AGO acquires Ruth Cuthand's "Don't Breathe, Don't Drink"

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Ruth Cuthand, "Don't Breathe, Don't Drink," 2016

dc3 Art Projects announces the acquisition of Ruth Cuthand’s Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink by the Art Gallery of Ontario. Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink is a large-scale mixed media installation exploring contamination and community. The installation was premiered in it’s entirety at dc3 Art Projects in March 2016 and was subsequently exhibited as a SOLO project at Art Toronto 2017.

Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink will be included in the upcoming exhibition and catalogue Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood opening at the AGO on June 29, 2017, curated by Andrew Hunter, the AGO’s Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art.

Watching footage of the 2011 housing crisis in Attawapiskat coupled with home improvement programs on TV, Cuthand conceived a new body of work growing from her interest in infections impacting Indigenous peoples. Don't Breathe, Don't Drink is a celebratory dining table set in a First Nation reserve home, panelled with incendiary ‘gas board’ infamous to firefighters and ubiquitous in northern communities. A table covered in blue industrial tarpaulin, material used to create temporary shelters when reserve housing is unfit, bears beaded black mould spores magnified to heraldic emblem proportions. The table and shelf unit hold 94 found glass vessels: glasses and baby bottles containing hand-beaded Giardia, Helicobacter, E. coli and other infectious vectors, set in resin, responsible for 94 Nations under long term boil water advisory. Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink is Cuthand’s largest installation to date created over a period of 5 years.

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Ruth Cuthand, "Don't Breathe, Don't Drink," 2016

An artist of Plains Cree and Scottish ancestry, Cuthand’s practice, spanning over 30 years, explores the frictions between cultures, the failures of representation, and the political uses of anger. Cuthand’s beaded portraits of infectious agents significant to indigenous people, past and present, were featured in the survey show of contemporary Canadian art, Oh, Canada, at MASS MoCA in 2012, which subsequently travelled across Canada. Works from her Surviving series were recently included in the Contemporary Native Art Biennial in Montréal, organized by Art Mûr under the theme Culture Shift – Une révolution culturelle.

Cuthand holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, and lives and works in Saskatoon, SK. In 2013, Cuthand was awarded the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award and in 2015 was named an Alumni of Influence by the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan. Cuthand is represented by dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton, Canada, and her work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, McKenzie Art Gallery, Mendel Art Gallery and Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Cuthand was one of 150 recipients of the REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards.

Cuthand is currently working on a series of portraits of water-borne infectious agents related to Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink, and is focusing on her next large-scale installation project.

Source: dc3 Art Projects