Exhibitions and Events
Focus on Australia
The Gallery is pleased to present a special program on Australian art, with particular emphasis on Australian aboriginal works. Accompanying lectures are listed under Special Events, and details of the associated festival of film and television on Indigenous Australians, titles Cultural Focus, Cultural Futures, are listed overleaf.
(1) The Utopia Body Paint Collection
Marlene Creates: Landworks 1979 - 1991
This comprehensive survey begins with Creates' early landworks -- "brief interventions", in paper, stone and water, recorded in elegant photographs -- and proceeds through a selection of stone and wood installations and composite photographic works, to selections from her two major "memory map" works involving people in Labrador (1988) and Newfoundland (1989-91).
André Kertész: Selections from On Reading
Born in Hungary, the influential photographer André Kertész worked in Budapest and Paris until 1936, when he settled in the United States. Images of people reading, and of reading matter, fascinated him, and were ultimately gathered together for a publication titled On Reading (published in 1971). Toronto gallery owner Jane Corkin, who handles the Kertész estate, has selected an engaging group of original photographs from this series, dating from 1915 to 1970, for display at the Dalhousie Art Gallery (which is also arranging an Atlantic tour of this exhibition).
The 41st Annual Dalhousie Student, Staff, Faculty and Alumni Exhibition
This annual showcase of the artistic talent of the University community in paintings, graphic art, photographs, sculpture and crafts brings to a close the Gallery’s 40th anniversary celebrations. All members of the Dalhousie community are invited to enter. In view of the recent threat of closure and last-minute reprieve affecting all the fine arts programs on campus we suggest that contributors consider using the theme “survival” in their work. Artworks will be accepted at the Gallery from 7-18 November inclusive during regular gallery hours.
Religious Figures from China
In 1966, three exquisite China sculptures believed to be from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Ch’ing Dynasty (1644-1911) were added to the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s permanent collection from the bequest of Mr. George T. MacKenzie. These elegant figures in blanc de chine and cream crackle glaze will be displayed in the front alcove gallery, accompanied by an informative brochure written and researched by Krista Bennett (NSCAD student of ceramics and craft history).
Nova Scotian Pictures: Art in Nova Scotia 1940-1966
Guest Curator Sandra Paikowsky took a close look at the period 1940-66 in Nova Scotia, focusing mainly on painting and on the activities of organizations, such as the Nova Scotia Society of Artists and the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibition presented works by over 40 artists, including Robert Annand, Marion Bond, Mabel Killam Day, Horst Deppe, Carol Fraser, Siegfried Haase, C. Anthony Law, D.C. Mackay, Aileen Meagher, Alex Tissington, Ruth Wainwright, and LeRoy and Marguerite Zwicker. It was accompanied by an illustrated bilingual catalogue containing Ms.
Susan McEachern: Questions of Nature
This four part installation explores questions of human nature in relation to the natural world. Using a variety of formal and photographic techniques (from lush gold-framed colour enlargements, through cyanotype and selenium-toned prints, to digitized photographs in light boxes) McEachern combines images and text in a personal narrative that both delights and disturbs. Guest curated by Susan Gibson Garvey and funded, in part, by The Canada Council Exhibition Assistance Program.
Alexandra Pincock: Miners’ Canaries
The seventh in our ongoing series of front alcove exhibitions (designed to respond more immediately to the work of local emerging artists) is an installation titles Miner’s Canaries. Sculptor Alexandra Pincock elaborates on an earlier work, “Cage”, employing clay bird forms in a variety of situations as metaphorical reminders of practical, social and psychological restrictions on individual potential.
Celebrating 40 Years: From the Permanent Collection
The Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection contains nearly 600 works which have been acquired by purchase or donation. In-house exhibitions regularly focus on aspects of this rich and varied collection, which is also available to scholars and study purposes. The collection is maintained and organized by the Gallery’s registrar/preparatory, and is held in trust for the enjoyment and education of all members of the community.
(1) 40 Years: 40 Gifts
Corpus Loquendi (Body for Speaking): Video in Halifax 1972-1982
Through a fortuitous combination of people, place and time, Halifax became a prominent centre of experimental video production in the 1970s. Video artist and NSCAD professor Jan Peacock focuses on the early development of video as an art form, on its often transgressive behaviour and obsessive preoccupation with body and language, in a selection of works by Vito Acconci, David Askevold, Dara Birnbaum, Susan Britton, Martha Wilson and many others.
