(photo by Clay Banks)
Alberta galleries – including the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton, Contemporary Calgary and various Calgary artist-run centres – have come under fire recently from artists who think arts organizations need to do more to dismantle systemic racism.
The issues relate to the lack of Black artists in exhibitions, as well as support for BIPOC artists during a recent residency and exhibition project at Contemporary Calgary.
In Edmonton, two artists, Amy Malbeuf, a Métis artist from Rich Lake, Alta., and Justin Waddell, a professor at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, withdrew in protest from the AGA's biennial exhibition.
The biennial, which began in 1996, has never included a Black artist.
The Edmonton Journal reported the withdrawal of Malbeuf, who was on the long list for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. She pulled out after the catalogue was published, to protest, in part, the lack of Black artists in the show. Her statement was included in a pullout pamphlet under the heading “erratum.”
Meanwhile, Waddell told CBC News that as a person of colour who has held leadership positions within the province's visual arts community, he has a role to play in helping eliminate anti-Black racism.
"I take up a lot of space and I participate in systems that have excluded Black people," said Waddell said. "I can't do that anymore. I need to work to make things better."
The Edmonton gallery has issued a statement acknowledging the lack of representation and promised to take steps to dismantle systemic racism within its organization.
"We wanted to be open about it to recognize the fact that this has been an issue – and that we are accountable and will be seeking to make changes for the future," the gallery's director Catherine Crowston told CBC.
Meanwhile, several Indigenous and racialized artists who participated in the Collider residency and Planetary exhibition at Contemporary Calgary last year have posted an online letter protesting what they call the institution's “complicity with systemic racism.”
The letter, signed by six artists – Alia Shahab, Brittney Bear Hat, Dan Cardinal McCartney, Richelle Bear Hat, Rocio Graham and Teresa Tam – says the gallery failed to provide adequate and respectful support for local artists.
“These failures have had the greatest impact on the Indigenous and racialized artists involved, signalling Contemporary Calgary’s lack of capacity to honour a responsibility to create safe, accountable spaces through equitable, anti-oppressive practices,” the letter states.
Contemporary Calgary has acknowledged concerns that adequate emotional and cultural safety was not provided for some artists.
"Contemporary Calgary takes these concerns very seriously and acknowledges that we all must continue to increase our individual and group capacity to actively dismantle systemic racism and colonial practices in our society," the organization said in a statement.
It committed to skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism.
Finally, an audit of Black representation, mostly in Calgary’s artist-run centres, has been published on Google Docs. Conducted by oualie frost with Alicia Buates Mckenzie, Michaela Bridgemohan, Uii Savage and Levin Ifko, it found a lack of Black presence within Calgary's contemporary art scene over the last decade.
"While we recognize the inherent difficulties faced by other racialized groups in the art community, notably Indigenous artists, we notice a distinct lack of Blackness in the arts, both shows and leadership," the document says.
Source: CBC News, Edmonton Journal, Canadian Art, Contemporary Calgary
