From the Editor - August 9, 2022 Issue

August 8, 2022

9:30 PM

Western Canada's art magazine since 2002

Portia Priegert

From the Editor

As you’re reading this note, I’ll be sitting on a beach or hiking up a forest path here on Vancouver Island. I’ve booked off for a long overdue holiday break starting today and running for the next two weeks.

While I’m away from my desk, Galleries West will rerun stories and videos that have been chosen as finalists for the Alberta Magazine Awards, to be announced Sept. 22. We hope you enjoy some of the best work our team produced in 2021.

The judges will have no easy job choosing winners, particularly in the digital project category where Vancouver’s Mark Mushet was nominated three times for videos on Charlene Vickers, Emily Hermant and Nancy Boyd. We can’t choose a favourite, so do let us know your pick in the comments as the videos appear on our homepage next week.

In this issue, the last before my holiday, we are pleased to offer another series of interesting reads. Yani Kong checks in from the Venice Biennale with a critical look at work by Canadian artists, many of whom are based outside the country. With the biennale’s nationalist model in question at some pavilions, Yani expresses hope that more countries will turn over their spaces to Indigenous artists in the future.

Closer to home, I was particularly fascinated with work by Esmaa Mohamoud, who pairs sports jerseys and ballgowns in eye-catching and thought-provoking ways at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, as she casts a critical gaze on the deceptive allure of professional sports for young Black athletes. As Alison Gillmor writes, Mohamoud, a sports fan herself, suggests that “pro sports, which seem like a promise of wealth and success for many young Black men, are actually an impossible mirage, a form of cruel hope.”

Another important show is Radical Stitch at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. Bringing together 48 Indigenous artists, it focuses on beadwork and stitching. The resurgence of these traditional cultural practices is indeed a radical act, writes new-to-us reviewer Sara McCreary, noting how elders and knowledge keepers continued and preserved Indigenous cultures despite punitive strictures during the darkest days of the Indian Act.

We round out the issue with articles about Vancouver artist Gailan Ngan, now showing at the Esker Foundation in Calgary, and Winnipeg-raised artist Erica Eyres, who displays an array of ceramic junk food and sugary treats at Norberg Hall, also in Calgary.

Finally, we look at Vancouver artist Gary Sim’s archive of British Columbia artists past and present, which has won high praise from Charles Hill, curator emeritus at the National Gallery of Canada. Exhibiting artists in the province may want to go online to see if they are listed in this digital archive, which will help preserve a record of their contributions to the cultural sector.

I'd also like to draw your attention to an important development for artists, news that Ottawa is working on changes to copyright legislation that would give visual artists a share of profits when their work is resold by collectors. Such a measure could put thousands of dollars into the hands of Canadian artists, many of whom live below the poverty line.

Looking ahead, I’ve assigned stories for our first issue in September, including Calgary artist Robin Arseneault’s exhibition at the Esker Foundation; another landmark show at the MacKenzie, Conceptions of White, which considers the construction of white identity; and an in-depth feature about ageism in the arts.

I hope you find ways to enjoy the sweet weeks of high summer.

See you again soon,