Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
20 April 2021 Vol 6 No 07 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2021
From the Editor
Portia Priegert
We were excited to learn Galleries West has a new follower on Instagram – New York magazine's critic Jerry Saltz. When he dropped by earlier this month, he took time to "like" images by a couple of artists we have written about recently – Frans Lotz, Ruth Chambers and Keith Harder.
Saltz, of course, is one of the top critics in the United States. The winner of a 2018 Pulitzer Prize, he has written several books, including How to be an Artist. Sarah Swan, who reviewed the book last December, wrote of Saltz: "He writes about art in a flush of wordy enthusiasm, never a fraidy-cat with language or opinion."
This, as I told a friend who isn't part of the art world, is like Mark Messier following your kid's junior hockey career. Amazing! Thrilling, even! But also baffling: How on earth did Saltz discover a small online art magazine in Western Canada?
I couldn't resist pitching a rather cheeky idea to Saltz – that he write about an Instagram tour of the Western Canadian art scene for Galleries West. I reminded Saltz of a tour by another famous critic – Clement Greenberg, who, back in the '60s, wrote about it for Canadian Art magazine, sadly now on a three-month hiatus due to funding woes. "Greenberg's visit shifted art production in the region, became a mainstay of art historical lore, and, even now, is prompting new responses from millennial artists," I wrote, offering Saltz an opportunity to "remake modernist history." No fraidy-cat, me. I can hyperbolize with the best of them.
So far, we haven't heard back. To be fair, I knew the odds of a response were impossibly long. And Saltz has publicly dubbed Greenberg "a bully." But, hey, you don't get anywhere if you don't ask. Jerrr-rrry! Hello-ooo? Are you out there?
On a more serious note, I attended a Zoom talk last week by Zainub Verjee, an artist, arts administrator and public intellectual, about cultural policy in Canada in the 70 years since the Massey Report. For younger folks, that's a foundational document that set the path for state support for the arts and led to the establishment of the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as other measures aimed at shoring up Canadian cultural expression, already struggling back then in the long shadow cast by our southern neighbours.
Verjee's thorough and thoughtful talk touched on many issues, not least of all the need to revisit cultural policy at a time when Canada is dealing with a range of new challenges, including post-pandemic recovery, the platform economy and growing demands for equity and inclusiveness in an increasingly diverse country.
I'm pleased to report that Verjee, the winner of a 2020 Governor General's Award, has agreed to write about the need to revisit Canada's museums policy as part of Galleries West's new Commentary feature, an occasional series by diverse writers to encourage awareness of issues in the art world. We launched our first commentary in March with a piece by Senator Patricia Bovey, the former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, who wrote about her efforts to persuade the federal government to recognize the "essential role" of art and creative expression. I'm looking forward to learning more about Verjee's take on what's needed as major institutions, several of which have been called out recently for systemic racism and toxic work cultures, set a new path forward.
This issue of Galleries West features the fourth instalment of our popular series about how artists in different regions are responding to the pandemic. In this latest article, Métis artist and writer Michael Peterson looks at efforts by five Saskatchewan artists to build community amidst rising concerns over social, racial and environmental justice. At last count, that story had been shared 447 times, closing in on the 479 shares for the Alberta story. (Not that we're shallow enough to be counting, of course! Ahem.) Stay tuned for the next instalment, which covers five artists in the North.
In this issue, we also feature wonderful new paintings by Jeff Nachtigall, look at trans artist Vivek Shraya's take on trauma culture, explore Sarah Cwynar's work about our obsession with consumer goods, and marvel at miniature sculptures of cleverly built dumpsters by Frans Lotz.
We round things out with a review of a group show, Feast for the Eyes, about food and photography, at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. Playing with your food is fine if you're an artist, as witnessed by one of my favourite pieces, peanut butter and jam versions of the Mona Lisa by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz.
Looking ahead, we're working on stories about MirNs, an intriguing Vancouver-area show that considers how machines see, reflect and interpret gallery visitors, and visiting an exhibition by an emerging Métis artist, Kiona Ligtvoet, whose work is "a gentle attempt at navigating intergenerational barriers to grief, tenderness and longing."
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Yani Kong, Michael Peterson, Maxine Proctor, Lissa Robinson, John Thomson
We acknowledge the support of the Government of Alberta Media Fund, the Government of Canada Special Measures for Journalism Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts.
