Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
31 May 2022 Vol 7 No 11 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2022
Portia Priegert
From the Editor
Stories about diversity amidst the Canadian mosaic abound in this issue of Galleries West.
Our lead article looks at the illustrious career of Jin-me Yoon, a Korean-born artist, who in the words of writer Lyn Richards, poses “questions that point to contradictions and self-deceptions in our treasured beliefs about ourselves.” Earlier this month, Yoon was named as the winner of this year’s prestigious Scotiabank Photography Award, a well-deserved accolade for an artist who also challenges us to consider the problematic assumptions of received ideas.
We also consider the career of Blackfoot artist Adrian Stimson through the lens of his first survey show, at Saskatoon’s Remai Modern. Stimson is known for his use of humour and irony but also directly confronts dark aspects of prairie history. As writer Laura St. Pierre observes, Stimson insists on the necessity of examining colonial legacies if we wish to move forward collectively to a more inclusive future.
Meanwhile, a Vancouver exhibition, Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers, explores a movement of artists of Mexican heritage who have fought for social justice and civil rights since the 1960s. A provocative and colourful show at the UBC Museum of Anthropology, it offers insight into everything from queer identities to exploited farm workers. As writer Beverly Cramp says in a recent email: “I would go back to this show again – that’s how much I like it.”
We round out this issue with two reviews by Yani Kong, a doctoral student in Vancouver. She writes about a show at the Richmond Art Gallery by Turkish Canadian artist Erdem Taşdelen, who fictionalizes the unusual history of a minaret in Lithuania in intriguing ways. She also looks at Jay Senetchko’s paintings, which fold out like altarpieces from scenes of Western comfort to reveal wartime chaos. Senetchko’s work is informed by his Ukrainian heritage, and his work at the Pendulum Gallery makes one think of the conflict in Ukraine, although his paintings were completed before the Russian invasion in February.
For our final article, Mark Mushet checks out Mami Wata’s Heritage, an exhibition at the Mónica Reyes Gallery in Vancouver that features work by Bernadette Phan and Valérie d. Walker, who use water as a metaphor to evoke the diasporic journey.
Looking ahead, Ottawa writer Paul Gessell is working on a story about the National Gallery of Canada's major retrospective of General Idea, the three-member Toronto-based conceptual art collective. And, south of the border, Aruna D’Souza is writing on two Indigenous artists, Rebecca Belmore and Duane Linklater, who are included in this year’s Whitney Biennial in New York City.
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Beverly Cramp, Yani Kong, Mark Mushet, Lyn Richards, Laura St. Pierre
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.
