Western Canada's art magazine since 2002
10 October 2017 Vol 2 No 21 ISSN 2561-3316 © 2017
From the Editor
Portia Priegert
This issue’s cover has a provocative image that reconfigures the American flag. The red stripes are loosely painted, varying in width and brightness. Eleven maple leaves replace the stars, which are scattered instead throughout the stripes, some seemingly in the sky, others underfoot a herd of buffalo. Teepees weave in and out of the stripes, blending foreground and background, and atop it all are nine human handprints. The work, part of a larger 1991 reflection on sovereignty by the late Joane Cardinal-Schubert, remains as relevant today as when she made it.
You can see the piece in Cardinal-Schubert's retrospective this fall at the Nickle Galleries on the University of Calgary campus. The show is a fitting tribute for a feisty visionary who helped clear a path for other Indigenous artists. Indeed, one need look no further than the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and its current show Insurgence / Resurgence, for an example of something that owes much to trailblazers like Cardinal-Schubert, Daphne Odjig and Norval Morrisseau. In a review of the show, which includes 29 contemporary Indigenous artists, Stacey Abramson notes the major shift that’s underway: “Indigenous art in Canada has become a tidal wave of empowerment that is shifting the critical lens nationally.”
Elsewhere in this issue, we offer stories about Vancouver artist Angela Grossmann’s recent return to painting, and a new national craft biennial in Ontario. In Banff, poet Steven Ross Smith went out to the woods at night to write a firsthand account of a multimedia extravaganza organized by the Banff Centre. And I had an interesting chat with Vancouver-area artist Junichiro Iwase about his Zen-like work, which is essentially nothing more than a bubble of air.
Here at Galleries West Digital, we’re already looking forward to the next issue. We’ll be at the opening of the Remai Modern, the impressive new public gallery in Saskatoon, and are writing as well about a major show at the Vancouver Art Gallery that traces two competing modes of contemporary painting through the work of 31 Canadian artists. Out East, Ottawa writer Paul Gessell is on the road to check out a show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that explores the links between the Western film genre and the visual arts. So giddy-up y’all, and turn the page.
Until next time,
CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: Stacey Abramson, Beverly Cramp, Amy Gogarty, Steven Ross Smith, Katherine Ylitalo
