Exhibitions and Events
From the Background to the Foreground: the Photo Backdrop and Cultural Expression
This vast exhibition has been curated by James Wyman for the Visual Studies Workshop and is co-presented by the Dalhousie and Mount Saint Vincent University Art Galleries. It incorporates hand-painted backdrops, photographs and props related to commercial portrait photography in Africa, China and India, with additional material focused on Black and First Nations communities in the US, Guatemala and Mexico. Besides generating discussion around photographic portraiture, the project explores relationships among the fields of art, photography, ethnography and vernacular representations.
French Filmmakers at Five/ Les cinéastes francophones à 17h
Our annual collaboration with the Atlantic Film and Video Festival: Our film curator Ronald Foley MacDonald has selected nine films which demonstrate the formal and technical range of works by French cinematographers in Canada. All films will be screened at five o'clock in the Gallery. Notre collaboration avec le Festival du film et vidéo de l'Atlantique: notre cinémathécaire, Ronald Foley MacDonald, a choisi neuf films qui illustrent l'évantail formel et technique des œuvres des cinéastes francophones du Canada. Tous les films sont présentés à 17h à la galerie.
Acadia Acadia
This film series by and about Acadians has been selected to complement the exhibition "There are no limits": The Work of Herménégilde Chaisson.
15 September - Fishermen of Pubnico/ Les pêcheurs de Pubnico
Léonard Forest, NFB, 1956, 10 min, b & w, English version
A portrait of a sword-fishing village in south-west Nova Scotia, this is one of the first films made about Acadians by an Acadian.
Les Gossipeuses/The Gossips
Phil Comeau, NFB, 1978, 58 min. French with English subtitles
There are no Limits: The work of Herménégilde Chiasson
"Chaisson lives, works and positions himself within a philosophic and literary history that reaches between Appollinaire and Le refus globale, between early Michael Snow and late Jimmy Durham, between the uncertainties of Marcel Proust's construction and the uncertainties of Jacques Derrida's deconstruction. He inhabits a terrain where exploration of "narrative" links film with photography with installation works with pulling prints.
Cheralyn Ryan: Woven like a carpet
Cheralyn Ryan began her formal studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) as a mature student. Her marriage had ended, leaving her as primary provider for two children, so she planned to study art education and obtain work as an art teacher. As her interest in studio work grew, and her personal circumstances changed, she made a serious commitment to painting fulltime, which has continued unbroken for the past decade.
A Century of Canadian Drawing Selected from the Permanent Collection
Opening: Thursday, 24 June at 8:00pm
Philip Glass: film scores
Renowned contemporary composer Philip Glass is the composer in residence for the Scotia Festival of Music (25 May to 6 June). As part of a joint fund-raising venture between the Festival and the Gallery, Mr. Glass has kindly agreed to give a special lecture on his film scores, which will take place on Thursday, 27 May at 5:00pm in the Dunn Theatre, Dalhousie Arts Centre. Tickets for the lecture may be obtained from the Gallery at $10 each. To complement this lecture, the Gallery is screening a series of films for which Glass composed the music.
Embedded Metaphor
An intimate, but usually mute, witness to our private lives and dreams, the bed is an emotionally fraught piece of furniture, the site of birth and death, pleasure and pain. From a pile of rags to an old mattress to embroidered white linen pillows, sculptural installations and photographic images in this exhibition all suggest the absent body, the "occupant" - homeless or wealthy, imprisoned, an invalid, a child...
Works by Members of the Group of Seven and Associates
The Sobey Art Foundation, founded by Frank H. Sobey and continued by his sons, Donald and David, has one of the finest collections of works by the Group of Seven and their associates. This engaging selection includes paintings dating from as early as 1913, well before the group's first exhibition (showing their early experiments in capturing the Canadian landscape with expressive brushwork and vibrant colour) to as late as 1949, when several members had moved toward abstraction. Interestingly, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H.
Chrystal Clements: Home is Where the Heart is
Through simple and poetic mixed media works, Chrystal Clements recalls her own upbringing in a small black community in rural Nova Scotia and examines the traditional role of Mother within such communities. Ritualistic repeated images and sewn forms echo domestic acts, suggesting both weary routine and warm tradition. This exhibition is the 14th in our Front Alcove Series, designed to respond to more immediately to recent work by local (often emerging) artists.
