Alt.shift.control: Musings on Digital Identity
Steve Loft & Shirley Madill
Catalogue of an exhibition produced in conjunction with the Native
Indian/Inuit Photographers' Association and featuring digital
photography by three Native artists. Larry McNeil (Idaho)
has exhibited at the Ansel Adams Center for Photography and the
Institute of American Indian Arts Museum. Lita Fontaine (Manitoba)
has exhibited at Neutral Ground and Tribe Gallery. Rosalie Favell
(New Mexico/Toronto) has exhibited at the University of New
Mexico's Sommers Gallery and the Canadian Museum of
Civilization).
Art Gallery of Hamilton (2000) 26 pp 6 col. ill. 8 x 7 in.
0919153674 $8.00 Can./U.S.
Anthem: Perspectives on Home and Native Land
Ryan Rice
Artists from across Canada identify varying forms of nationhood that either serve or detract from the concept of a national accord. Each artist explores the discourse to include not only colonial histories, but also distinctive and multicultural liberties such as treaties, blood, languages, sexual orientation, faith, and oral traditions. The dynamic range of art works exhibited expose and accept the diverse forms of nationalism that exist across the country. In English and French.
Carelton University Art Gallery (02/2008) 64 pp col. ill. 11 x 9 in hardcover 978-0-7709-0519-4 $25.00 Can./U.S
Mary Anne Barkhouse: Boreal Baroque
Jeff Thomas & Linda Jansma
Mary Anne Barkhouse belongs to the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First
Nation. Her sculptural work examines environmental concerns and
indigenous culture through the use of animal imagery. Wolves,
ravens, moose and beaver are juxtaposed against a diversity of
background situations. In Boreal Baroque, the work's
setting is inspired by the palatial grounds at Versailles where
the wild is juxtaposed with the wildly opulent.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (06/2007) 64 pp 16 col. ill. 9 x 7
in softcover 978-0-921500-85-8 $20.00 Can./U.S.
Mary Anne Barkhouse: The Reines of Chaos / Les Rênes du chaos
Emily Falvey
Mary Anne Barkhouse is a First Nation artist and descendent of a long line of internationally recognized artists that includes Ellen Neel and Mungo Martin. This publication documents an ambitious new body of muti-media work intent on exploring the use of apocalyptic metaphors in warfare and cultural subjugation. In English and French.
The Ottawa Art Gallery (01/2009) 64 pp col. ill. 6 x 5 in softcover 978-1-894906-34-0 $20.00 Can. $21.95 U.S.
Carl Beam: The Poetics of Being
Edited by Greg A. Hill Contributors: Greg A. Hill, Gerald McMaster, Virginia Eichhorn, Alan Corbiere, Crystal Migwans and Ann Beam
This major retrospective publication confirms Carl Beam (1943 - 2005) as one of Canada's most important artists. Beam broke new ground throughout his career, notably as the first artist of Native Ancestry (Ojibwe), to have his work purchased by the National Gallery of Canada as Contemporary Art. Working in various mediums - photography, oil, acrylic, text on canvas, stone, cement, wood, ceramics and found objects - Beam explored the tensions between Western and Aboriginal relations. Featuring more than 50 of Beam’s most remarkable works from his early career in the 1970s to the end of his production in the early 2000s, this generously illustrated monograph illuminates the artist’s investigations into the metaphysical aspects of Western and Indigenous culture, while powerfully illustrating the wide-ranging physicality of his work.
National Gallery of Canada (October 2010) 140 pp 50 col. ill. 11 x 9 in softcover 978-0-88884-876-5 $50.00 Can. $56.95 U.S.
Carl Beam: The Whale of Our Being
Joan Murray
Carl Beam gained international recognition in two watershed
exhibitions, the National Gallery's Land, Spirit, Power and
the Canadian Museum of Civilization's Indigena. His
practice is based on collage and photographic imagery and is
imbued with Native issues of land and repatriation. The Whale of
Our Being, a multitude of paintings and prints produced since
1996, makes the whale a metaphor for looking at the world. "Under
the umbrella of the whale are commodification and dollars and
killing, all things possible. The Whale of Our Being includes
whatever has happened to the whale, which in some kind of way
happens to everything else."
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (2002) 60 pp 13 col.ill. 8x8 in.
softcover 0-9-21500-64-5 $10.00 Can./U.S.
Rebecca Belmore: Fountain
Jessica Bradley & Jolene Rickard
The art of Rebecca Belmore - whether installation, video or
photograph - is based in performance, a medium she sees as shared
by old traditions and modern expression, at once indigenous and
international. The sense of loss is always explicit and specific:
lost battles, lost culture and lost language. Yet despite the
difficult subject matter, her work is always infused with a sense
of play and wonder. Fountain, a performance-based video
installation, has been conceived specifically for the Biennale.
The time is both today's industrialized landscape and another time
of creation, myth and prophecy. As befits current events, we do
not know whether this is a metaphor for creation or an apocalyptic
vision. Rebecca Belmore is an Anishinabekwe artist working out of
Vancouver. Official publication of Canada's representation at the 2005 Venice
Biennale.
Kamloops Art Gallery (2005) 108 pp 28 ill (16 col.) 10 x 7 in
softcover 0-88865-634-3 $20.00 Can./U.S.
Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years
Edited by Sherry Farrell Racette.
Contributors : Anthony Kiendl, Candice Hopkins, Steve Loft, Lee-Ann Martin, Jenny Western, Richard William Hill,
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair,Victor Masayesva Jr,
Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Megan Tamati-Quenelle, David Garneau, Edward Poitras, Jaimie Isaac and Loretta Todd
Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years documents a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art with artists from Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South America. Through a myriad of histories, trajectories, tensions, collisions, and self-images, 34 artists imagine the future within the context of present experiences and past histories. By radically reconsidering encounter narratives between native and non-native people, Indigenous prophecies, possible utopias and apocalypses, these artists propose intriguing possibilities for the next 500 years. More than an exhibition catalogue, the writings gathered here provide a thorough, expansive and diversified exploration of indigenous culture. Fourteen contributors present essays that map distinct sub-themes related to the imagined future for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Profusely illustrated with dozens of colour plates, fold-outs and visual surprises, the volume also includes an extensive bibliography and complete artist biographies. Artists : KC Adams, Maria Thereza Alves, Shuvinai Ashoona, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Michael Belmore, Rebecca Belmore, Colleen Cutschall, Wally Dion, Jimmie Durham, Rosalie Favell, Jeffrey Gibson, Brett Graham, Faye HeavyShield, Marja Helander, Jonathan Jones, Brian Jungen, James Luna, Kavavaow Mannomee, Tracey Moffatt, Kent Monkman, Reuben Paterson, Archer Pechawis, Edward Poitras, Postcommodity, Pudlo Pudlat, Lisa Reihana, Paul-Anders Simma, Doug Smarch Jr., Skawennati, Christian Thompson, Marie Watt, Linus Woods, and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun.
Plug In Editions (11/2011) 224 pp 100 col. ill. 10.5 x 10 in hardcover (with dustjacket) 978-0-921381-36-5 $75.00 Can. $79.00 U.S. (60 €)
Lita Fontaine: Without Reservation
Catherine Mattes
The Dakota/Ojibwa artist's montages refer to the effects of
colonization, such as racial stereotypes, residential schools and
government treaties. Other motifs include family photographs,
beadwork and the drum. As a tribal feminist she resists the social
images of Aboriginal women.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (2001) 26 pp 12 ill (3 col.) 8.5 x 8.5 in
0-8-89152-11-X $11.00 Can./U.S
Tanya Harnett: Persona grata
David Garneau
Tanya Harnett’s new series of photographic works explore the many and diverse layers of her being through self-portraiture. Harnett reflects on her First Nations heritage and how it has been culturally defined and redefined through the parameters of a westernized education. The complexity of this history is subtly but relentlessly pursued through the lens of the camera.
Southern Alberta Art Gallery (06/2008) 58 pp 19 col. ill. 9 x 6 in softcover 978-1-894699-41-9 $20.00 Can. $22.95 U.S.
Faye HeavyShield: Blood
Paul Chaat Smith
Faye HeavyShield was born on Alberta's Stand Off Reserve and is a
member of the Blood nation. Her minimalist installations are
powerful fusions of her Christian and Native backgrounds. After a
lengthy hiatus HeavyShield presents a powerful new work, Blood, an evocation of the personal, political and
historical realities of the First Nations' experience. Paul Chaat
Smith is associate curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
the American Indian and author of Like a Hurricane: The Indian
Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (New Press). His essay
intertwines thoughts on the work of Faye HeavyShield and on the
opening of National Museum of the American Indian in Washington
DC.
Southern Alberta Art Gallery (10/2005) 48 pp 14 ill. (6 col.) 9 x
6 in softcover 1-894699-30-0 $15.00 Can./U.S.
Robert Houle: Indians from A to Z
Dr. Jennifer S.H. Brown et al
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (1990) 50 pp 25 col. ill. 24 x 17 cm
0-8-89151-56-3 $20.95 Can./U.S.
Robert Houle: Sovereignty over Subjectivity
Shirley Madrill, Peggy Gale et al
The First Nations painter and installation artist investigates
cultural issues in Canadian history with passion, humour and
honesty. Four essays by Native and non-Native, Canadian and
non-Canadian writers elucidate three recent works.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (1999) 56 pp 16 col. ill. 28 x 22 cm
softcover softcover 0889151903 $19.95 Can./U.S.
Robert Houle: Troubling Abstraction
Carol Podedworny, Mark A. Cheetham, Gerald McMaster & W.
Jackson Rushing III
Robert Houle has been a visionary artist since the beginning of
his career. "Native artists," he wrote in 1982, "are committed to
involvement in the polemics of modern art. Meaning derives from
living in the twentieth century, where painting ranges from
realism to abstraction and sculpture varies from shamanism to
assemblage." Employing the traditions of modernist painting,
particularly as practiced by Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman,
Houle has tenaciously insisted on reciprocity among the aesthetic
and cultural specificities with which he engages. After years of
breathtaking solo exhibitions, he returns here to his first
stylistic impulse: abstraction and the parfleche figure. This
important publication, with three essays and an artist's
statement, documents a unique and vital side to Houle's innovative
artistic practice.
McMaster Museum of Art / The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
(11/2007) 105 pp 36 ill. (24 col.) 7 x 5 in softcover 978-0-9783585-2-5 $20.00 Can./U.S.
Robert Houle's Palisade
Michael Bell
Houle's visual arts practice applies formalist demands to activist
initiatives to review the history of the interactions of the North
American Indian and the colonizers. The eight large vertical
canvases that make up Palisade represent the eight forts
captured by Pontiac's Confederacy in 1763. Through the addition of
digital graphic collages and historical documentation, Houle
powerfully relates the colonial army's retaliation to these
defeats: the systematic introduction of plagues, especially
smallpox. Dyck's essay provides an interpretation of the work and
its historical context. Robert Houle, a Manitoba native, has
exhibited widely, notably at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian
Art and The Art Gallery of Ontario.
Carleton University Art Gallery (2001) 42 pp 12 col. ill 8 x 9
in. 0-770904-53-X softcover $20.00 $10.00 Can./U.S.
Kanata: Robert Houle's Histories
Michael Bell
The book documents a native artist's response to the icon of
Canadian History: Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe in
the National Gallery of Canada, and contains an extensive
interview with the artist.
Carleton University Art Gallery (1993) 27 pp ill. hardcover $20.00 $10.00 Can./U.S.
Mary Longman: Traces
Gerald McMaster, Mary Longman
Attesting to the role played by memory in aboriginal culture,
Longman's sculptural work connects
family, traditiona and community.
Kamloops Art Gallery (1996) 32 pp ill 11x7 in 1-895497-21-3 $12.95 Can./U.S.
Gwen MacGregor: Fold It Up and Put It Away: Fernie's Curse
Andrew Forster
A specific historical event, the story of a tribal curse on the artist's hometown, is revived in an anecdotal rather than archeological way. Through myth, printed records, film and oral history, McGregor reveals the story of the creation of the curse by members of the Tobacco Plains band and its ultimate ceremonial lifting in 1964. Personal memory is woven into the social and political aspects of the event.
Southern Alberta Art Gallery (1999) 82 pp 45 ill. (28 col.) 8.5x5 in. 0-921613-88-1 $12.00 Can./U.S.
Nadia Myre: Encounters
Sandra Dyck, Amanda Jane Graham, Édith-Anne Pageot & Colette Tougas
Nadia Myre is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of language, culture and memory and who sources the culture of her Algonquin ancestors as a way of confronting contemporary realities. In concert with this investigation is a keen interest in creating works which expand over time and foster participatory involvement. Myre attracted international attention when, in 2000-2002, she beaded over all 56 pages of the annotated Indian Act of Canada with the help of over 200 participants. In 2005, she launched The Scar Project, an ongoing ‘open lab’ where viewers participate by sewing their scars - real or symbolic - onto stretched canvases and writing their ‘scar stories’ on paper. This monograph provides a first comprehensive look at the Montreal-based artist's remarkable career. Nadia Myre has participated in numerous high-profile exhibitions throughout Canada and the United States: Hide: Skins as Material and Metaphor (Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe), It Is What It Is: Recent Acquisitions of New Canadian Art (National Gallery of Canada), and Vantage Point: The Contemporary Native Art Collection (Museum of the American Indian, Washington). Published with Éditions Art Mûr. In English and French.
Carleton University Art Gallery (04/2011) 96 pp 30 col. ill. 10.5 x 9.5 in softcover 978-2-92324-304-7 $45.00 Can. $50.00 U.S. (36 euros)
Glenna Matoush: Requicken
Ryan Rice & John Grande
Ojibway artist Glenna Matoush was trained as a printmaker but now works primarily as a painter. Her expressionistic style moves fluidly between the figurative and the abstract and her work is informed directly by nature through the integration of birch bark, leaves, earth and stones into her work. Matoush addresses contemporary social and political Aboriginal issues, including the environmental destruction she has witnessed in Cree territory in Northern Quebec, and the despair caused by AIDS and the reclamation of culture. This first monograph on the work of Glenna Matoush contains essays by Ryan Rice, Aboriginal curator in residence at the gallery, and by well-known arts writer John Grande.
Carleton University Art Gallery (09/2006) 40 pp 18 col. ill. 9 x 7.5 softcover 0-7709-0210-2 $20.00 Can./U.S.
David Neel: Living Traditions
David Neel & Andrew Hunter
Working as both photographer and mask carver, Kwaglutl artist Neel
expresses the realities of the contemporary world with power and
feeling.
Kamloops Art Gallery (1998) 16 pp 9 x 9 in 90 col. ill. 1895497353 $15.00 Can./U.S.
Marianne Nicolson: The Return of Abundance
Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Lisa Baldissera
Marianne Nicolson's major painting works and sculptural installations embody current cultural narratives while incorporating traditional First Nations formats. The artist comments, "Each of the works in this exhibition considers the temporal relationship of contemporary Kwakwaka'wakw experience to our historical experience. My works examine the complexities of cultural change and adaptation on both the personal and communal level." Nicolson's work has been exhibited at National Museum of the American Indian and International Museum of Film and Photography.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (02/2008) 38 pp 8 col. ill. 10 x 8 in softcover 978-0-88885-191-8 $14.95 Can./U.S
Shelley Niro: Almost Fallen
Ivan Jurakic and Steve Loft
This new photo series draws upon historical parallels between Native identity and the Canadian landscape. Niro appropriates media constructed stereotypes of the 'Indian' to question our assumptions and expectations. She uses her artmaking as a means of communicating dignity, humanity and humour. Shelley Niro is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve. Published in collaboration with Urban Shaman Gallery.
Cambridge Galleries (06/2008) 32 pp 13 col. ill. 9 x 7 in softcover 978-1-897001-30-1 $10.00 Can. $12.00 U.S.
Ron Noganosh: It Takes Time
Tom Hill & Lucy R. Lippard
Noganosh's found objects, sculptures and installations speak of
the difficult and manifold issues faced by contemporary native
communities: environment, natural resources, territory, culture,
language, poverty and self-governance. Central to his work is the
knowledge that these concerns are shared by communities in other
countries and cultures. While maintaining that humour has been a
mainstay of his production, Hill describes Noganosh's twenty year
practice as "increasingly morose"; a constant articulation that
death is an integral aspect of everyday life of a First Nations
person. American cultural critic Lippard writes about the unique
contribution Noganosh and other Native artists have made to the
genre of found objects and assemblages, bringing a particular
meaning and memory to things that have been used and discarded.
In
English and French.
The Ottawa Art Gallery (2001) 80 pp
21 ill. (14 col.) 9x6 in hardcover 1-895108-65-9 $25.00 Can./U.S.
Daphne Odjig
Bonnie Devine, Duke Redbird & Robert Houle
The discovery, in the 1950s, of the ancient iconography of the
Algonkian people was a lightning rod for the collective Aboriginal
conscience in Canada. When Daphne Odjig and Norval Morrisseau
began to produce paintings in the 1960s depicting the Algonkian
legends they were heralded as the heirs of that ancient lineage.
As Morrisseau pursued his characteristic iconic style, Odjig
developed a varied and experimental graphic and narrative
practice. Comparisons have been drawn between her work and cubism,
surrealism and abstract-expressionism. Yet, while her aesthetic
investigations place her outside any one stylistic genre, her
themes and imagery remain distinctly Aboriginal. The drawings and
paintings presented here represent forty-four years of Daphne
Odjig's artistic production and include examples of her legend
paintings, history murals, erotica, abstractions and landscapes.
National Gallery of Canada (2007) 144 pp col. ill. 11 x 8 in
softcover 978-0-88884-840-6 $25.00 Can./U.S.
Daphne Odjig: Four Decades of Prints
Morgan Wood & Jann LM Bailey
This outstanding publication documents just one aspect of a
multi-faceted career spanning forty years. Essays and numerous
colour prints allow us to celebrate aboriginal cultural heritage
through the eyes of one of Canada's most remarkable artists. Wood
explores Odjig's life and work and her significance in the
promotion of First Nations art and artists in Canada. Bailey
recounts the development of the gallery's collection of Odjig's
prints, the largest of any institution in the country.
Sylistically, Odjig has taken traditional Northwest Coast Native
art and transformed it into something new and personal. Kamloops Art Gallery (2005) 64 pp 24 ill. (col.) 10 x 9 in hardcover 1-895497-62-0 $34.99 Can./U.S.
Oh So Iroquois
Ryan Rice et al
Publication of a group exhibition featuring the work of two dozen artists who belong to the Iroquois Confederacy, an historical alliance of many nations scattered over two countries and countless urban centres. Essayists explore the dynamism of both traditional and contemporary Iroquoian creative processes, discussing work that is deeply rooted in a cultural system of values and æsthetic qualities that permeate contemporary social, political, spiritual, and economic life. Together, as members of the Confederacy, these artists affirm and examine this collective art history through symbolism, narrative, colour, and contemporary and traditional media. By presenting a broad range of art situated in relation to an Iroquois world-view, the project aims to challenge the long-standing pan-Indian classification of Native North American art. Participating artists include Shelley Niro, Greg Staats and Jeff Thomas. In English, French and Mohawk.
The Ottawa Art Gallery (09/2008) 140 pp 32 col. ill. 8 x 10 in hardcover 978-1-894906-29-6 $30.00 Can. $34.95 U.S.
Overstepped Boundaries: Powerful Statements by Aboriginal
Artists in the Permanent Collection
Ayla Joe, Erika Lakes & Julienne Ignace
An exploration of the gallery's collection of traditional and
contemporary works of art by Aboriginal artists. The three young
Aboriginal women who curated the exhibition discuss art history
and issues of tradition, identity, and innovation, and learn the
process of creating an exhibition for a public gallery.
Kamloops Art Gallery (04/2007) 32 pp col. ill. 7 x 5 in softcover
978-189549768-7 $9.99 Can./U.S.
Re tsúwets re Secwepemc: The Things We Do
Marianne Ignace, Ron Ignace & Gerald
Etienne
A discussion of the way in which contemporary Secwepemc (Shuswap)
people live their cultural traditions as part of an ancient and
continuing way of life, as well as a glimpse at their own history
of photography. Produced in conjunction with the Secwepemc
Cultural Education Society.
Kamloops Art Gallery (1999) 21 pp 8 x 10 in 13 ill. (no
ISBN) $7.95 Can./U.S.
Arthur Renwick: Mask
Richard William Hill
The relationship between First Nations people and the camera extends from the mid-1800s to the present. Arthur Renwick creates photographic portraits of First Nations artists from various disciplines who were asked to think about the history of the camera and its relationship to the Indian. To undermine traditional Indian portraiture, he invited the sitters to look into the lens and make a facial gesture. Renwick’s subjects offered fresh and often startling images that are neither stoic nor noble. Richard William Hill is the author of numerous publications on First Nations artists, including The World Upside Down.
Richmond Art Gallery (05/2010) 32 pp col. ill. 8 x 8 in softcover 978-1-926594-12-5 $10.00 Can. $12.00 U.S.
Rielisms
Catherine Mattes & Sherry Farrell Racette
Nine artists - of Aboriginal, Metis and European ancestry - work
to define the reality of Louis Riel, the 19th century Metis
political organizer who was hung as a traitor. Mattes demonstrates
that the identity of Riel varies widely in the public imagination
and that he remains a conflicted symbol of current political
ideologies. Artists include John Boyle, Rosalie Favell and Jane
Ash Poitras.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (2001) 64 pp 23 ill. 10.5 x 8 in softcover
0-88915-201-2 $20.00 Can./U.S.
SMASH: International Indigenous Weaving - Southwest, Mi’kmaq, Alaskan, Salish and Hawaiian
Rose M. Spahan & Cathi Charles Wherry
Showcasing the work of thirteen artists who work with various weaving techniques and who are from a wide range of indigenous territories, this publication reveals the richness and beauty of both traditional values and new protocols. Essays explore the materiality of the practice (works comprised of wool, bull rush, cedar root, cedar bark, flax), cultural and spiritual uses as well as confluences and contrasts in design concepts. The similarities in ceremonial use and gorgeous decoration of the five represented areas make a dynamic textural conversation of color, stories, history, and creativity.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (04/2010) 96 pp 40 col. ill. 10 x 8 in softcover 978-0-88885-359-2 $16.95 Can. $19.95 U.S
Transporters: Contemporary Salish Art
Andrea Walsh, Cathi Charles, Wherry and John Elliot and Wil
George
This publication features the work of ten Salish artists from
Southwest British Columbia and Washington State in a cross-section
of ideas and images that express Salish visions of the land and
critiques of cultural appropriation. Some artists have transported
classical Salish design principles into the present, while others
claim unexplored visual territory with their work and aspire to
bring about new understandings of Salish thought and visual
language. The principal text is accompanied by essays on the
history of Salish practice and on Sencoten language and poetry.
Participating artists include Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, John
Marston, Luke Marston and Maynard Johnny Jr.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (12/2008) 60 pp 25 col. ill. 8.5 x 8.5 in softcover 978-0-88885-193-2 $29.99 Can. $32.00 U.S.
Tania Willard: Claiming Space
Chris Bose & Jordan Strom
Tania Willard's art offers a passionate probing of First Nations’ land issues. This first monograph presents paintings, large-scale graphite drawings and a panoramic mural through which the artist traces the 1926 purchase and relocation of a six-ton petroglyph rock installed in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Willard considers this cultural artifact's historical role as an exemplary object of 'authentic Indian Art' within the mid-20th century tourism industry.
Kamloops Art Gallery (08/2009) 64 pp 20 col. ill. 9.5 x 6.5 in softcover 978-1-895497-78-6 $14.99 Can. $16.99 U.S.
The World Upside Down
Richard William Hill
The world upside down, as visualized by artists, is one in which the symbolic order is turned on its head. This publication of a group exhibition surveys the strategy of symbolic inversion used by contemporary artists, while also providing historical context on Western and Indigenous North American traditions of inversion. As an artistic strategy, inversion illuminates and challenges the visual conventions that police social hierarchies - such as man against woman, European against Aboriginal and good against evil. In each inversion the artist turns a hierarchical dichotomy upside down. In most cases the dichotomy breaks down under the strain of its own absurdity and liberating us, if only for the moment, from its tyranny. Among the artists using a wide variety of strategies are Rosalie Favell, Shelley Niro, Lori Blondeau and General Idea.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria / Agnes Etherington Art Centre / Musée d’art de Joliette (01/2009)
176 pp 64 ill. (43 col.) col. 11 x 7.5 in hardcover 978-1-894773-28-7 $29.99 Can. $32.00 U.S.