Remai Modern announces major exhibition for 2019
Saskatoon, Canada — In early 2019, Remai Modern is honoured to host Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental, which opened July 11 at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).
The exhibition surveys Belmore’s more than 30-year career and includes sculptures, installations, photographs, and performance-based works, as well as new works. Belmore’s art responds to pressing issues, including water and land rights, women’s lives and dignity, violence against Indigenous people by the state and police, and the role of the artist in contemporary life.
“Rebecca Belmore is an extremely influential performance artist, but her work encompasses so much more. For decades her work has addressed increasingly urgent topics such as freedom, Indigenous rights and environmentalism,” said Gregory Burke, Remai Modern’s Executive Director & CEO. “We are delighted to share this brilliant and timely show with our audience.”
Remai Modern is pleased to have lent a significant work from its collection to the AGO exhibition, the large-scale textile installation blood on the snow (2002).
“Beautifully delineating the line between poetics and politics, Facing the Monumental highlights the artist’s lifelong commitment to natural materials, and to the body,” said Wanda Nanibush, the AGO’s Curator of Indigenous Art. “Belmore’s images are deeply felt and leave an indelible mark on the viewer. In capturing the universal truths of pain, beauty, empathy, hope and transformation, her work positions the viewer as a witness, and encourages us all to face what is monumental.”
Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental, curated by Nanibush, is on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario through Oct. 21, 2018. The exhibition opens at Remai Modern on February 1, 2019. Remai Modern’s presentation of the exhibition is organized by Rose Bouthillier, Curator (Exhibitions). Facing the Monumental is accompanied by a comprehensive monograph published by the AGO and Goose Lane Editions.
Four of Belmore’s photo-based works from Remai Modern’s collection are currently on view as part of the exhibition echoes, organized by Sandra Fraser, Curator (Collections), in the museum’s Collection Gallery.
About Rebecca Belmore
A member of Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), Rebecca Belmore is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist currently residing in Toronto. Rooted in the political and social realities of Indigenous communities, Belmore’s works make evocative connections among bodies, land and language.
Her exhibitions: include Biinjiya’iing Onji (From Inside), documenta 14 (2017); KWE: The Work of Rebecca Belmore, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (2011); Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, Vancouver Art Gallery (2008); and Fountain, Venice Biennale (2005). Performances include: Facing the Monumental (2012); Victorious (2011); X (2010); Vigil (2002); Wild (2001), and Creation or Death We Will Win (1991). Belmore’s sculptures and installations include Wave Sound, Parks Canada, 2017; Trace, Canadian Museum for Human Rights (2014), and Ayum-ee-aawach Oomama-mowan: Speaking to Their Mother, (performances 1991, 1992, 1996 and 2008).
Belmore received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2013, the Hnatyshyn Visual Arts Award in 2009, the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA Award in 2004, and Honourary Doctorates from Emily Carr (2017) and OCADU (2005). Also in 2005, she was Canada’s official representative at the Venice Biennale. In 2016, Rebecca was awarded the prestigious Gershon Iskowitz Prize by the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario.
About Remai Modern
Remai Modern is a new museum of modern and contemporary art in Saskatoon. It aims to be a vibrant, imaginative and prescient museum committed to affirming the powerful role that art and artists play in questioning, interpreting and defining the modern era. Remai Modern is home to the world’s foremost collection of Picasso linocut prints, and aspires to be a leading centre for contemporary Indigenous art programming.
For additional information contact:
Stephanie McKay, Communications Manager 306.975.2242
smckay@remaimodern.org
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Remai Modern is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Traditional Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respects to First Nations and Métis ancestors and reaffirm our relationship with one another.
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