Liz Magor

The Contemporary Art Gallery has been invited to take over Peep-Hole in Milan for the final installment of their Six Ways to Sunday initiative.

On this occasion, CAG will present a major solo exhibition of work by Vancouver based artist Liz Magor. One of the most celebrated and influential figures of her generation, the exhibition will focus on a selection of recent and new work, and in a nod to the immediate historical context of Arte Povera in that area of Italy, primarily include a series of blankets including an ambitious new piece, alongside other sculptures incorporating fabric samples, clothing and labels.

### Biography
Liz Magor studied at the University of British Columbia, Parsons School of Design and the Vancouver School of Art. She has participated in major exhibitions worldwide, including the 4th Biennale of Sydney (1982); Venice Biennale (1984) and documenta VII (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include A Thousand Quarrels, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2014); Triangle France, Marseille and California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California;  Light my Fire: Some Propositions about Portraits and Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2013); and After Presence, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012).  Magor has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2004); National Gallery of Canada (2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida (1997); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1996).  Over her career Magor has been recognized through several prestigious art awards such as the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (2014); The Audain Prize for Lifetime achievement (2009); the Governor General of Canada Award (2001) and York Wilson Endowment Award (2000). Magor is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto and Marcelle Alix, Paris.

A box-shaped sculpture made from translucent silicone with indiscernible shapes inside. 

thumbnail_LM_All the Names II, 2014 (1).jpg

LM_All the Names II, 2014 (1).jpg

Six Ways to Sunday #6

This expanded version of the exhibition first presented at Peep-Hole Art Centre, Milan, Italy, is organized by CAG in partnership with le Crédac.

### Biography
Liz Magor studied at the University of British Columbia, Parsons School of Design and the Vancouver School of Art. She has participated in major exhibitions worldwide, including the 4th Biennale of Sydney (1982); Venice Biennale (1984) and documenta VII (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include A Thousand Quarrels, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2014); Triangle France, Marseille and California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California;  Light my Fire: Some Propositions about Portraits and Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2013); and After Presence, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012).  Magor has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2004); National Gallery of Canada (2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida (1997); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1996).  Over her career Magor has been recognized through several prestigious art awards such as the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (2014); The Audain Prize for Lifetime achievement (2009); the Governor General of Canada Award (2001) and York Wilson Endowment Award (2000). Magor is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto and Marcelle Alix, Paris.


thumbnail_All the Names III, 2014 (1).jpg

All the Names III, 2014 (1).jpg

The Blue One Comes In Black

 Isabel Nolan

This is the second in a sequence of complementary exhibitions of diverse new works linked via an overarching concept, that of light as an aesthetic, emotional, spiritual and philosophical metaphor for truth. This exhibition is originated by the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and presented in collaboration with CAG and Mercer Union, Toronto

### Biography
Recent solo exhibitions by Nolan include: Launch Pad, New York (2015); the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, (2014); Musée d’art moderne de Saint Etienne, France (2012); and the Return Gallery, Goethe Institute, Dublin (2012). Nolan has participated in numerous major group exhibitions including Lofoten International Arts Festival (LIAF), Svolvær, Norway and Artspace, Sydney (both 2015); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, traveling to The Model, Sligo (2012); EVA Interntional, Limerick (2012); Musée d’art moderne de Saint Etienne, France, travelling to the Accademia d’Ungheria, Rome and The Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea (2009). Nolan represented Ireland at the 2005 Venice Biennale in a group exhibition, Ireland at Venice 2005 and lives and works in Dublin.



Isabel Nolan’s various sized ceramic sculptures are placed on the gallery floor. Each sculpture looks like stacked bowls, and is coloured in white, pale blue, or pale yellow. 

thumbnail_01-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

01-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

Six collage pieces are installed on the gallery wall. Each piece has two photographs of planets and stars in saturated colours. A white ceramic sculpture is placed on the floor beneath the collages. 

thumbnail_02-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

02-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

Several artworks are installed in a gallery space. A large scroll paper with some texts is hanging from a wall, and an abstract biomorphic-shaped sculpture sits in front of the other wall.  

thumbnail_03-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

03-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

Many artworks are installed in a gallery space. A yellow lion sculpture and various sized ceramic sculptures are placed on the floor. A rug and other two-dimensional pieces are installed on the walls. 

thumbnail_04-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

04-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

A colourful large-sized rug is installed on the white gallery wall. Eight various coloured ceramic bowls are placed close to the bottom part of the rug which is dragging on the floor.  

thumbnail_05-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

05-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

In the front gallery, a coil-shaped black sculpture is installed on the floor in front of small  colourful paintings mounted on the wall. More sculptures are installed in the other gallery

thumbnail_06-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

06-IsabelNolan-Elsewhere-2016.jpg

The weakened eye of day

Isabel Nolan

This marks the final venue for the large-scale presentation of works by Liz Magor that begun at Peep-Hole, Milan in the winter of 2015. Conceived in close cooperation with Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and Kunstverein Hamburg and realized in partnership with Contemporary Art Gallery and Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal. 

### Biography 
Liz Magor studied at the University of British Columbia, Parsons School of Design and the Vancouver School of Art. She has participated in major exhibitions worldwide, including the 4th Biennale of Sydney (1982); Venice Biennale (1984) and documenta VII (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include A Thousand Quarrels, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2014); Triangle France, Marseille and California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California;  Light my Fire: Some Propositions about Portraits and Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2013); and After Presence, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012).  Magor has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2004); National Gallery of Canada (2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida (1997); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1996).  Over her career Magor has been recognized through several prestigious art awards such as the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (2014); The Audain Prize for Lifetime achievement (2009); the Governor General of Canada Award (2001) and York Wilson Endowment Award (2000). Magor is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto and Marcelle Alix, Paris.


A cream coloured textile with yellow and green stripes hangs from a triangular metal armature mounted on a gallery wall. Pink splotches and small patches of textiles are scattered around the surface. 

thumbnail_LM_AlbertaQuebec, 2013.jpg

LM_AlbertaQuebec, 2013.jpg

Andrew Dadson

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present a private exhibition in New York by Vancouver-based artist, Andrew Dadson. Comprising a new commission supported by Vancouver contemporary menswear label wings+horns, the exhibition space will be transformed into a large-scale installation.

Dadson has consistently engaged with the notion of boundaries in relation to space and time in his work, primarily through investigations with materiality, process and abstraction. Through different mediums – painting, film, and photography – Dadson explores the possibility to cross the perceptual boundaries of space, both physical and natural, and is thus reflected in his work in an attempt to subvert our perception and usual ways of looking at things.

The installation uses plant forms and objects sprayed a single colour lit by intense daylight grow lamps. Each light is of a slightly different hue creating multiple shadows on the wall behind and introducing a further dimension to the overall composition. Combined with the large leafy plants, light, shadow and coloured forms produce a painting that evolves and shifts over time. As the organic matter is nurtured over the duration of the exhibition, the unifying painted colour begins to crack and splinter to reveal the fresh natural colours of the leaves beneath.


### Biography 
Since his first solo exhibition at the Helen Pitt Gallery, Vancouver, in 2003, Andrew Dadson has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and internationally, in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States. Dadson was the 2011 recipient of The Brink Award held at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle. Dadson is represented by Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, Italy and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, USA.


A close view of an installation of palm trees painted in mat black. A light pink and blue light shines on them casting dynamic shadows on the wall behind them. 

thumbnail_01-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

01-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

An installation of palm trees in pots painted in mat black. A light pink and blue light shines on them casting dynamic shadows on the wall behind them.

thumbnail_03-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

03-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

A close view of a palm leaf painted in mat black. A light pink and blue light shines on them casting dynamic shadows on the wall behind them.

thumbnail_04-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

04-AndrewDadson-2018.jpg

This exhibition, previously at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst was conceived in close cooperation with Kunstverein in Hamburg and realized in partnership with Contemporary Art Gallery and Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal. 

### Biography
Liz Magor studied at the University of British Columbia, Parsons School of Design and the Vancouver School of Art. She has participated in major exhibitions worldwide, including the 4th Biennale of Sydney (1982); Venice Biennale (1984) and documenta VII (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include A Thousand Quarrels, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2014); Triangle France, Marseille and California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California;  Light my Fire: Some Propositions about Portraits and Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2013); and After Presence, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012).  Magor has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2004); National Gallery of Canada (2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida (1997); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1996).  Over her career Magor has been recognized through several prestigious art awards such as the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (2014); The Audain Prize for Lifetime achievement (2009); the Governor General of Canada Award (2001) and York Wilson Endowment Award (2000). Magor is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto and Marcelle Alix, Paris.

Peach and brown coloured textiles are draped on a wire-hanger which hangs on a gallery wall. A green, plastic garment bag covers half of the textile.

thumbnail_LM_Phoenix, 2013.jpg

LM_Phoenix, 2013.jpg

you, you, you

This exhibition at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst was conceived in close cooperation with Kunstverein in Hamburg and realized in partnership with Contemporary Art Gallery and Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal. 

### Biography
Liz Magor studied at the University of British Columbia, Parsons School of Design and the Vancouver School of Art. She has participated in major exhibitions worldwide, including the 4th Biennale of Sydney (1982); Venice Biennale (1984) and documenta VII (1987). Recent solo exhibitions include A Thousand Quarrels, Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2014); Triangle France, Marseille and California-Pacific Triennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California;  Light my Fire: Some Propositions about Portraits and Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2013); and After Presence, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (2012).  Magor has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Wattis Institute, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2004); National Gallery of Canada (2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida (1997); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1996).  Over her career Magor has been recognized through several prestigious art awards such as the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (2014); The Audain Prize for Lifetime achievement (2009); the Governor General of Canada Award (2001) and York Wilson Endowment Award (2000). Magor is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto and Marcelle Alix, Paris.


A grey textile with a vertical stripe down the middle is draped on a wire-hanger which hangs on a gallery wall.

thumbnail_Camping, 2013.jpg

Camping, 2013.jpg

Vikky Alexander

On invitation from the Canada Gallery at the High Commission of Canada to the United Kingdom, the Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG), Vancouver is pleased to present the first UK solo exhibition by Vikky Alexander, a leading practitioner in the field of photo-conceptualism. The program builds on CAG’s existing off-site work with Canadian artists abroad, seen most recently in the five museum venue tour begun in 2015 with artist Liz Magor.

In the 1980s Alexander played a significant role in the group of artists now known as “The Pictures Generation”, who posed a new set of questions concerning art and the nature of representation. The core of Alexander’s artistic proposition lies in the fantastic – in both the literal and figurative senses of the words. While playful, she uses a variety of media and techniques to make her point: mirrors, photographic landscape murals, postcards collected on her travels, photography and video.
The title of the exhibition is taken from the 1882 book by Frederick Olmsted, who designed Mount Royal Park in Alexander’s resident city of Montreal. Highlighting that the needs of the city’s parks were always subservient to the needs of the political machine, this exhibition similarly explores conflicts between nature and culture, urging us to consider how the natural world is often there merely to service human civilization.

*The Spoils of the Park* comprises colour photographs and pencil/watercolour drawings that reflect Alexander’s interest in histories of architecture and design, and focus on locations such as the opulent grounds and interiors of European stately homes, places that speak to desire, aspiration and wealth.
Depicting surreal juxtapositions between the locations selected and the animals collaged into such scenarios, Alexander creates these works by overlaying one or more cutout images of toy animals onto postcards of lavish historical sites devoid of people. These constructed images ask us to consider a multiplicity of meanings. Blown up in scale and presented as colour photographs, we read the pixelated surfaces of the original postcard prints against the often ungainly scale of the animals. The grand interiors seen in *Deer in the Wallace Collection Study* (2013) or *Gazelles at the Harrogate Baths* (2013) for example, depict a world which reveals mankind’s extreme affluence and consumption, contrasting to the comparatively modest use of resources by animals, to which wealth means very little.

In addition to this series of collages, Alexander presents a large-scale, black-and-white photo-mural adhered directly to the wall. Taken from her Island Series originally shot in 2010, the mural brings together several individual views of the exotic tropical plant greenhouses at Kew Gardens, which alongside other works, creates an immersive environment that raises questions concerning issues of how the more complex and affluent our societies become, the more we dominate the earth, annexing land, and the more we force nature to either adapt to artificial conditions or withdraw into ever-shrinking habitats.

Curated by Nigel Prince


### Biography
Vikky Alexander lives and works in Montreal. Selected solo exhibitions include Tomorrow Gallery, New York (2017); Cooper Cole, Toronto (2016); Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary; Atelier Daigneault/Schofield, Montreal (2015); Wilding Cran Gallery, Los Angeles; The Apartment, Vancouver (2014); The Engine Room Gallery, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand (2010); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2000); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (1999); Catriona Jeffries Gallery (1997); Vancouver Art Gallery (1992); Kunsthalle Bern (1990) and CASH/Newhouse Gallery, New York (1987). Recent group exhibitions include Project Native Informant, London (2017); NGC @ MoCCA Project Space, Toronto (2015); Artist’s Space, New York (2014); Museum for Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland; CultureGest, Lisbon, Portugal (2013); Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2012); MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax (2005); Yokohama Civic Art Gallery, Japan and Taipei, Korea; Seattle Art Museum (1996); The New Museum, New York (1992); Barbican Art Gallery, London (1991) and Whitney Museum of American Art (1990). Her work is in many international public collections including National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles; Vancouver Art Gallery and Winnipeg Art Gallery. Alexander is represented by Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary; Wilding Cran, Los Angeles, Downs & Ross, New York and Cooper Cole, Toronto.


Three large-scale, black-and-white photo-mural adhered directly to the wall of a gallery space.  The imagery displays views of the exotic tropical plant greenhouses at Kew Gardens. 

thumbnail_01-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

01-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

Five framed images hang on the wall of a gallery space. The images display a variety of lavish indoor and outdoor spaces, with irregular animals, like a tiger and a moose, existing within these spaces.

thumbnail_03-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

03-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

Four framed images hang on two walls of a gallery space. The images display a variety of lavish indoor and outdoor spaces, with animals, like a tiger or a moose, existing within these spaces.

thumbnail_04-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

04-VikkyAlexander-2018.jpg

The Spoils of the Park

Andrew Bartee

Following on from the series of individual performances made at CAG during autumn-winter 2017, Ballet BC dancer, Andrew Bartee will present a performance that draws together this period of research examining gesture and movement with a particular interest in audience in consideration of permeability of the fourth wall as a conversation between art and each other.

### Biography
Andrew Bartee, from Everett, Washington, joined Ballet BC in 2014 and was the Artist in Residence for the 17/18 season. He studied on scholarship at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle, WA and attended summer courses at the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet School. He was also the first recipient of the Fleming Halby exchange with the Royal Danish Ballet, a 2007 Princess Grace Award, and was one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2015.

A gallery space with people lined against the wall watching one person perform at the center. The performer is wearing all yellow clothes and is holding a dance pose. 

thumbnail_01-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

01-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A gallery space with people standing around the perimeter of the room watching one person perform at the center. The performer is holding their leg up at a ninety degree angle in yellow loose clothes. 

thumbnail_02-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

02-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A dancer lays in a partial split on the floor of a gallery space with audience members watching at a distance. Their arms are bent behind them with the tips of their fingers touching.

thumbnail_03-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

03-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A performer dressed in yellow lays on the floor of a gallery space with audience members standing around the perimeter. They are laying on their side, propping their head up with their arm. 

thumbnail_04-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

04-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A performer dressed in yellow sits on the floor of a gallery space with audience members standing around the perimeter. They are curled up on their knees, propping their head up with their hands.

thumbnail_05-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

05-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A performer dressed in yellow stands with audience members by the wall of a gallery space. Five audience members are visibly standing on the left side of the performer, and three on the right. 

thumbnail_06-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

06-AndrewBartee-2018.jpg

A dance for lonely people

Jeneen Frei Njootli

Produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and presented to Vancouver audiences in Summer 2018, the solo exhibition and accompanying publication of Vuntut Gwitchin artist Jeneen Frei Njootli is now hosted by our touring partner, the Art Gallery of Burlington in Ontario.

### Biography
Jeneen Frei Njootli is a Vuntut Gwitchin artist who has performed and exhibited her work internationally, from galleries to rooftops, casinos, runways, and the bush. She works across numerous media and modes, including performance, sound, installation, fashion, and with community, and is a co-creator of the ReMatriate Collective. Frei Njootli holds a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2012) and an MFA from the University of British Columbia (2017). In 2016 she was one of three recipients of the William & Meredith Saunderson ,from the  Hnatyshyn Foundation. She was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2017 and in 2018, she was shortlisted for the same. Her work has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Fierman Gallery, NYC; Artspace, Peterborough; Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; and Definitely Superior Art Gallery, Thunder Bay. She has participated in the 2018 Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone (BACA) / Contemporary Native Art Biennial, and in group exhibitions at Western Front, Vancouver; ONE AND J + 1, Seoul; Mercer Union, Toronto; Available Light Film Festival, Whitehorse; LandMarks2017/ Repères2017, PAVED Arts, Saskatoon; Whitewater Gallery, North Bay, ON; Art Gallery of South Western Manitoba, Brandon; Vancouver Art Gallery, Trinity Square Video, Toronto; Yukon Arts Centre, Gallery 44, Toronto; and many others. Her work has been part of Indigenous Fashion Week in Toronto (2018) and Vancouver (2017) as well as at the Adäka Cultural Festival in Whitehorse (2015). Frei Njootli has completed multiple residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and, has collaborated with James Luna, Olivia Whetung, Tsēma Igharas, Krista Belle Stewart with Laura Ortman, Lyndsay Lachance, Dana Claxton, Angela Code, Tania Willard, Gabrielle l’Hirondelle Hill and Chandra Melting Tallow. Her work is in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Jeneen Frei Njootli is currently a grateful, uninvited guest on unceded Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish territories.



A close up view of a steel sheet marked with two hand prints pointing downwards and made of grease. The steel is covered with other faint markings and appears to be gray, blue and purple.

thumbnail_00-HEADER-Njootli.jpg

00-HEADER-Njootli.jpg

my auntie bought all her skidoos with bead money

Babak Golkar

*All the blind men* presents the results of Babak Golkar’s two-year long investigation into the possibilities of painting: the apparatus of its circulation and its tenacity as a means to carry meaning and value. The subjects of these representational works draw upon key historical characters and political moments from the last 100 years, each of which continues to resonate with uncomfortable potency in our current political moment. Manifesting in an array of media and object forms, they demonstrate the artist’s signature working process of deconstruction, replication and transformation.

Golkar’s research emerges from his interest in the relationship between space and human conditions in the contemporary world, and aims to both examine and upend established ways of looking. The exhibition’s title references an ancient parable about a group of sightless men who come to blows after each attempting to describe an elephant based on the part of the animal’s body they are able to touch. Elements of this story, which warns about the limitations of perception, the danger of misinformation and the folly of claiming absolute truths, surface throughout the exhibition, in both form and content: the image of Chairman Mao swimming (or is it perhaps his body double?) appears in multitude in a wallpaper design that is itself multiplied on the surface of a field of mirrored ceramics; The Third Reich’s Minister of Propaganda confronts visitors in a monumental, anamorphic painting; and Brecht’s sobering stage-play *Mann ist Mann* is conjured through a triangular dialogue between sound, video-recorded performance, and a painted image of the Czar of Russia pretending to fly. In each case, by distorting assumed certainties of perspective, Golkar questions accepted cultural and socio-economic systems and ideological viewpoints—as well as their persistence over time.

Organized by Kimberly Phillips
Additional support provided by Stephen Fitterman

*All the blind men* has been organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, in partnership with the Servais Family Collection, and presented at their collection space The Loft in Brussels. It forms part of an ongoing series of international off-site exhibition projects by CAG produced in association with other venues.

The Servais Family Collection is a publicly accessible private art collection, committed to supporting artists and inspiring audiences willing to discover an international repertoire of contemporary art practices.

### Biography
Born in the United States and raised in Tehran, Babak Golkar has been based in Vancouver, Canada, since 1996 and is represented by Galeria Sabrina Amrani, Madrid and The Third Line, Dubai.

A black and white painted portrait of the Third Reich’s Minister of Propaganda. The image appears to be stretched out horizontally. It has bold brush strokes and unfinished edges. 

thumbnail_01-BabakGolkar-2019.jpg

01-BabakGolkar-2019.jpg

All the blind men

Myfanwy Macleod

Myfanwy MacLeod is best known for her irreverent artworks that often explore the overlapping and intersecting of pop culture, folklore, traditions, and histories. Her practice examines how perceptions of “high” and “low” culture are interpreted through themes of gender, privilege and value and ranges from museum and gallery exhibitions through to celebrated permanent and temporary works in the public realm. Her interest in how an image or object can be transformed to change its meaning through shifts in scale or materiality for example, and importantly the context of indoors or out playing a specific role within her deliberations is the starting point for her first solo exhibition in the UK. MacLeod examines this dialogue as a way to visually communicate the shift of ideas that occurs through process, materiality, scale and context. To this end and as a means to illustrate this proposition, a selection of recent works is presented alongside maquettes and visual documentation for public commissions.

Central to the exhibition is a sequence of framed watercolours that were used in 2018 as the basis for a public artwork, Neighbours, a series of large-scale posters displayed at twenty sites around the City of Vancouver corresponding with two major events in Canada. Firstly, in 2018 we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act established between Canada and the US. One of the most successful conservation laws in North American history is now currently under review by American Congress. Coinciding with the anniversary of this major achievement by Canada in protecting species and its consequent positive environmental impact, was the International Ornithological Congress (founded in 1884) which takes place every four years and in 2018 convened in Vancouver from August 19-26. The second event was the celebrated re-installation of MacLeod’s acclaimed commission The Birds (2010), a large-scale public sculpture of two house sparrows located in the Olympic Plaza, Vancouver.

Sharing content therefore and immediately following on from this global environmental conference as context, MacLeod’s twelve watercolour drawings depict various birds protected by the treaty that annually migrate from all over the world to live and breed in Canada and incorporates different species gathered together into one diverse flock. Not unlike the “impossible bouquet''—a concept that emerged in Dutch still life painting in the seventeenth century where flowers were visually brought together from different seasons and geographic regions—this assemblage of birds is made up of a varied, polyglot group. Those depicted include House Sparrow, Common Nightingale, Northern Goshawk, Sandhill Crane, Northern Raven, and the Blue Footed Booby, amongst others. Through such a considered selection, MacLeod represents the national birds from countries which make up Canadian communities thus mirroring the physical and cultural identities of the inhabitants of the country.

Alongside these original watercolours is documentation of the large-scale photographic public works. These posters combine the original, delicate drawings of the birds with a Latin text of their species and popular name thereby evoking the layout of typical ornithological text books and field guides. A particular visual reference is the 1912 book, Color Key to North American Birds, one of the first publications to rely on a visual approach to identification, rather than the lengthy, technical and difficult to use taxonomies, thereby opening out and making information more accessible to the many. MacLeod’s work embodies this same impulse.

To further elaborate the process inherent in MacLeod’s practice and the move between gallery and public space, other works presented include the small-scale sculptural maquette of The Birds and the original sculpture—a small wooden log and initial plaster casts taken from it—that were used to form the basis for Wood for the People (2002), a permanent installation of 230 cast concrete logs outside the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver.

Acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood was the keynote speaker at the opening of the International Ornithological Congress. Prompted by Atwood’s conference speech where she pointed out that although cats are the major killers of migratory songbirds in North America, she was interested in creating a positive conversation around cats and birds that “didn’t completely annoy cat people,” MacLeod produced a wall-hanging woven felt piece Purr, Purr, Purr (2018). Characteristically this embodies the underlying playful humour present in her work while encompassing her ongoing interest in more profound environmental concerns.

Curated by Nigel Prince


### Biography
Myfanwy MacLeod lives and works in Vancouver. A recipient of the VIVA Award (1999) presented by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts, Vancouver, she has had solo exhibitions at Or Gallery, Vancouver (2015); Vancouver Art Gallery (2014); Museum London, Ontario (2013); Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2012) and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2006). Selected group exhibitions include The Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver (2017); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2013); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2012); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2012); Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto (2008); Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston (2006); Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany (2004); The Power Plant, Toronto (2002); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2002); Gasworks, London (2002); Canadian Pavilion, Melbourne International Biennial (1999) and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (1998). She is represented by Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver.

Two small scale metal birds sit on top of a plinth. The bird in the foreground is dark brown and in clear focus, the one in the background a lighter shade of brown and blurred.

thumbnail_01-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

01-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

Twelve framed small scale paintings hang in a vertical line on a gallery wall. The watercolours depict various migratory birds. To the left, a pile of plaster cast wooden logs sit on the floor.

thumbnail_02-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

02-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

A view of Myfanwy MacLeod’s exhibition in a gallery. On the left wall, brown fabric with red shapes hangs off a curtain pole. On the right side,  a pile of plaster cast wooden logs sit on the floor.

thumbnail_03-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

03-MyfanwyMacLeod-elsewhere-2019.jpg

Neighbours

Myfanwy MacLeod

Nadia Belerique

Jule Hillgärtner

Franz Hempel

Kathy Slade

Nele Kaczmarek

Co-produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and the Kunstverein Braunschweig, this extensive exhibition brings together the work of three Canadian artists—Nadia Belerique, Jeneen Frei Njootli and Kathy Slade—at the Kunsteverein’s historic Villa Salve Hospes.

Curated by Franz Hempel, Jule Hillgärtner, Nele Kaczmarek, Julia Lamare


### Biographies
Nadia Belerique received her MFA from the University of Guelph. Recent solo exhibitions include *There’s A Hole In The Bucket, Daniel Faria Gallery* (2019); *On Sleep Stones*, Grazer Kunstverein (2018) and *The Weather Channel*, Oakville Galleries (2018). Her work has been included in La Biennale de Montreal (2016) curated by Philippe Pirote and the Gwangju Biennale (2016), curated by Maria Lind. It has been exhibited internationally at venues such as Tensta Konsthall, Spånga; Kunsthalle, Wein; Vie d’ange, Montreal; The Power Plant, Toronto; and Downs and Ross, New York. Belerique was long-listed for the 2017 Sobey Art Award and has completed residencies at Walk & Talk, The Azores and Fogo Island Arts, among others. Forthcoming exhibitions include: Kunstverein Braunschweig (2020), Toronto Biennial (2021) and Fogo Island Arts (2022). She lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Jeneen Frei Njootli is a 2SQ Vuntut Gwitchin artist whose award-winning practice takes the forms of performance, sound, textiles, images, collaboration, workshops, and feral scholarship. Having exhibited and performed internationally, they are now living in the ancestral, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples while teaching at the University of British Columbia. Concerned with Indigenous politics and aesthetics, Frei Njootli is currently welding, sewing, writing, and organizing. If you are interested in learning more about Jeneen’s work, please check out *my auntie bought all her skidoos with bead money*, available through the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver bookstore.

Kathy Slade is an artist, writer, curator, and editor/publisher. She works across mediums and has produced textile works, prints, sculpture, film, video, performance, music projects, and publications. Slade’s work draws upon sources ranging from cult films and punk rock music to literary classics, art history, feminism, technology, and labour histories. Her recent solo exhibitions include: *A Dream and a Drive* (in collaboration with Amber Frid-Jimenez), Monica Reyes Gallery, Vancouver (2019); *This is a Chord. This is Another.*, Surrey Art Gallery (2018) and *Blue Monday*, 4COSE, London (2017). Slade’s work has been included in group exhibitions such as: *Protest and Design*, Dublin Art Book Fair (2020); Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin (2020); *It’s Never Too Late to Speculate*, Fluc, Vienna (2019); and *Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT*, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery Vancouver (2018). Slade curated *Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press* at the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Vancouver (2019) and was Curator of the 2019 Vancouver Art Book Fair.



ExhibitionGuide_Belerique-Frei-Njootli-Slade_KunstvereinBraunschweig_2021.pdf

Two woven tapestries hang on two walls of a gallery. Both tapestries depict imagery of hands holding a book with their fingers prominently touching a page of or inserted in the book.

thumbnail_01-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

01-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

A close view of stacked white, plastic barrels. Some barrels are empty while others contain coloired liquid objects or are sealed with colourful stained glass lids.

thumbnail_02-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

02-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

A brown hoodie with bold, black text hangs on a gallery wall so that the back is visible. Blue hair emerges from the hood and black fringe hangs down from each sleeve.

thumbnail_03-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

03-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

A close view of beads black, red, white, and gold beads filling the cracks of cobblestone pavement. Part of a white building is blurred in the background.

thumbnail_04-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

04-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

A small gallery room with three monitors on three walls. On the centre back wall, the monitor plays a video of a talking head. On the parallel walls, two monitors with blue screens face each other.

thumbnail_05-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

05-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

Several artworks are installed in a gallery space. Three white plastic barrel sculptures are placed on the wood tile floor. Two wood-framed photographs of a doorknob are mounted on the white wall

thumbnail_06-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

06-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

In a darkened gallery space, a single-channel video work is projected on a white wall at the end of the room. The video shows a pair of hands holding a beaded rope.

thumbnail_07-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

07-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

Books and blankets are displayed on a wood table in the centre of a room. Two large textile works depicting images of a hand in a book and a reclining person are mounted on the wall behind the table. 

thumbnail_08-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

08-GroupShow-CAGelsewhere-2020.jpg

Nadia Belerique, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Kathy Slade

Olivia Whetung

First presented at the Contemporary Art Gallery in 2019, Olivia Whetung’s solo exhibition, Sugarbush Shrapnel, will tour to the Campbell River Art Gallery this fall.

### Biography
Olivia Whetung is a member of Curve Lake First Nation and a citizen of the Nishnaabeg Nation. Her work has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Gallery 44, Toronto (2018); Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, Kelowna (2018); Artspace, Peterborough (2017); and 180 Projects, Sault Ste. Marie. She has contributed to two-person and group exhibitions at Queen’s University, Kingston (2019); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2018-19); Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto (2018); Art Gallery of Mississauga (2018); Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa (2017); Access Gallery, Vancouver (2016); Western Front, Vancouver (2016); VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver (2016); Open Space, Victoria (2014); and many others. She completed her BFA with a minor in Anishinaabemowin at Algoma University (2013) and her MFA in Visual Art at the University of British Columbia (2016). She was awarded the John Hartman Award in 2018, the William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists in 2016, and is a recipient of a CGS-M Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Award and an Aboriginal Graduate Fellowship. In 2019 she was awarded a Joseph S. Stauffer Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts.


An image detail of a wood veneer panel with a rendering of a hummingbird drinking nectar out of a flower. The rendering is composed of bead-embroidered and wood-burned lines.

thumbnail_05-OliviaWhetung-2019.jpg

05-OliviaWhetung-2019.jpg

Sugarbush Shrapnel

Deanna Bowen

Produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and presented to Vancouver audiences in spring 2019, the solo exhibition of Toronto-based artist Deanna Bowen will continue its national tour in Montreal this fall, with a joint presentation at OBORO, Groupe Intervention Video and Ada X.

### Biography 
Deanna Bowen is a descendant of two Alabama and Kentucky born Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Bowen’s family history has been the central pivot of her auto-ethnographic interdisciplinary works since the early 1990s. She makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures in order to define the Black body and trace its presence and movement in place and time. In recent years, her work has involved close examination of her family’s migration and their connections to Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley and Black Strathcona, the “All-Black” towns of Oklahoma, the Kansas Exoduster migrations and the Ku Klux Klan in Canada and the US. Bowen is a recipient of numerous awards including a 2020 Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts, a 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and the 2014 William H. Johnson Prize. Her writing, interviews and art works have been published in Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, The Black Prairie Archives, and Transition Magazine. Bowen is editor of the 2019 publication Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada.


A black and white cast photo from a theatre play with a large group of smiling people standing and crouching in rows. The people appear to be in costume and positioned in front of the stage backdrop.

thumbnail_01-DeannaBowen-2020 .jpg

01-DeannaBowen-2020 .jpg

A Harlem Nocturne

Produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and presented to Vancouver audiences in spring 2019, the solo exhibition of Toronto-based artist Deanna Bowen will begin its multi-venue national tour at McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario.

### Biography
Deanna Bowen is a descendant of two Alabama and Kentucky born Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Bowen’s family history has been the central pivot of her auto-ethnographic interdisciplinary works since the early 1990s. She makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures in order to define the Black body and trace its presence and movement in place and time. In recent years, her work has involved close examination of her family’s migration and their connections to Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley and Black Strathcona, the “All-Black” towns of Oklahoma, the Kansas Exoduster migrations and the Ku Klux Klan in Canada and the US. Bowen is a recipient of numerous awards including a 2020 Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts, a 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and the 2014 William H. Johnson Prize. Her writing, interviews and art works have been published in Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, The Black Prairie Archives, and Transition Magazine. Bowen is editor of the 2019 publication Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada.

An image, with a black background and white text and lines showing a section of an architectural plan for a neighbourhood. Handwritten text in the centre reads “CULLODEN COURT SHEL.”

thumbnail_Culloden Court vF.jpg

Culloden Court vF.jpg

Produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and presented to Vancouver audiences in spring 2019, the solo exhibition of Montreal-based artist Deanna Bowen will continue its national tour in Chatham-Kent this fall at the Thames Art Gallery.

### Biography
Deanna Bowen is a descendant of two Alabama and Kentucky born Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Bowen’s family history has been the central pivot of her auto-ethnographic interdisciplinary works since the early 1990s. She makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures in order to define the Black body and trace its presence and movement in place and time. In recent years, her work has involved close examination of her family’s migration and their connections to Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley and Black Strathcona, the “All-Black” towns of Oklahoma, the Kansas Exoduster migrations and the Ku Klux Klan in Canada and the US. Bowen is a recipient of numerous awards including a 2020 Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts, a 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and the 2014 William H. Johnson Prize. Her writing, interviews and art works have been published in Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, The Black Prairie Archives, and Transition Magazine. Bowen is editor of the 2019 publication Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada.

A black and white image of two newspaper pages side by side. The image has been inverted so that the papers appear black with white text, and the images appear ghostly. 

thumbnail_The_Vancouver_Sun_Wed__Oct_14-17__1959_low res.jpg

The_Vancouver_Sun_Wed__Oct_14-17__1959_low res.jpg

Produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery and presented to Vancouver audiences in spring 2019, the solo exhibition of Toronto-based artist Deanna Bowen will continue its national tour in Banff this spring at Walter Phillips Gallery. This iteration of the touring exhibition at Banff Centre will mark the artist’s first solo exhibition in Alberta.

### Biography
Deanna Bowen is a descendant of two Alabama and Kentucky born Black Prairie pioneer families from Amber Valley and Campsie, Alberta. Bowen’s family history has been the central pivot of her auto-ethnographic interdisciplinary works since the early 1990s. She makes use of a repertoire of artistic gestures in order to define the Black body and trace its presence and movement in place and time. In recent years, her work has involved close examination of her family’s migration and their connections to Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley and Black Strathcona, the “All-Black” towns of Oklahoma, the Kansas Exoduster migrations and the Ku Klux Klan in Canada and the US. Bowen is a recipient of numerous awards including a 2020 Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts, a 2016 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and the 2014 William H. Johnson Prize. Her writing, interviews and art works have been published in Canadian Art, The Capilano Review, The Black Prairie Archives, and Transition Magazine. Bowen is editor of the 2019 publication Other Places: Reflections on Media Arts in Canada.



An image depicting Benesh notation dance scores. The scores are white on a solid black background and resemble sheet music. “Farm Duet.” is written above the score on the top left.