From the Editor - March 14, 2023 Issue

March 13, 2023

9:30 PM

Western Canada's art magazine since 2002

Portia Priegert

From the Editor

History – known and once-known, as the National Gallery of Canada puts it in their restaging of Uninvited, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection’s survey of modernist women artists excluded by the Group of Seven – drops anchor in this issue of Galleries West.

We take a broad temporal and spatial reach, from Paul Gessell’s story about the Indigenous artists included in Uninvited, to a feature story, Revisiting a Loaded History, in which Joe Paris looks at Parks Canada’s efforts to bolster reconciliation by including Indigenous art at Sir John A. Macdonald’s former home in Kingston, Ont., now a national historic site.

Zainub Verjee weighs in with a commentary about controversies related to figural imagery over the long history of Islamic art, and Palestinian artist Hanny Al Khoury, whose paintings are on view at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, tells Agnieszka Matejko about the painful history of his small Christian village.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Shazia Hafiz Ramji writes about Kathy Slade, who reflects on European intellectual history by visiting the rock that inspired an important insight by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

The odd story out – and isn’t this always the case, and thank goodness for that – is Ashlynn Chand’s review of Know Thyself as a Virtual Reality. It’s a futuristic group show at the FAB Gallery at the University of Alberta that raises questions about the brave new world that awaits as technology becomes ever more sophisticated.

This last show reminds me that I’ve been wanting to give a shoutout to the important work being done by university galleries as we enter the pandemic’s third grinding year. Eight of the 30 articles Galleries West has published in this year’s first five issues have been about shows in post-secondary venues in various cities, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg.

While the exhibition schedules of some large public galleries have seemed hobbled, presumably by lower-than-usual attendance revenue and massive overhead costs related to infrastructure and staff (or a leadership team focused on capital projects), small and nimble university galleries seem newly engaged, often ably responding to recent cultural developments. I presume that some combination of resources – relatively secure funding, low operating costs, ample access to student volunteers and the intellectual capital of faculty and staff – is allowing these galleries to shine, despite the challenges of the current moment.

Looking ahead, the Galleries West team is working on stories about Toronto-based artist Charles Stankievech at Contemporary Calgary, Inuit artist David Rubin Piqtoukun at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Edmonton-based artist Emily Jan at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon, and Vancouver artist Karin Jones at the Burnaby Art Gallery.

We like the dialogues our coverage inspires, so please don’t hesitate to add your thoughts in our comments section. Fair comment and vigorous debate, voiced with respect, is a foundation of democracy and is always welcome. But please remember that online abuse and personal smears, as Gov. Gen. Mary Simon made clear last week, are not appropriate.

Until next time,