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Ian Willms: We Shall See 2 Sep 2017 – 5 Nov 2017 Ian Willms father died after months of hospitalization and medical interventions due to a motorcycle accident. In {I}We Shall See{/I} Willms documents his father’s traumatic injuries and the details of daily hospital visits.
Brenda Francis Pelkey: A Retrospective 22 Apr 2017 – 9 Jul 2017 The exhibition includes nine bodies of work by the nationally recognized photographic artist Brenda Francis Pelkey, dating from 1988 through 2015. Pelkey lives in Windsor and has made major photographic series in Ontario, Saskatchewan and rural Nova Scotia, where she has resided in the past.
How Do I Look? 11 Feb 2017 – 9 Apr 2017 This selection of artists’ self-portraits from the Mount Saint Vincent University Collection addresses both the experience of being looked at by others, and that of returning the gaze. As a corollary to their engagement with practices of looking and appearing, these self-portraits also tackle the frameworks of race, gender and sexuality.
Kids these days 16 Jan 2016 – 13 Mar 2016 {I}Kids these days{/I} presents video, photography, and graphic works that draw from the fields of anthropology, psychology and sociology, to examine youth and youth cultures in the Canadian context. The artists document young people—their bodies, expressions, and movements—while investigating their tastes, thoughts, clothing styles, methods of communication, and leisure activities. The resulting artworks suggest an underlying desire on the part of the artists to capture the “essence” of youth or at least to affiliate themselves with the coveted values typically associated with this group: freedom, escape, authenticity, expressivity, creativity, and idealism. Artists: Jo-Anne Balcaen, Sarah Febbraro, Kerri Flannigan, Emmanuelle Léonard, Kyla Mallett, Helen Reed, Guillaume Simoneau, Althea Thauberger
“We are continually exposed to the flashbulb of death": The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (1953-1996) 29 Aug 2015 – 8 Nov 2015 Organized and circulated by the University of Toronto Art Centre and Justina M. Barnicke Gallery with the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. The exhibition comprises over 100 photographs taken by the legendary Beat poet and activist Allen Ginsberg, capturing his life, loves, and artistic community, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Peter Orlovsky and others of the Beat generation of writers, poets, and activists.
Here you may see the best portrait that, later, I was able to make of him. Passages to Abstraction. Geneviève Cadieux 21 Mar 2015 – 17 May 2015 This exhibition encompasses 27 years of production by Canadian artist Geneviève Cadieux, who works primarily with photography and its associated techniques.
Terms of Engagement: Averns, feldman-kiss, Stimson 18 Jan 2014 – 9 Mar 2014 The Canadian Forces Artists Program was founded in 2001, as an opportunity for artists to address the complex relationships between culture and conflict. {I}Terms of Engagement{/I} includes works by three “embedded” artists: Dick Averns (posted to the Middle East, 2009), nichola feldman-kiss (posted to Sudan, 2011) and Adrian Stimson (posted to Afghanistan, 2010). All of the artists work in lens-based media (photography and video) and sculpture. Stimson, a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation, incorporates traditional ceremonial materials, razor wire and painting in his installations
August Sander: Objective Romantic 7 Sep 2013 – 20 Oct 2013 August Sander (1876-1964) counts among the great 20th-century photographers. Primarily known for his vast collective portrait of the German people, Sander also made superb photographs of landscapes and architectural subjects.
The Art Bank in the 21st Century 17 Aug 2013 – 10 Nov 2013 Founded in 1972, the Canada Council Art Bank purchases contemporary art and rents it to federal government offices. Among the aims of the Art Bank are the support of Canadian artists through purchases, broadening the audience for contemporary art, and representing the national visual imagination.
Prospect 16: Declan O'Dowd 15 Dec 2012 – 3 Mar 2013 This is the sixteenth of the Prospect exhibitions, which introduce Nova Scotian artists in the early stages of their careers.
Suzy Lake: Political Poetics 25 Aug 2012 – 7 Oct 2012 Acknowledged by Cindy Sherman as a pioneer in feminist performance for the camera, Suzy Lake began to receive critical attention in the 1970s with works such as {I}Choreographed Puppets{/I} 1976.
Ruth Cuthand: Back Talk (works 1983-2009) 14 Jan 2012 – 11 Mar 2012 The exhibition includes more than 30 drawings, paintings, beadworks and video by Saskatchewan Cree artist Ruth Cuthand.
Rosalie Favell: Living Evidence 19 Nov 2011 – 19 Feb 2012 Living Evidence is Rosalie Favell’s first serial photographic self-portrait; it follows her earlier attempts to reclaim a First Nations identity by photographing aboriginal women. Truthful and brave, Living Evidence exhibits the appealing vulnerability that continues to characterize this artist’s photo-based work.
Lisette Model: a Performance in Photography 8 Oct 2011 – 13 Nov 2011 The mid-20th-century photographer Lisette Model (1901-1983) is equally renowned for her shoot-and-run portraits of strangers and her mystification of her own life story. This selection of twenty vintage prints from the National Gallery of Canada will introduce Model’s work to Halifax in the context of the city-wide photographic festival, Photopolis.
Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980 19 Mar 2011 – 8 May 2011 Organized around urban and regional centres of art production, this exhibition captures the exuberant ‘traffic‘ between them during the inaugural phase of conceptual art, one of the most transformative art movements of the late 20th century.
Scott Conarroe: By Rail 19 Jun 2010 – 1 Aug 2010 Conarroe is well known for his social landscapes of familiar places, which evoke romantic pictorial traditions while participating in contemporary photography’s critical discourse.
For Example (Hirsch, MacCallum, Macdonald) 31 Oct 2009 – 13 Dec 2009 For Example (Hirsch, MacCallum, Macdonald) is the fourth and final instalment in a series curated by Micah Lexier specially for the MSVU Art Gallery mezzanine space.
Susan Bozic: The Dating Portfolio 18 Jul 2009 – 4 Oct 2009 Vancouver-based photographer Susan Bozic has a background in photography and cinema. Posing in elaborately staged photographs, she satirizes the fantasy of “true romance” by casting herself in the ingenue role and a store window mannequin as the leading man.
Alter Ego: Anatomical Studies of a Natal Male by R.S. Pennee 4 Jul 2009 – 18 Oct 2009 For centuries artists have made studies of body parts—hands, feet, faces—that were later incorporated into larger works. In a nod to the Old Masters, the video-derived prints in Alter Ego are processed to resemble drawings.
For Example (Butler, Clark Espinal, Gerken) 14 Feb 2009 – 5 Apr 2009 For Example (Butler, Clark Espinal, Gerken) is the third instalment in a series curated by Micah Lexier specially for the MSVU Art Gallery mezzanine space. In keeping with the idea of the sample, each installation includes works by three artists in three separate, identical vitrines, highlighting the potential for individuality within a context of uniformity.
ANTHEM: Perspectives on Home and Native Land 25 Aug 2008 – 5 Oct 2008 In this exhibition the following artists present their responses to forms of Canadian identity, nationhood and nationalism: KC Adams, Fastwurms, Cynthia Girard, Dana Inkster, Alisdair MacRae, Shirley Moorhouse and Eric Robertson.
Donigan Cumming: Ex Votos 21 Jun 2008 – 10 Aug 2008 The internationally renowned, Montreal-based artist Donigan Cumming is known for his staged portraits of the aging, ill and socially assisted poor, in the form of photographs, videos and photographic collages.
Chemistry 29 Mar 2008 – 25 May 2008 Local artists Dan O’Neill and George Steeves recently made substantial donations to the University Collection. To showcase the new acquisitions while exploring affinities between the respective bodies of work, Chemistry presents fine photographic prints by Steeves, hand-pulled lithographs by O’Neill, and figurative sculpture lent by the Newfoundland ceramicist Reed Weir.
For Example (Andrews, Goldman, Koenig) 5 Jan 2008 – 23 Mar 2008 In the second instalment of the For Example series, single works by three artists reveal stages of their respective production processes. Inspired by the idea of “The Thing Before The Thing”, the exhibition consists of preliminary drawings, animation cells, and contact sheets.
George Steeves 28 Feb 2007 – 10 Apr 2007 In addition to his mastery of historical techniques and his exquisite printing, the Haligonian photographer George Steeves is known for an iconography “shot through with grotesque sexuality, reverence for emotional pain, and chilly black humour.”
Roots & Shoots 15 Jul 2006 – 1 Oct 2006 This exhibition draws out tendencies that circulate among the artists of HRM and its environs, suggesting patterns of artistic affiliation as well as rifts.
Through Alberta Eyes The Photographs of Orest Semchishen 25 May 2006 – 30 Jul 2006 Orest Semchishen was born in Mundare, Alberta, the grandson of Ukranian immigrants. As a retired radiologist, he photographed disappearing Albertan localities such as Pendryl, Entrance and Plamondon.
Paperworks 8 Apr 2006 – 30 Jul 2006 In 2004, Eye Level Gallery commissioned Paperwork30– a limited edition of 25 boxed sets, each containing one original work by each of 20 Halifax-affiliated artists—to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. MSVU acquired one set for its permanent collection.
This Land is Mime Land: Shelley Niro 23 Oct 2005 – 11 Dec 2005 Shelley Niro is a member of the Turtle clan of the Mohawk Nation, and a media artist renowned for her provocative humour. Each work in this exhibition is composed of three photographs mounted in an overmat perforated in a pattern reminiscent of traditional beadwork.
Prospect 10: Harbour Photographs by Scott Conarroe 3 Sep 2005 – 16 Oct 2005 Harbour 2005 is a series of colour photographs depicting mixed-use sites along the Halifax waterfront. Printed from large-format negatives, Conarroe’s consistently high vantage point, distorted colour and luminous skies transform these nondescript scenes, which could never appear in precisely this fashion to the naked eye.
Free Sample 12 Mar 2005 – 24 Apr 2005 So who doesn’t like free samples? And what’s that got to do with art? Kelly Mark’s new exhibition, Free Sample, can help you figure that out.
The Found and Familiar Snapshots in Contemporary Canadian Art 10 Apr 2004 – 5 Jun 2004 In the midst of a technological revolution, this exhibition acknowledges the power of the snapshot as well as its materiality, and marks a shift in our relationship to this most personal of objects.
Above Ground: Mining Stories 6 Mar 2004 – 4 Apr 2004 Art-and-industry historian Rosemary Donegan presents life on Canada’s industrialized frontiers by means of community-based commercial photography.
Illuminations: Homemade 22 Oct 2003 – 30 Nov 2003 Haligonian Tonia Di Risio has been invited to contribute a Duratrans image derived from her existing series, Homemade.
Blind Stairs 15 Mar 2003 – 4 May 2003 Including works dating from the early 1980s to the present, each artist in this exhibition incorporates traces of other persons (who may or may not be artists) in her production, thereby avoiding the tendency of solo retrospectives to separate artistic authorship from historical context.
Optical Illusions 25 Jan 2003 – 8 Mar 2003 Assembled by Curatorial Assistant Renato Vitic, the art in this exhibition points to the instability of memory by associating it with the optical illusion.
Shifting Sites 31 Aug 2002 – 13 Oct 2002 Challenging the classical role of the camera as a neutral recorder of reality, nine up-and-coming Canadian photographers use two subjects – the body and the land – to explore issues of identity, place, and memory.
In Another Place, Part I Lily Markiewicz: Promise II 6 Jul 2002 – 18 Aug 2002 This work incorporates photographs on light-sensitive paper, recorded sound, and video installed in a dimly lit space ...with the unflinching eye of the goldfish observing our every movement.
Brenda Pelkey: Haunts 20 Oct 2001 – 21 Nov 2001 The exhibition is composed of large-format Ilfochrome prints, some grouped in panoramic assemblages, others incorporating cryptic text fragments that hint at tragedy.
Indian Princesses & Cowgirls Stereotypes from the Frontier 9 Sep 2000 – 15 Oct 2000 In this exhibition, popular images of specific female types from the "Wild West" reveal the structures of domination through which the West was won.
taboos, titillations & thrills 18 Mar 2000 – 25 Jun 2000 Together, by means of direct address and selective disclosure, these works reconfigured the gallery as a test site in the quest for intimacy.
Jim Shirley Returns The Art of James R. Shirley 19 Feb 2000 – 16 Apr 2000 This retrospective, Shirley’s first major exhibition since his MSVU solo in 1977, includes approximately 50 monotypes and works in other media dating from the Nova Scotia years to the present.
Imagining [an]Other Canada Reconsidering images of nationalism in the Canadian landscape 8 Jan 2000 – 13 Feb 2000 This exhibition offers a contemporary critique of the proprietary nationalisms supported by 19th-century and Group of Seven landscape painting.
From the Background to the Foreground The Photo Backdrop & Cultural Expression 16 Oct 1999 – 21 Nov 1999 Besides generating discussion around photographic portraiture, the vast exhibition, which was co-hosted by Dalhousie Art Gallery, explored relationships among the fields of art, photography, ethnography and vernacular representations.
Skinjobs 13 Aug 1999 – 3 Oct 1999 Skinjobs included works in various media by Canadian artists who confront societal norms by means of grotesque, uncanny and monstrous distortions.
Camera Obscured Photographic Documentation & the Public Museum 15 May 1999 – 18 Jul 1999 This exhibition is composed of 89 "behind-the-scenes" photographs selected from the archives of prominent museums, including the Louvre, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Fixations 6 Mar 1999 – 11 Apr 1999 Curatorial Assistant Robert Zingone curated this pairing of a video by David Askevold and a photo-text installation by Ellen Moffat.
The Convent Series 13 Feb 1999 – 21 Mar 1999 Clara Gutsche's austerely beautiful photographs document an aspect of Québec society that is rapidly disappearing: its communities of religious women.
Style Council 15 Jan 1999 – 7 Feb 1999 The term "style" has been displaced in the art lexicon by phrases such as "signifying practice." Yet distinctiveness, elegance, even perversity of expression continue to enjoy a lively currency in the art world.
Winter Gardens 9 Jan 1999 – 21 Feb 1999 The exhibition presented 30 of the colour photographs resulting from Charlotte Lindgren's Winter 1995-96 train journey, during which she photographed private and public gardens at each stop.
1,000,000 Grapes 24 Oct 1998 – 22 Nov 1998 Ferguson's work is composed of 100 square, stretched canvases stencilled in black with an irregular, dot-like motif (or 10,000 "grapes"), installed in a closely spaced grid.
Notification 1 24 Oct 1998 – 13 Dec 1998 Ninety-six colour photographs of the backs of envelopes used for the mailing of death notices in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Language & Land Use, Newfoundland 1994 13 Sep 1998 – 11 Oct 1998 A series of 13 photo-assemblages combining text, photographs and natural objects by the St. John’s-based artist focuses on signs in public recreational areas in Newfoundland.
Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Pictures 10 Jan 1998 – 8 Mar 1998 This exhibition comprised hand-rendered images derived from photographs, whose cumulative effect of authenticity may be traced to the camera's legacy of truth-telling and the autographic mark associated with painting.
Digital Garden 24 May 1997 – 27 Jul 1997 An installation composed of a video projection and laser-printed photographs depicting Eastern Canadian butterflies and the plant species on which they depend.
Extended Objects 29 Mar 1997 – 2 Jun 1997 this exhibition staged the residue of artists' performances — once-mobile objects that reveal themselves in the mind of the beholder as other than what they are known empirically to be.
My Friend Told Me That I Had Carried Too Many Stones 18 Jan 1997 – 16 Mar 1997 Suzy Lake's small constructions in plaster and photo-collage incorporated photographs of herself performing apparently mundane gestures.
Action/Performance & the Photograph 11 Jan 1997 – 9 Feb 1997 The images resulting of conceptual and body art events of the 1960s and 1970s were often orchestrated by artists specifically for the camera. Some became documents; others, art objects.
Comme les jours précédents, les géographies du transitoire 21 Sep 1996 – 3 Nov 1996 By accentuating MSVU Art Gallery's resemblance to a port shed, this installation by sisters Suzanne and Claire Paquet prompted viewers to experience it as scene rather than place.
Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge Non Sera Nada Por Ninguen 29 May 1996 – 7 Sep 1996 Using actors, props and painted sets, the staged photography by these two artists projects labour issues through the codes of commercial culture.
Living Evidence 15 Oct 1994 – 4 Dec 1994 Rosalie Favell's project, which consists of a suite of inscribed and altered Polaroid enlargements, revises the family snapshot genre to accommodate a fractured tale of troubled love between herself and another indigenous woman.