean-Léon Gérôme and Charles Bargue and the sculptors Charles Cordier and Antoine-Louis Barye. Supplementing these works are several significant loans from institutions in Canada and abroad — for instance, important watercolours from the Romantic master Eugène Delacroix’s 1832 trip to Morocco, on loan from the Art Gallery of Ontario; and the magnificent silvered bronze and Algerian jasper sculpture The Algerian by Charles Cordier, borrowed from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Beautiful, richly coloured and representing varying degrees of fantastic, realist and naturalist approaches to the subject, these works of art are also telling visual documents of 19th-century Western cultural and political attitudes toward the Near East.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Dance of Life: The Tanenbaum African Collection
On view May 22 to Septmeber 6, 2010
Curated by Dr. Patrick Shaw Cable
Spanning a wide variety of cultures, themes, media and formats (from intimate figurines to over-life-size figural statues and decorative arts), the African Collection assembled by prominent Canadian collectors and philanthropists Joey and Toby Tanenbaum represents one of the couple’s more recent forays into the realm of extensive art collecting. At the core of the Gallery’s celebration of Vital Africa throughout 2010, this exhibition will showcase a large selection from the impressive Tanenbaum African Collection, which consists of more than 100 works of art, primarily from east, central and west Africa, yet also including some examples of Oceanic art. Dating chiefly from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the works include such striking pieces as masks of Mali and high-relief sculpted door panels of Nigeria, to open-network columnar palace supports of Cameroon and two-metre-tall funerary figures of the Congo.
|
BACK TO TOP |
ATELIER
Cake: Fiona Kinsella
On view June 5 to October 2, 2010
Curated by Melissa Bennett
The familiar is made strange in this exhibition of ornately decorated cakes and thick abstract oil paintings. Kinsella’s cakes, iced with baker’s fondant, are situated precariously between beauty and the grotesque. Appearing at first as standard cakes that are often used to mark rights of passage like birthdays, weddings, or funerals, the cakes are instead adorned with small objects such as bones, religious relics, teeth, and are sometimes encircled with human hair. The cakes recall the Surrealist’s juxtapositions and experimentation with materials, and similarly Meret Oppenheim’s Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure) (1936), a fur-lined tea cup. The works impart a Victorian sensibility while referencing the subconscious.
Layers of white paint occupy the surfaces of Kinsella’s Chapel (rose) paintings, yet beneath the facade lie dramatic red layers of paint. The artist digs out the deeper layers to create a textured, swirling and mottled surface, evoking an array of imagery. These bodies of work speak to consumption and over-saturation, narrative and relic.
Fiona Kinsella is a mixed media artist and painter based in Hamilton. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Guelph. Her work has been exhibited across Canada, in the United States and Europe and is represented by Transit Gallery.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Brendan Fernandes: until we fearless
On view June 10 to October 2, 2010
Curated by Melissa Bennett
|
BACK TO TOP |
GALLERY LEVEL TWO
Free admission courtesy of Orlick Industries.
|
Max Streicher: Architecture of Clouds
On view March 6, 2010 to February 21, 2011
Curated by Melissa Bennett
Max Streicher’s immense inflatable sculptures spark a wondrous encounter. Created specifically for the AGH’s sculpture atrium, Streicher’s new work draws from the cathedral-like setting of the atrium. Though this soft form is overwhelming in scale, it also invites the viewer to engage with it, walk around it, look upward and inside the form. Filled with air that is blown into the structure using an electric fan, the form is intensely captivating, its organic shape inviting a multitude of associations. As Streicher writes, “I use air to animate my work because it provides an effortless naturalism. It not only looks right, it feels right, recollecting our sensation of breath. Inflatables are the medium of enchantment, fantasy and optimism…”.
Streicher is based in Toronto. Since 1991 he has worked extensively with kinetic inflatable forms. He has exhibited his work across Canada in numerous public galleries and artist-run centres. He has completed several site-related projects, most recently in Venice, Siena, Stockholm and Erfurt, Germany. The AGH is pleased to premier this work.
|
BACK TO TOP |
Robert Mason
On view April 24 until August 15, 2010
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.
|
BACK TO TOP |
|
 |
 |
|
There are many events happening around the Gallery. Find out what there is to do and see organized by date.
> Launch calendar
Interested in learning more about Gallery programmes? Keep yourself informed with our monthly e-newsletter.
> Sign-up now
| |
