Remai Modern Announces Full Artist Lineup and Opening Program

Remai Modern has announced the full list (at the end) of artists participating in its inaugural exhibition, Field Guide, which debuts during the October 21, 2017 opening of the direction-setting museum in Saskatoon. Click HERE for details about opening weekend events.

Curated by Executive Director & CEO, Gregory Burke, and Director of Programs & Chief Curator, Sandra Guimarães, Field Guide will feature contemporary projects, commissions and immersive installations by nearly 80 renowned Canadian and international artists — many showing in Canada for the first time. The building-wide exhibition will create a dialogue between these works and a selection from Remai Modern’s permanent collection.

“The breadth of artists we’ve brought together for our inaugural exhibition, Field Guide, is quite expansive and diverse,” said Gregory Burke. “With works from leading American artists like John Baldessari, Christopher Williams, Lawrence Weiner and Pae White, prominent international artists including Walid Raad, Rosemarie Trockel, Haegue Yang and Philippe Parreno, as well as renowned Canadian artists such as Stan Douglas and Ian Wallace and such noted Saskatchewan artists as Bob Boyer, Eli Bornstein and Kara Uzelman, we’ve produced a program that introduces Remai Modern’s philosophy and direction. On one hand, Field Guide points to a field of relations impacting on the development of art and its current agency. On the other, the exhibition articulates a spirit of active engagement, curiosity and disruption that begins to enact Remai Modern’s vision and its responsibilities going forward.”

Field Guide rethinks the idea of “modern” from multiple cultural, geographic, historic and contemporary perspectives. Legacies are an important component, and the history of the Mendel Art Gallery, from which Remai Modern inherited a collection of nearly 8,000 works, acts as a formative nucleus. Civic engagement, progressive politics, and the unique history of abstraction—fostered by Saskatchewan’s Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops—are explored through their enduring influence. Field Guide also signals a new chapter, debuting many key acquisitions reflecting the aspirations and future growth of the collection.

“Key pieces from Remai Modern’s collection are placed into dialogue with recent acquisitions and new works, forming constellations of diverse works,” said Sandra Guimarães. “Visitors will confront a number of singular positions through these constellations that speak to the relationship between art and the contemporary condition.”

Several previously announced commissioned projects anchor the exhibition. They include a new “Presence and Production” work by Thomas Hirschhorn, titled What I can learn from you. What you can learn from me. (Critical Workshop); a collaborative installation and discursive event by Tanya Lukin Linklater and Duane Linklater, Determined by the river; and Faces of Picasso: The collection selected by Ryan Gander, the first showing of Remai Modern’s collection of Picasso linocut prints, the most comprehensive in the world.

A selection of featured artists is outlined below, along with the full list of participating artists at the end.

Site-Specific Installations

Field Guide will feature a number of major installations, both acquired and on loan, from renowned international artists who have adapted their works to fully utilize Remai Modern’s architecture, capacity, and location.

Reinforcing the museum’s connection to the South Saskatchewan River is Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s site-specific work from the Untitled series of curtains. The hanging room partitions, geometric cut-outs and porous curtains create a sense of intimacy from which to view the expanse of the river that the museum overlooks. Similarly, Lawrence Weiner’s textual “sculpture,” MANY THINGS LEFT ON THE BANKS OF RIVER INEVITABLY TO BE SWEPT INTO THE FLOW, (2013), references the museum’s riverbank site.

Responding to the scale and proportions of Remai Modern’s atrium space, Haegue Yang will debut a new configuration of Sol LeWitt Upside Down: Four Times Sol LeWitt UpsideDown, Version Point to Point, 2017. It reimagines American artist Sol LeWitt’s open-ended cubes using Yang’s signature Venetian blinds to create a new, immersive environment. A new iteration of Pae White’s neon installation, <L3U~.>C≈K¥◊CH∆RMS‡ (Lucky Charms, 2014) — one of Remai Modern’s recent key acquisitions — has been adapted for the museum’s interior stairwell. The neon installation, conceived of as a form of light therapy to offset Seasonal Affective Disorder, was designed for the museum, using a unique design software coded by the artist herself.

Debut of Key Acquisitions

In the months leading up to Remai Modern’s opening, the curatorial team has been negotiating major acquisitions of works by renowned international and Canadian artists for initial display in Field Guide.   

Among the acquisitions is Stan Douglas’s The Secret Agent (2015), which will make its Canadian debut at Remai Modern. An adaption of the 1907 novel by Joseph Conrad, recounting an anarchist’s failed bomb plot, The Secret Agent is one of the artist’s most ambitious and complex video installations to date and features his characteristic, multilayered, nonlinear style.

Another major acquisition is Ryan Gander’s Fieldwork (2015). The installation is being shown in conjunction with Gander’s selection of Picasso linocuts from Remai Modern’s collection.

Jimmie Durham’s Black bear (2017), another recent acquisition, will also be on display, deepening Remai Modern’s connection with the artist in advance of hosting the upcoming retrospective, Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World, in 2018. Durham has returned to using skulls in his most recent body of work, for their expressive, poetic and political potential.

Other noteworthy acquisitions include Anton Vidokle’s The Communist Revolution Was Caused By The Sun (2015); Geoffrey Farmer’s installation, Journal with Norman Bates (Fountain), 2014; and Rodney Graham’s After Braque: Playing Concertina in My Studio (With Hanging Construction), 2016; to name a few.

Saskatchewan-based Artists

In keeping with its vision of creating a museum of national and international significance, while still having strong local touchpoints, Remai Modern’s curatorial team commissioned several works by artists based in Saskatchewan especially for the inaugural exhibition. These include Eli Bornstein, best known for his Structurist reliefs, and Kara Uzelman, who created a multimedia installation focused on the mythology surrounding the province’s little-known role in the psychedelic movement. Field Guide also features additional works by Saskatchewan artists, chosen from the Mendel Art Gallery and Remai Modern collections.

Field Guide Publications

Field Guide will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, designed by karlssonwilker, featuring essays by the exhibition curators, Gregory Burke and Sandra Guimarães, and writings by Tanya Lukin Linklater and Duane Linklater, Ryan Gander, and Thomas Hirschhorn.

Also accompanying the exhibition is the artist’s book, Picasso and I, by Ryan Gander, featuring his 406 drawings inspired by all Picasso linocuts in the Remai Modern collection.

The full list of artists in Field Guide is below, along with the country of origin for each:

Laurent Aksadjuak  (1935–2002, Canada)

Francis Alÿs (1959, Belgium)

Kenojuak Ashevak  (1927–2013, Canada)

Kader Attia (1970, France)

Irene Avaalaaqiaq Tikaalaaq  (1941, Canada)

John Baldessari (1931, USA)

Rosa Barba (1972, Italy; based in Germany)

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (1965, France) & Tristan Bera (1984, France)

Lori Blondeau (1964, Canada)

Eli Bornstein (1922, USA)

Robert Boyer (1948–2004, Canada)

Neil Campbell (1958, Canada)

Tammi Campbell (1974, Canada)

Emily Carr (1871–1945, Canada)

Robert Christie (1946, Canada)

Abraham Cruzvillegas (1968, Mexico)

George Csató (1910–1981, Hungary)

Ruth Cuthand (1954, Canada)

Stan Douglas (1960, Canada)

Jimmie Durham (1940, USA)

Geoffrey Farmer (1967, Canada)           

Charles Gaines (1944, USA)

Ryan Gander (1976, UK)

General Idea (est. 1967, Canada: members Felix Partz, 1945–1994, Canada;

Jorge Zontal, 1944, Italy–1994, Canada; AA Bronson, 1946, Canada)

Rodney Graham (1949, Canada)

Jack Goldstein (1945–2003, Canada)

Lawren Stewart Harris (1885–1970, Canada)

Thomas Hirschhorn (1957, Switzerland)

Robert Houle (1947, Canada)

Edward John Hughes (1913–2007, Canada)

Pierre Huyghe (1962, France)

Alexander Young Jackson (1882–1974, Canada)

Franz Johnston (1888–1949, Canada)

Ignac Konrad (1894–1969, Hungary)

Gabriel Kuri (1970, Mexico)

Jean Paul Lemieux (1904–1990, Canada)

Duane Linklater (1976, Canada)

Tanya Lukin Linklater (1976, USA)

Ann Lislegaard (1962, Norway)

Arthur Lismer  (1885–1969, Canada)

James Edward Hervey MacDonald (1873–1932, Canada)

John Massey (1950, Canada)

David Brown Milne (1882–1953, Canada)

Paulo Nazareth (1977, Brazil)

William Noah (1943, Canada)

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010, USA)

Daphne Odjig (1919-2016, Canada)

Jessie Oonark (1906 – 1985, Canada)

Gabriel Orozco (1962, Mexico)

Philippe Parreno (1964, Algeria)

William Perehudoff (1918–2013, Canada)

Pablo Picasso (1881, Spain–1973, France)

Edward Poitras (1953, Canada)

R. H. Quaytman (1961, USA)

Walid Raad (1967, Lebanon)

Michael Rakowitz (1973, USA)

Li Ran (1986, China)

Raqs Media Collective (est. 1992, India: founders Jeebesh Bagchi, 1965, India;

Monica Narula, 1969, India; and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, 1968, India)

Allen Sapp (1928–2015, Canada)

Ahlam Shibli (1970, Palestine)

Nancy Spero (1926–2009, USA)

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (1977, Spain)

Hito Steyerl (1966, Germany)

George Tataniq (1910–1991, Canada)

Althea Thauberger (1970, Canada)

Eli Tikeayak  (1933–1996, Canada)

Rosemarie Trockel (1952, Germany)

Luc Tuymans (1958, Belgium)

Kara Uzelman (1978, Canada)

Anton Vidokle (1965, Russia)

Jeff Wall (1946, Canada)

Ian Wallace (1943, Canada)

Lawrence Weiner (1942, USA)

Pae White (1963, USA)

Christopher Williams (1956, USA)

Luke Willis Thompson (1988, New Zealand)

Haegue Yang (1971, South Korea)

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Source: Remai Modern