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. In each inversion documented here the artist turns a hierarchical dichotomy upside down. In most cases the dichotomy does not survive the experience, ultimately breaking down under the strain of its own absurdity and liberating us - if only for the moment - from its tyranny. Among the many artists using a wide variety of strategies are Rosalie Favell, Shelley Niro, Lori Blondeau and General Idea.
Musée d'art de Joliette / Agnes Etherington Art Centre / Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (01/2009)
176 pp 43 col. ill. 11 x 7.5 in hardcover 978-1-894773-28-7 $29.99 Can $32.00 U.S. (20 euros)
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.
Winnipeg Art Gallery (2001) 64 pp 23 ill. 10.5x8 in softcover 0889152012 $20.00 Can./U.S. (16 euros)
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. 8x7 in. 0919153674 $8.00 Can./U.S.
In Absentia
Tonia Di Risio
A brief survey of feminist approaches to autobiography in visual art. Artists studied include Jan Peacock, Andrea Ward, Linda Bartlett, Rosalie Favell, and Elsi Caetano Faria.
Art Gallery Mount Saint Vincent University. (1997) 6 pp ill. 1895215781 $6.00