Retrospective Exhibition Spans Four Decades of Creativity in a Western Arctic Community
Gatineau, Quebec, October 30, 2003 — The Canadian Museum of Civilization is opening today an exhibition that captures the creative spirit of the artists from the Western Canadian Arctic community of Holman.
On loan from the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art offers an outstanding look back at prints and drawings that artists in this small community have produced over four decades. Holman is located on the west coast of Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories. The community is surrounded by a series of bluffs — a landscape that Holman artists often depict in their work.
“We are delighted to host this unique retrospective curated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, which captures the flourishing of art in this small Western Arctic community,” says Dr. Victor Rabinovitch, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. “From its origins in 1961 as an employment-generating arts and crafts project, the Holman Co-operative has built up an international reputation, and its limited-edition prints are sought after worldwide.”
The exhibition demonstrates how the artists’ styles and techniques have developed over the years. Three of the best-known of Holman’s artists — Helen Kalvak, Mark Emerak and Agnes Nanogak Goose — draw on their vast knowledge of traditional culture, including the world of shamanic beliefs and rituals, as inspiration for their graphic images.
Adding another dimension to the exhibition are two pieces from the Canadian Museum of Civilization collection: a sealskin tapestry with inlay of different-coloured sealskin showing a design similar to early Holman stonecuts. There is also a sculpture of a Musk-ox by Patrick Akovak, one of the founding members of the Holman printshop.
Until the early 1980s, Holman artists and printmakers produced mainly stonecuts. More recently, artists/printmakers in Holman have been exploring other printing techniques, including stencil, lithography, etching and woodcuts. A new generation of artists, including Mary K. Okheena, Elsie Klengenberg, Susie Malgokak and Peter Palvik, are presenting perspectives on the rapidly changing North, and vivid details of community life.
Thanks to donations from Holman Co-operative Ltd. and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Winnipeg Art Gallery has one copy of every published print produced by artists in Holman. The Gallery has thus become a research centre for Holman art.
The exhibition also offers visitors a video featuring printmaking demonstrations and interviews with artists, conducted by the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Curator of Inuit Art, Darlene Coward Wight. Accompanying the exhibition is a beautiful bilingual catalogue. It describes the history of the production of arts and crafts in the small Holman collective since its founding in 1961 and presents the artists and their works. The catalogue is on sale in the Museum Boutique for $25.
Special programming will be offered on November 22 and 23 : The Art of Inuit Printmaking will allow participants to create their own masterpiece under the guidance of an expert Inuit printmaker. Also, on January 23 at 12:30 p.m., Maria von Finckenstein, curator of contemporary Inuit art at the CMC, will give a special tour of the exhibition. Coffee, arctic tea and dessert will be served. In English only.
Organized and circulated by the Winnipeg Art Gallery with financial assistance from the Museums Assistance Program Department of Canadian Heritage, Holman: Forty Years of Graphic Art will be presented at the Canadian Museum of Civilization from October 31, 2003 to February 15, 2004.
Media Information:
Chief, Media Relations
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7167
Media Relations Officer
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Tel.: (819) 776-7169
Fax: (819) 776-7187
|
|
