Contemporary Art

TAKAO TANABE: 100 YEARS

This fall we honour the iconic Canadian artist Takao Tanabe, who turns 100 years old on September 16. In this article, we reflect on Tanabe’s remarkable life and career. Written by Anu Henderson, AGGV Partnership Specialist.

LOVE SONGS TO END COLONIZATION

Love Songs to End Colonization is an ongoing project by Peter Morin and Jimmie Kilpatrick that layers language, music, pop-culture, community, and the critiquing colonialism to help build a more meaningfully connected world.

Q&A WITH EMILY LUCE AND RODNEY SAYERS

Klehwetua Rodney Sayers’ “Tiickin, Ride the Lightning” is a vibrant visual pun that deftly integrates nuučaanuł and popular cultures. The serigraph was brought into the AGGV collection in 2018, not long after he and Emily Luce presented “Paƛšiʔaƛma (The Fire is Just Starting)” at the Gallery.

Q&A WITH CAMILLE GEORGESON-USHER

We’re thrilled to be hosting As waters merge – swaying waves beckoning us closer. This exhibition was guest-curated by Camille Georgeson-Usher, a Coast Salish / Sahtu Dene / Scottish scholar, curator, and writer from Galiano Island, BC who is currently Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Indigenous Art at the University of British Columbia, and the Audain Senior Curatorial Advisor on Indigenous Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

FAMILY VISITS

You are warmly invited to visit with some of the many families represented in the permanent collection. Drawn from recent acquisitions, Family Visits, co-curated by Toby Lawrence, AGGV Curator of Contemporary Art and Dr. Heng Wu, AGGV Curator of Asian Art, explores varied ideas of kinship through pieces created by over 40 artists who work across a range of geographies and genres, including drawing, painting, photography, print-making, textiles, and sculpture. At some points the familial connections are very conventional, such as the portrait of AGGV’s first director Colin Graham with his son James, drawn by Myfanwy Pavelic whose Spencer family donated the mansion currently housing the Gallery. But considerations of family in this exhibition expand well beyond immediate relations to reflect on the networks of support found in local communities, diasporas, plants, animals, and ancestors.

ENCOUNTERS WITH MATTER AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN OUR GLOBALIZED WORLD

On now at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, visitors can explore a survey of recent works by artist Simranpreet Anand, including collaborative artworks with artist and ethnomusicologist Conner Singh VanderBeek in the current exhibition ਸ਼ੀਸ਼ੇ ‘ਚ ਤਰੇੜ | sheeshe ‘ch thareṛ | a crack in the mirror.