July Newsletter from TrépanierBaer
On view now at TrépanierBaer is a new work by James Carl. Titled thing’s end (#12 bronze), its shape is derived from a rubber band: a simple and everyday object the artist has revisited through out his practice. Carl introduced the first iteration of his thing’s end series at a retrospective exhibition at the University of Toronto in 2008 where he handmade hundreds of small rubber band look-alikes out of polymer clay. Carl has re-presented the concept in large scale public works such the monumental painted steel sculptures thing’s end (Eau Claire – red) and thing’s end (Eau Claire – yellow), both dated 2020, and located in the lobby of the Eau Claire Tower in Calgary, Alberta.
thing’s end (#12 bronze) is cast in one piece, and is a single continuously curling band with three flexed loops, overlapping as if ready to spring, but poised in a moment of balance. It is a delight to see and experience.
Ron Moppett
Also on view is a new digital print by Ron Moppett titled STUDIO/BLUE (2023). Moppett has made numerous prints over the years, however, STUDIO/BLUE is his first digital print. Featuring the sumptuous palette and fine mark-making characteristic of the artist’s work, STUDIO/BLUE a quintessential summation of Moppett’s interest in colour and form; and a re-presentation of imagery and items of the everyday world, and Moppett’s imagination.
Fall 2023 at TrépanierBaer
Mark your calendars! The Fall 2023 season at TrépanierBaer opens with a two-person exhibition featuring Ron Moppett and John Hall. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with Loch Galleries, and will be followed by a solo exhibition of new works by Sarah Stevenson. And we are participating in the 2023 iteration of Art Toronto. More information about these events is forthcoming.
Travel Advisory
There are so many exhibitions to see in museums and galleries across Canada, the United States and Europe this summer. Below is a list of a few that we have seen and recommend to you.
Gathie Falk: Revelations at Glenbow at the Edison, Calgary, AB.
This exhibition celebrates the work of legendary Canadian artist Gathie Falk and her contribution to art in Canada in the last 50 years. This exhibition is organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. On view until October 15, 2023.
Diane Arbus: Photographs 1956-1971, and Carol Sawyer: The Nathalie Brettschneider Archive at Contemporary Calgary, AB.
Diane Arbus: Photographs 1956-1971 presents the full chronological arc of the work of famed artist. From the early, intimate 35mm format prints to the sharply focused square format she embraced after 1962, these photographs allow us to trace the artist’s evolving vision as part of a changing social landscape. On view until September 17, 2023.
The Natalie Brettschneider Archive is an ongoing series of photographs, texts, music recitals, that together reconstruct the life and work of a genre-blurring historical performance artist. Brettschneider is fictional (created by Carol Sawyer) but her story is laced with references to real people and places. On view until October 29, 2023.
Sandra Meigs: Sublime Rage at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON.
Over the course of the various pandemic lockdowns, Sandra Meigs retreated from her home in to the woods of Algonquin Park and Lake Calabogie. Compelled by this time in nature, she created a series of vibrant and penetrating gouache studies of the landscape that surrounded here. Several of Meigs’ electrifying paintings are blown up and printed on canvas banners suspended from the ceiling, creating a forest of fierce painterly gesture and vibrant colour. On view until November 19, 2023.
Wolfgang Tillmans: To Look Without Fear at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON.
This major retrospective of artist Wolfgang Tillmans features work that ranges from intimate observations to incisive commentary on the shape of our world today. This momentous exhibition also features ecstatic images of nightlife, sensitive portraits, architectural studies, documents of social movements, still lifes, astronomical phenomena and camera-less abstractions.
The exhibition will reveal the full breadth of Tillmans’ creative output to date, with photographs, video projections, sound installations and his ongoing project Truth Study Center on display. The exhibition is organized by The Museum of Modern Art. On view until October 1, 2023.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar: I Want All of the Above to Be the Sun at Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Place Ville Marie, QC.
At the intersection of sculpture, performance and video, the exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the main aspects of the 20 year practice of French interdisciplinary artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar. On view until September 17, 2023.
Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, QC.
In what is the first-ever retrospective of his work, Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob retraces the master carver’s career from the 1970s to the present. Born in 1948 in the Tahltan village of Telegraph Creek on the Stikine River in northwestern British Columbia, and a member of the Wolf Clan, Dempsey Bob is a winner of the 2021 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, and is known throughout Canada and internationally as one of the most accomplished carvers on the Northwest Coast. On view until September 10, 2023.
Kehinde Wiley investigates the iconography of death and sacrifice in Western art, tracing it across religious, mythological, and historical subjects. This exhibition expands on Kehinde Wiley’s 2008 series, Down — a group of large-scale portraits of young Black men inspired by Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521–1522). In An Archaeology of Silence, the deaths of men and women around the world are transformed into a powerful elegy of resistance. On view until October 15, 2023.
This exhibition charts the 50-year career of one of America’s most influential modern artists through more than 150 paintings and drawings. Guston’s story is one of epic change—of artistic styles, from muralism to abstract expressionism to figuration, of degrees of political and social involvement, and of levels of personal confession in his work. Renowned in his time and in ours, Guston’s work continues to resonate, attract, and provoke, raising crucial questions about the relationship of art to beauty and brutality, freedom and doubt, politics and the imagination. On view until August 27, 2023. The exhibition will then travel to the Tate Modern, where it opens on 5 October 5, 2023 and is on view until February 25, 2024.
Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life at the Tate Modern, London, U.K.
Lynne Cohen/Marina Gadonneix – Laboratoires / Observatoires at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
The work of Canadian artist Lynne Cohen (1944-2014) enjoys a worldwide reputation. Her photographs of the interiors of public and semi-public spaces, classrooms and shopping arcades, shooting ranges and municipal halls, have been exhibited all over the world. These images served as models and inspiration for the subsequent generation, particularly that of French photographers, such as Marina Gadonneix (1977), with whom Lynne Cohen corresponded shortly before her death. Taken in sites of scientific research that analyse and predict the effects of natural phenomena, Marina Gadonneix’s near-abstract images depict a reality that has not yet come into being. On view until August 28, 2023.
Image credit:
James Carl
thing’s end (#12 bronze), 2021
cast bronze, enamel paint / AP
11.5″ x 12″ x 12 ”