Power Shifts: Shary Boyle and Rajni Perera on Art and Change-Making

Over two years in the making, this documentary by Howard Brull presents insightful and relevant observations on the life and career of Oscar Cahén. Through this new documentary, Cahén’s work is succinctly presented to a new generation of audiences, along with his pivotal painting, “The Warrior” (1956), one of Cahén’s most remarkable pieces.

Jon S. Dellandrea, author and Chair Emeritus of the Art Canada Institute Board of Directors, discusses his new book, The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case.

In this talk the Saulteaux artist and curator speaks about how, through his art, he has created a renewed vision of the world that includes the restoration of cultural memory, challenges to the government on political issues affecting Indigenous peoples, and the decolonization of the museum and the self.

For the first time in a live interview the artist will reveal how he used the techniques of a modern atelier to create monumental paintings that boldly address North America's legacy of colonialism while referencing, subverting, and critiquing Western art history.

This interview will reveal when and why Audain began buying art and how he became one of Canadian art’s most devoted patrons and instrumental in preserving and promoting our country’s cultural heritage.

This talk will reveal how McNicoll, although deaf from childhood, garnered international recognition for her luminous rural landscapes, intimate scenes of children, and portraits of modern women, before her premature death at 35 years of age—and why her painting is more relevant today than ever.

Throughout Canadian history, conflict has been a catalyst of change and a transformative force in the country’s art history. Celebrate the launch of the Art Canada Institute’s groundbreaking new online art book War Art in Canada: A Critical History by the renowned scholar and curator Laura Brandon. The event will feature some of Canada’s leading war artists. As well, it will include a Q & A between Brandon and Sara Angel, ACI’s Executive Director, who will discuss the impact of conflict on creativity as well as the role that war art plays in shaping the national imagination and identity.

Today many public monuments are controversial, but in the early twentieth century they were objects to behold—none more so than Canada’s Vimy Memorial in France, a destination for over 700,000 visitors each year. This talk will address the iconic structure, its construction, and the role of commemorative statues in art history.

When it comes to folk art in Canada, there’s before Maud Lewis (1901–1970)—and after. Celebrating the release of Maud Lewis: Life & Work by Ray Cronin, the panelists will discuss her legacy and pay tribute to the cheerful works that testify to her indomitable spirit.

Painters Eleven co-founder Kazuo Nakamura (1926–2002) was one of the great Canadian artists of the twentieth century, famed for his muted landscapes and abstract compositions that blended Western and Eastern influences. As a Japanese Canadian whose family had been interned in British Columbia during the Second World War and later forced to relocate to Toronto, Nakamura struggled with his identity and sense of place. In the post-war years, he resumed his art education, and found himself equally inspired by mathematics, science, and philosophy. In this talk, the panelists will discuss Nakamura’s life and his artistic achievements and how they reflect the pivotal diversification of Canadian art in the twentieth century.

Founder and Executive Director Sara Angel talks to CBC News about the launch of the Art Canada Institute on November 28, 2013. Her vision was simple: make Canadian art history accessible to twenty-first century audiences by creating a multi-vocal, bilingual, comprehensive web resource on the country’s visual culture.

Although Agnes Martin (1912–2004) spent the majority of her career in the United States, her Canadian roots were deep, from her childhood in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Vancouver, to her trips back home as a mature artist. This connection is exemplified by Gabriel, her video work that draws on pianist Glenn Gould’s famous recording of the Goldberg Variations. The panelists will also discuss how Martin gained renown in the male-dominated art world of the 1950s and 1960s, and how she became a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, the era’s two dominant movements.

For Suzy Lake (b.1947), life and art have been inextricably linked with activism. Born in Detroit, she became involved with the anti-war and civil rights movements of the late 1960s, and she immigrated to Canada in protest of the Vietnam War. In Montreal, Lake focused on creating socially and politically charged works. Incorporating elements of theatre, performance, and role-play, Lake blended technology and art to create compelling works of extraordinary activist commentary. Today she is recognized as one of the world’s most important photo-based practitioners. In this talk artist Suzy Lake discusses her profound practice and esteemed career with Erin Silver, author of Suzy Lake: Life & Work, and Sara Angel, Founder and Executive Director of the Art Canada Institute.

Few twentieth-century artists were catalysts for the reclamation of a culture. Iljuwas Bill Reid (1920–1998) was among them. Born into a mixed-race family in Victoria, B.C., and denied his mother’s Haida heritage in his youth, Reid would go on to become one of the most significant Northwest Coast artists of our time. Throughout his fifty-year-long career he was prolific as a maker and thinker, creating more than one thousand original works and writing dozens of texts that gave voice to his vision and the cultural issues of his day. He is remembered as a passionate artist and an adamant community activist, mentor, and writer. In this talk Gerald McMaster and Sara Angel will address Reid’s enduring legacy as a complex figure of power, resilience, and strength.

Monkman addresses how the ACI’s publication "Revision and Resistance" is the only book to offer the behind-the-scenes story of "mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)", two genre-defying paintings that have changed the conversation about art history.

“Few artists have been able to accomplish the abstraction of pure emotion through cold, hard stone as Oviloo Tunnillie. In fact viewers may wonder if they are seeing work by an Inuit artist, as Oviloo’s sculpture crosses cultural lines.” Darlene Coward Wight

“A self-taught polymath, Brooker was one of Canada’s first abstract artists. His relentless exploration of new ways of seeing situates him among this country’s most accomplished early modernist painters.” James King

“Emily Carr is one of Canada’s best-known artists. Her life and work reflect a profound commitment to the land and peoples she knew and loved. Her sensitive evocations reveal an artist grappling with the spiritual questions that the Canadian landscape and culture inspired in her.” Lisa Baldissera

“Homer Watson’s landscapes were biographical manifestos and philosophical statements, an opportunity to explore nature’s inner life, power, and meaning and to probe the delicate relationship of respect that he believed human beings should establish with the natural world.” Brian Foss

“Notman’s photographs still resonate as vivid works of art beyond simply documentation, and they serve as a rich starting point for exploring the complexity of nineteenth-century life in Canada.” Sarah Parsons

“The circumstances of Gershon Iskowitz’s early life—the trauma of the Holocaust and the uncertainty of the immediate postwar period, followed by immigration to Canada—provide the context within which we must try to understand and appreciate his work.” Ihor Holubizky

ACI author Brian Foss discusses how Homer Watson, in the nineteenth century, first portrayed the surrounding landscape as specifically Canadian, rather than as a pastiche of European influences.

Chief curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Sarah Milroy discusses how Emily Carr was one of the first artists of national significance to emerge from the West Coast.

ACI author James King discusses how despite Bertram Brooker’s lack of formal art training, he painted in a wide variety of styles, creating cutting-edge modernist works and becoming one of Canada’s first abstract artists.

ACI author Sarah Parsons discusses how William Notman arrived in Canada from Scotland in 1856 and swiftly established himself as Montreal’s most prominent photographer.

“Molly Lamb Bobak’s career as a professional artist began as Canada’s first official woman war artist. She remains best known for the paintings she produced once the hostilities ended in Europe and for the humorous, satirical drawings she included in her wartime diary.” Michelle Gewurtz

Andrew Kear explores the life and work of Prairie artist, William Kurelek, whose meticulously crafted paintings often explore his Roman Catholic religion and Ukrainian-Canadian cultural roots.

“Munn will always be a mystery—and this makes her all the more irresistible.” Georgiana Uhlyarik

“Paterson Ewen was unmistakably original. His work bridged figurative and abstract, fused painting and sculpture to create a whole new medium, and broadened the definition of Canadian landscape, revitalizing national interest in this art.” John G. Hatch

“Houle reconciles and synthesizes contemporary art trends and Indigenous traditions, encouraging a renewed vision of the world that regains the missing caverns of First Nations cultural memory.” Shirley Madill

John G. Hatch discusses the life and work of Canadian artist Paterson Ewen. Best known for his gouged, painted plywood surfaces, Ewen’s work spoke to the psychological challenges he struggled with throughout his life.

Kathleen Munn was a pioneer of modern art in Canada. Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton curator, Canadian Art, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, discusses Munn’s bold use of colour and advanced abstracts.

Shirley Madill discusses the life and work of Sandy Bay First Nation / Kaa-wii-kwe-tawang-kak artist Robert Houle, whose work has opened critical discussion on the political and cultural issues surrounding Indigenous peoples in Canada.

ACI author Andrew Kear explores how in 1959, William Kurelek met Toronto’s art dealer Av Isaacs, who would launch his career.

“When Norval Morrisseau arrived on the Canadian art scene in 1962...few Indigenous people made art that was viewed as contemporary within the narrow framework accepted in mainstream cultural circles.” Carmen Robertson

“William Kurelek was an artist of extremes. As no Canadian artist before him or since, Kurelek attracted, through his at once sentimental and monstrous imagery, the attention of both popular audiences and seasoned critics.” Andrew Kear

“Even as Colville concentrated on creating images drawn from his specific surroundings and experience, he was able to evoke a universal language of myth and metaphor that reverberates throughout our culture.” Ray Cronin

ACI author Ray Cronin discusses how Alex Colville painted some of the most iconic images ever created in this country.

ACI author Michael Parke-Taylor discusses how Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald captured the essence of the Canadian prairie in his art.

“FitzGerald helped to foster the notion of Western Canada as a beautiful and inviting place. The landscape was not only a locale with economic benefits but also one dominated by nature’s glorious majesty of open sky and a sense of freedom.” Michael Parke-Taylor

ACI author Samantha Burton discusses how Helen McNicoll’s impressionist paintings redefined Canadian art.

“McNicoll maintained a strong attachment to the fundamental principles of ‘pure’ Impressionism and pushed the style further than any other Canadian artist.” Samantha Burton

ACI author Joyce Zemans discusses how Jock Macdonald’s innovations in abstraction make him a Canadian art pioneer.

Enamored of his hometown, Curnoe helped spearhead London Regionalism. His brightly coloured compositions and text-based elements celebrate both Canada and his anti-establishment views.

A trailblazer in Canadian art, Macdonald’s spiritual identification with nature and his unique marriage of graphic design and painting led to a singular style of abstraction.

Paraskeva Clark persevered as an artist, despite the difficult conditions of her upbringing, creating profoundly provocative political critiques through simple yet powerful imagery.

ACI author Nancy Campbell discusses how Shuvinai Ashoona’s work reflects dramatic changes in the North and overturns stereotypical notions of Inuit art.

ACI author Judith Rodger discusses how Greg Curnoe’s regionalist approach to his art makes his work essentially Canadian.

ACI author Sarah E.K. Smith discusses how General Idea’s œuvre pushed boundaries and addressed key social issues, including the AIDS crisis.