Canadian Biennial Goes International
Nick Cave, "Soundsuit," 2015
mixed media, including gramophone horn, ceramic birds, metal flowers, strung beads, fabric, metal and mannequin, 112" x 59" x 48" (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa ©Nick Cave, courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, photo by NGC)
On one side of the long gallery is Nick Cave’s gaudily decorated, life-sized mannequin, topped by a mouth-like gramophone horn. This kitschy sculpture, imported from Chicago, appears to be in a shouting match across the room with a primeval, over-sized, open-mouthed cedar mask created by the late West Coast Indigenous artist Beau Dick.
Clearly, the curators behind the National Gallery of Canada’s fourth Canadian Biennial, on view until March 18, want to imply that Sound Suit, born of the concerns of a gay, black American man, is conversing with Bookwus Ghost Mask, an object rooted in ancient West Coast Kwakwaka’wakw culture.
Both works are meant for use in performances. Both are excellent additions to the gallery’s collection. But what exactly are the two works shouting at one another? Sometimes art-based conversations are more than a little forced.
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Shannon Bool, "The Spinner," 2015
cotton, wool, polyester, acrylic, viscose, metal and dye, 90.5" x 73.4" (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ©Shannon Bool, courtesy Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, photo courtesy Daniel Faria Gallery)
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Taryn Simon, "Gdansk Agreement, Gdansk Shipyards, Gdansk, Poland, August 31, 1980," 2015
ink jet print, 83" x 63" (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ©Taryn Simon, courtesy Gagosian Gallery, photo by NGC)
For the first time, the biennial is exhibiting international acquisitions from the last few years alongside recent domestic purchases and donations. The goal is to see how Canadian contemporary art converses with foreign works. Since the gallery’s temporary exhibition spaces are filled this year with Canadiana to mark the country’s 150th anniversary, this was a chance to exhibit some international pieces. However, one could argue just as convincingly that, in this special year, the focus should have stayed resolutely on Canadian works.
Visitors might best avoid the contrived cross-border conversations and just enjoy the 100 works by 50 artists for what they are. There is, after all, no overarching theme, just a hodgepodge of impressive, but largely unrelated, art. Some acquisitions are part of a smaller companion show that opened earlier at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.
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Wael Shawky, "Cabaret Crusades I: The Horror Show File," 2010
high-definition video (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ©Wael Shawky, courtesy Lisson Gallery, London)
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Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, "Hoktemberjan, Armavir," 2000
gelatin silver print, 16" x 20" (gift of the artist, Berlin, 2015, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ©Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, courtesy of the artist and Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica, U.S., photo by NGC)
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Latifa Echakhch, "Untitled (Black Cloud) IV," 2015
China ink, wood, canvas, acrylic paint and steel wire, 39" x 98" x 20" (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa ©Latifa Echakhch, courtesy Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, photo by Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zurich)
Kent Monkman’s installation and video, Casualties of Modernity, gets star treatment in Ottawa. The Toronto artist’s drag persona, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, is dressed as a campy nurse and offers wry comments on the state of various forms of ailing art, from Romanticism to Cubism. The video is a hilarious commentary on the foibles of contemporary art.
Thanks to Vancouver artist Stan Douglas, visitors with loads of time can watch his 2013 film, Luanda-Kinshasa, a six-hour patchwork of an African-themed music performance in a reimagined Manhattan venue from the 1970s.
Stan Douglas, "Luanda-Kinshasa," 2013
high-definition video (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ©Stan Douglas, photo courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York/London, and Victoria Miro, London)
Some of the most powerful social commentary comes from another B.C. artist, Brian Jungen, who has assembled stacks of 1,500 plastic cafeteria trays into an installation titled Isolated Depictions of the Passage of Time. Each tray represents an Indigenous man incarcerated at the time of the sculpture’s creation in 2001. The trays are different colours, representing the different lengths of prison sentences.
The biennial also offers the stunning painting, complete with rhinestones, Qusuquzah, Une Très Belle Négresse #3 by American Mickalene Thomas. Measuring roughly eight feet by seven feet, the naïf-style painting proclaims: I am black and proud. The painting is meant to converse with nearby works by artists from Montreal and Africa. Great works, one and all. But is it a conversation or a multilingual Tower of Babel?
