Gary Spearin Explores iNiFiniTi and McMaster’s Vaults

Gary Spearin with his iNifiNiTi installation at McMaster Museum of Art

This summer, Gary Spearin steps into two roles in McMaster Museum of Art exhibitions – artist and guest curator. As artist, he presents his installation iNifiNiTi in the Museum’s Panabaker Gallery. As curator, he has mined the MMA vaults, drawing on contemporary works from McMaster’s collection for the complementary installation, PAINTING BEYOND a body of views

Both exhibitions run May 12 – August 18, 2012 with a Public Reception on Friday June 1, 6-8 pm, when the artist/curator will be present. Don’t miss it!
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Since 2007 Gary Spearin has been producing a series of paintings that are displayed as an installation titled iNifiNiTi, which he has conceived as an optical device to explore and to visualize the resonant dynamics of time and our experience and perception of it.

While the presentation in any given gallery installation is variable, determined by factors such as available wall space, they are always installed in a uniform grid, and in an order decided by the artist only during the hanging. The grid serves as a formal grounding structure contrasting with the spontaneous order of placement. Within it there are infinite possibilities for reading the works individually or the installation as a whole.

The individual titles are derived from dates (month/day/year) of sometimes personal significance but mostly of random selection, and always unrelated to the date of their making. The surfaces of the paintings are so visually rich and intricately detailed that any one of them invites endless, obsessive viewing, as does the whole of the installation. Each work possesses a unique character, yet the identity of individual works can easily be obscured by the overwhelming nature of the group. The whole is the sum of its parts and each of the parts is a self-contained whole. Spearin is painting pictures of ephemeral, infinite dimensions that exist beyond those which we can perceive or know.

- Excerpt from the exhibition catalogue essay “Picture Infinity”; David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto.

iNifiNiTi,  the exhibition and accompanying catalogue, is a collaboration between Museum London and the McMaster Museum of Art.

As a complementary installation, PAINTING BEYOND a body of views, Gary Spearin has selected works from the McMaster Museum of Art collection by Art & Language, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Alfredo Jaar, Leon Kossoff and Gerhard Richter to disrupt categorization in a purposeful way and thereby explore “the enigma of things.”

Gary Spearin was born in Hamilton; he studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and the University of Guelph. This is Spearin’s first Hamilton public gallery exhibition since 1995. He currently lives at Lake Huron between Kettle Point and Blue Point and teaches at Fanshawe College in London.

Mac Photo Club Exhibition and Awards at Museum

The McMaster Museum of Art’s Education Gallery is the venue for the 2012 Mac Photo Club Photo Show and Competition later this month.

Mac Photo Club is a McMaster Student Union Club and their 2012 competition was open to all McMaster students. They received an overwhelming number of entries and all will be displayed in the MUSC Marketplace March 19 from 11 am – 3 pm. At that time, the public will be invited to vote for their favourites.

The top photos of the competition will be displayed in the McMaster Museum of Art’s Education Gallery, March 28th until March 30th.

Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 photos – one will be decided by the highest number of public votes and the other two will be judged by professional photographer Ron Scheffler and the Mac Photo Execs. The winners will be announced at the Mac Photo Gallery Reception on March 29, 5:30 – 6:30 pm at the McMaster Museum of Art.

Art and Science Unite in Biotech Research Exhibit at McMaster

Clint Wilson, detail from LOGOS Project, Phyciodes Pulchella Cascades, chromogenic print,152.4 x 91.44 cm, 2010

This Thursday Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art, an exhibition of original artwork and essays that explore the complex legal, ethical and social issues of advancements in life science technologies, stem cell research in particular, makes its Ontario debut at the McMaster Museum of Art. The project brings together nine internationally recognized visual artists with scientists and scholars.

The touring exhibition was inspired by ongoing conversations between a group of artists, scientists, philosophers, sociologists and legal scholars who attended a three-day stem cell research workshop in April 2010. The exchange of ideas extended beyond the workshop to correspondence, drawings, scientific images and research.

Included in the exhibition are a sculpture made from the scans of human embryos, a tent with images of human cells and drawing of one of the artists’ chromosomes.

Without supporting one view of stem cell research over another, the artists prompt viewers to ponder current forms of biotechnology. Rapid advancements in biomedical research are challenging traditional views of the human body and its environment. Genetic and stem cell research, for example, may bring significant improvements to human health and welfare. However, these innovations also raise complex ethical, legal and social questions that society must face. Art has an important role to play in the discourse around biotechnology because it can offer unique articulations of the polarized and often emotionally charged responses the public has towards technology.

The nine artists in the exhibition are:
Derek Besant
Sean Caulfield
Liz Ingram
Bernd Hildebrandt
Shona Macdonald
Royden Mills
Mariléne Oliver
Daniela Schlüter
Clint Wilson

The exhibition continues at the McMaster Museum of Art until March 31, 2012.

Join us for an opening night PANEL DISCUSSION February 9 from 6 – 8 pm

Stem Cell Culture: Biomedical Research, Popular Culture and Art
Moderator:
Sean Caulfield – Artist, Professor, University of Alberta
Panelists:
Derek Besant – Artist
Roger Jacobs – Professor & Associate Chair (Undergraduate), Developmental Biology, Genetics & Molecular Biology, McMaster University
Patangi Rangachari – Professor Emeritus, Health Sciences, McMaster University
Daniela Schlüter – Artist

Sean Caulfield and Royden Mills, End Point, installation view, 2010

More information at WWW.PERCEPTIONSOFPROMISE.COM

Carl Beam Film and Directors’ Talk this Thursday

Join us for a screening of documentary film,  Aakideh: The Art & Legacy of Carl Beam followed by a Q&A with Directors Robert Waldeck and Paul Eichhorn, this Thursday January 12 from 6:00-7:30 pm

‘Aakideh’ is an Ojibwe word meaning brave or brave-hearted. Artist Carl Beam earned a reputation for being fearless, visionary and ultimately, unforgettable. From his early years growing up on Manitoulin Island to his turbulent years spent at a residential school, this documentary explores how these early experiences not only impacted Beam’s life but also his art.

Carl Beam (1943-2005) was born in M’Chigeeng (WestBay) on Manitoulin Island. Of Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) heritage, the artist was instrumental in challenging the marginalization of contemporary Aboriginal art inCanada. He became noted for his manner of linking Indigenous world views to broad cultural, historical, and political concerns in order to provoke contemplation of multiple realities and our collective place in the cosmos. In the process, he developed an aesthetic approach more akin to the expressive layering of Rauschenberg than the traditional forms of Anishinaabe ‘WoodlandSchool’ painters. Beam has been credited with opening doors for First Nations artists by becoming the first to sell a work to the National Gallery of Canada for its contemporary collection.

Join us for this Free event presented as part of the Visiting Artist Program, a collaboration between the McMaster Museum of Art and McMaster School of the Arts.

Talk: 21st Century Indigenous Perspectives

Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, King of the Maquas (Mohawk), oil painting by John Verelst, Library and Archives Canada/John Petre collection/C-092418-19k/. Acquired with a special grant from the Canadian Government in 1977

The McMaster Museum of Art presents
HOME AND AWAY: 21st Century Indigenous Perspectives on 18th Century
Indigenous Portraits
Lunchtime Talk and Q&A
by
Rick Monture, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University
&
Alice Te Punga Somerville, School of Maori Studies and the English Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Tuesday October 25, 12:30 – 1:20 pm

Visiting scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville will begin this discussion, inspired by the portraits of Maori peoples currently on view in Museum’s exhibition First Contact? Artists of the Cook Voyages. McMaster’s own Rick Monture will then continue the conversation in Sherman gallery, examining the “Four Kings”, the earliest full length portrait paintings of North American Indigenous peoples.

Join us for this talk, presented as a complement to the Museum’s The Long 18th century Project and the upcoming John Douglas Taylor conference at McMaster University.

Admission is Free.

Lifelong Learning Week at McMaster

Tour of Cadenza exhibition at McMaster Museum of Art for Life Long Learning Week 2011. Photo courtesy of Sarah-Louise Barton, Adult Basic Education Association

The McMaster Museum of Art has been participating in Lifelong Learning Week since its inception. Since 2004, the Adult Basic Education Association has organized Lifelong Learning Week a week of free learning events offered to people of all ages throughout Hamilton and the surrounding area.

This year at the MMA we expanded our activities to include not one but 4 special tours – each day exploring a different gallery in the Rising to the Occasion: The Long 18th Century project. The response has been terrific, attracting audiences from campus, the Hamilton Community, and beyond, and discussions following the tours have led to some wonderful discoveries (more on that in a future post – but for the moment suffice it to say that the McMaster University Libraries are a wealth of Captain Cook archival material.)

For the final Museum tour, tomorrow at 12:30, Nicole Knibb the MMA Education Coordinator will take visitors through The ‘Floating’ Urbanities of Utamaro and Hogarth: Pictures for Women?, the exhibition curated by Mark Cheetham. Don’t miss it!

Tour at McMaster Museum of Art for Life Long Learning Week 2011. Photo courtesy of Sarah-Louise Barton, Adult Basic Education Association

Tour at McMaster Museum of Art for Life Long Learning Week 2011. Photo courtesy of Sarah-Louise Barton, Adult Basic Education Association

18th Century Exhibition draws Major works and National Treasures to McMaster

Rising to the Occasion: The Long 18th Century, McMaster Museum of Art installation view

In one of its most ambitious projects to date, the McMaster Museum of Art has gathered significant works of art from collections across North America and devoted its entire facility to one single exhibition theme. The project titled, Rising to the Occasion: The Long 18th Century comprises five distinct exhibitions and 75 works exploring 18th century art and its ongoing influence.

This is a rare occasion to view in Canada, a significant subject work by Angelica Kauffmann, the most renowned and successful woman artist of the 18th century; or examine John Verelst’s 1710 Four Kings portrait paintings of First Nations delegates, national treasures and documents of Canada’s start on the road to self-determination. Also among the historical paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture on view, are major works by 18th century artists Jean-Antoine Houdon, Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, and Jean-Joseph Taillasson, as well as historically significant, artist impressions of the Pacific from the second and third voyages of Captain Cook.

The exhibitions will also interweave contemporary art inspired and influenced by the 18th century, including works by senior Canadian artists Don Andrus, Rebecca Belmore, Angela Grauerholz, Jiri Ladocha, John Massey, Tony Scherman, and Jinny Yu.

Tony Scherman (Canadian, born 1950), Napoleon, 2007-2010, from the series About 1789, encaustic on canvas, courtesy of the artist

“What we’re examining, is more than art,” says Senior Curator Ihor Holubizky. “It is the beginning of a global view of the world in the 18th century. But we’re also looking at a living culture through contemporary works, and as they look at the legacies of the past.”

The works span time, culture and politics. Take for example, Korean-born “new Canadian” Jinny Yu’s work which examines an 18th century Italian mural (Tiepolo’s painting of the Israelites exodus from ancient Egypt) that survived the Napoleonic Wars.

Rising to the Occasion: The Long 18th Century exhibitions are presented as a complement to the 18th Century Conference (John Douglas Taylor Conference) at McMaster University, October 27-29, 2011.

PUBLIC RECEPTION: Thursday September 15, 6-8 pm
generously sponsored by The Canadian Foundation for Chinese Heritage Preservation

The five exhibitions are as follows:
Rising to the Occasion: the long 18th century
September 3 – November 5, 2011
Jinny Yu and Don Andrus: Cadenza
September 3 – November 5, 2011
A Glimpse of China in the 18th century
Guest Curated by Dr. Angela Sheng: August 23, 2011 – January 7, 2012
The ‘Floating’ Urbanities of Utamaro and Hogarth: Pictures for Women?
Guest Curated by Dr. Mark A. Cheetham: August 23, 2011 – January 7, 2012
First Contact? Artists of the Cook Voyages
August 26, 2011 – January 7, 2012

For further information please visit the McMaster Museum of Art’s website

It’s AutoPlasmic

Jacques Oulé, Buddha No. 3, from the series Unmoved, 2009, from the project COMMA; colour photograph, 33 x 45 cm

The McMaster Museum of Art presents
AUTOPLASMIC
Michael Davidson, Jacques Oulé, Mario Scattoloni

March 12 – May 28, 2011
Artists’ Talk and Reception: March 17, 6 – 8 pm

Toronto-based Michael Davidson has been invited to develop an artist/curatorial project; in turn inviting artists Mario Scattoloni (Canadian, living in Barcelona) and Jacques Oulé (French, living in Toronto), and to include his own recent mixed media works on paper.

Although the work by all three is photographic and photo-based, the proposition for AutoPlasmic is neither medium-based nor formalist. It is, rather, an inquiry of an ontological dimension—the relationship of artist to “being” and “making.” Davidson cites Barnett Newman’s 1945 essay The Plasmic Image: “it can be said that the artist, like a true creator is delving into chaos [and] it is precisely this that makes him an artist [trying] to wrest truth from the void.” The exhibition will also include works selected from the McMaster collection, including Paul Klee, Gerhard Richter, August Rodin and Don Van Vliet.

View the exhibition publication here

(from left) Mario Scattoloni, photograph, from the series Gracia Portal, 2009; Jacques Oulé, photograph, from the series Unmoved, 2009; Michael Davidson, Near Stargazer Field from the suite Egressus Vermont, 2008, mixed media on paper

Exhibition Review – by RM Vaughan, The Globe & Mail, April 22, 2011

   

Three New Exhibitions Open This Week

GARY PEARSON: 1 2 3 Soliloquy
CHRISTOS DIKEAKOS: Patisserie Duchamp / Puis-je fumer
STEVE HIGGINS: All Things Considered: Thoughts About Cities and History, War and Peace

Join us for a Public Reception this Thursday January 27, 6 – 8 pm

Gary Pearson:  1 2 3 Soliloquy
January 20 – August 13, 2011
1 2 3 Soliloquy is an exhibition about expressions of everyday realities and our often strained and ambiguous distal relationship to those realities. Gary Pearson, artist and Associate Professor at UBC Okanagan, was invited to interweave his recent Soliloquy videos and related “short fiction” photo-prints with works he selected from the McMaster Museum of Art’s German Expressionist and Weimar period collection, expanded to include Hollywood photography of the 1930s and contemporary European printwork.

Christos Dikeakos: Patisserie Duchamp / Puis-je fumer
27 January – 26 March 2011
The exhibition combines drawing, collage, photography, and sculpture, which unpacks Dikeakos’ 40-year interest in Marcel Duchamp’s work and thoughts. The primary subject is smoking as social behaviour, its cultural dimensions and implications, but the objective is neither to celebrate nor demonize. Organized by Museum London in partnership with McMaster Museum of Art.
Artist’s Talk: Friday January 28, 12:30 pm

Steve Higgins: All Things Considered: Thoughts About Cities and History,
War and Peace
27 January – 26 March 2011
The exhibition focuses on Higgins’ urban fiction; process printwork and his 2006-2009 urban sculptures of utopias past and present. Organized by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in collaboration with Dalhousie Art Gallery, McMaster Museum of Art and the Kelowna Art Gallery.

Images above: Christos Dikeakos Rauchschwaden (cloud of smoke), 2008 charcoal on paper; 76 x 56 cm . Courtesy of the artist and Catriona Jeffries Gallery; Steve Higgins, detail of “Urban 2,” 2006. Photo: Steve Farmer; Gary Pearson, still from Soliloquy, 2006. video, running time: 12:47

McMaster Museum of Art

Happy New Year!

As the new academic year begins, exciting opportunities are in the works for visiting the Museum:

• McMaster Get Cultured:  Free guided tours or art event every Thursday at 6 pm for McMaster students and their sweethearts. For your date night why not have a tour of the Museum or join us for art events before going to dinner or the movies? 
• Museum 101: a behind the scenes look at how an art museum functions, including how art works are collected and stored, how exhibitions come together, and what it is staff do every day.  This tour is designed for (but not limited to) secondary and postsecondary school classes.
• Professional Teambuilding and Retreats: an interesting and neutral space for McMaster departments and private organizations to hold team building sessions.  Exhibition-based adult learning activities will be provided along with a tour of the Museum.
• Birthday Parties: why not celebrate your birthday here at the Museum?  For kids, we offer gallery tours followed by arts and crafts.  For adults, bring some friends for a complete tour of the Museum.  Don’t forget to bring the cake!
• ESL Tours: we’ve welcomed groups from McMaster’s Office of International Affairs and Columbia International College (to name a few).  Your group can look at and talk about works of art from around the world.

We hope you will visit often!  For more information or to book your tour, please contact Nicole Knibb, Education Co-ordinator , at 905.525.9140 extension 27576 or by email at knibbn@mcmaster.ca.