My Evil Twin

My Evil Twin October 3, 2009 – January 4, 2010

My Evil Twin Exhibition Opening and Performance Friday, October 2 at 7:30 pm Featuring a performance, Double Self Double, by Maria Hupfield and Merrit Johnson.

My Evil Twin is the third and final exhibition of the MacKenzie’s Mirror Series, which explores how mirrors, mirroring and doubles are used to perform a formal and cultural critique in contemporary art.

The MacKenzie Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of four internationally acclaimed artists in the exhibition My Evil Twin, on view October 3, 2009 – January 4, 2010. This exhibition responds to society’s fascination with multiple births (think “Octomom” and “Jon & Kate Plus 8”) by exploring how representations of twins and doubles in contemporary art function as a sign of social anxieties. My Evil Twin features the work of four artists: Janieta Eyre and Kristan Horton from Toronto, Maria Hupfield from Vancouver and Julian Rosefeldt from Berlin, Germany.

While society is enthralled with multiple births, the public reactions today are not necessarily the same as those of the past. Commenting on this topic, anthropologist René Girard observes that “in some primitive societies twins inspire a particular terror. It is not unusual for one of the twins, and often both, to be put to death.” According to Girard, theloss of clear differences, embodied in the shared identity of twins, is the underlying source of people’s fear.
“Of course, apart from diaper bills, no-one considers twins to be a harbinger of evil today. Nevertheless, the device of the ‘evil twin’ continues to pop up in popular culture pairings such as Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, Battlestar Galactica’s Boomer and Athena, and The Simpsons’ Bart and Hugo to name a few,” says Timothy Long, Head Curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. “Each artist featured in My Evil Twin presents a representation of the double that can be related to fears that have their root in the loss of differences which have shaped recent experience in contemporary society
in recent years.”

Together, the work of Eyre, Horton, Hupfield and Rosefeldt form a narrative that grapples with the human need to shape our individual identities, not out of fear, but out of an understanding of our desires for difference and semblance.
This exhibition is curated by Timothy Long and will be accompanied by a catalogue, being produced later this fall, which will be available through the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

My Evil Twin is the third and final exhibition of the MacKenzie’s Mirror Series, which explores how mirrors, mirroring and doubles are used to perform a formal and cultural critique in contemporary art. The first exhibition, Let Me Be Your Mirror, took place in 2008, with the second, Double Space, taking place in 2009.

Image: Janieta Eyre, The Mute Book, #2, 2009
black and white, selenium toned fibre print, edition 1/5, 73.7 x 99.1 cm
photo: courtesy of the artist

Close Strangers; Distant Relations

An artist's engagement with the permanent collection by David Garneau.

September 19, 2009 - January 2, 2010 Audio Tours are available free of charge at the Gallery Shop!

Exhibition Opening and Artist-led Tour with David Garneau
Saturday, October 3 at 2:00 pm

One of the ways the MacKenzie Art Gallery is working to create opportunities for visitors to experience the permanent collection in new and interesting ways is through artist interventions. This exhibition will be the fourth in a series of artist engagements with the Permanent Collection, involving artists as catalysts for engaging audiences with contemporary art. For this exhibition Metis artist and educator David Garneau will create an audio-based storytelling experience with works from the collection. The gallery will be made into a simple, wide maze and the participant will be on a journey with a head set. As she stops before various works of art an audio story unfolds that links each work to the others. The full narrative will take about twenty minutes and is told in twenty voices.

To read more about the exhibition and to download the audio tour, visit our website!

Organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

Image: Unidentified (Italian)
Portrait of a Woman, c. 1500-1600
oil on canvas, 42.1 x 33.7 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina
Collection, gift of Mr. Norman MacKenzie

VERNON AH KEE: Blow Your House In

VERNON AH KEE: Blow Your House In
September 12, 2009 to January 3, 2010
Artist Talk & Exhibition Opening Reception: Friday, September 11, 2009 @ 7:30pm

Free event!

For the exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Vernon Ah Kee was invited to participate in the MacKenzie Art Gallery’s first artist-in-residence program, which took place August 17 to September 4, 2009. Blow Your House In features some of Ah Kee’s text based works in addition to portrait-based drawings produced during the residency.

Vernon Ah Kee is a conceptual contemporary artist based in Brisbane, Australia. Born in North Queensland, Australia, Ah Kee is of the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yindingji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples. His work is represented in several public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and the National Gallery of Australia. In 2007, he was included in the National Indigenous Art Triennial: Culture Warriors (National Gallery of Art, Canberra, Australia) and he has staged solo exhibitions at Artspace, Sydney and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane in 2008. His work was also included in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney and at the 2009 Venice Biennale in Once Removed, a group show from Australia addressing issues of displacement, indigenousness and the environment.

MacKenzie Art Gallery receives 2009 York Wilson Endowment Award

Regina - The MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina is the recipient of the 2009 York Wilson Endowment Award, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. The Gallery will use the $30,000 award to purchase six works from the Trading series by Saskatoon aboriginal artist Ruth Cuthand.

"The MacKenzie Art Gallery is honoured to be the recipient of this important award," said Stuart Reid, Executive Director of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. "This purchase of Ruth Cuthand's work will add significantly to the Gallery's collection of contemporary Canadian art. By addressing questions of history, identity and colonialism, the Trading series holds particular relevance for the people of Saskatchewan."

The MacKenzie Art Gallery will acquire six of the eleven images in the Trading series which investigates the diseases and goods European traders introduced to the Americas as well as the one disease that was brought back to Europe. "The images of the Trading series are hauntingly beautiful," noted Michelle LaVallee, assistant curator of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. "Through the use of beads, Ms. Cuthand has rendered the viruses as seen under the microscope. The names of the corresponding diseases are painted in white acrylic paint on a black suede-like surface below the intricate beadwork."

According to the artist, "The beads are a visual reference to colonization; valuable furs were traded for inexpensive beads. On the plains beads were a valuable trade item and they replaced the method of using porcupine quills. Trading examines both sides of European trade from the new items that revolutionized Aboriginal life to the decimation of many tribes through disease."

View photos of Ms.Cuthand's work from the MacKenzie Art Gallery's image gallery. Please contact Leah at the MacKenzie Art Gallery at (306) 584-4273 for permission to use the images.

The members of the peer assessment committee for this year's award were Ihor Holubizky, curator at Museum London (Ontario); Josephine Mills, director and curator of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery (Alberta); and Gaëtane Verna, director of the Musée d'art de Joliette (Québec).

York Wilson Endowment Award
Since its creation in 1997, the York Wilson Endowment Award has been given annually to an eligible Canadian art museum or public gallery to assist with the purchase of an original artwork by a Canadian artist that will significantly enhance its collection. The award, which is the result of gifts of more than $600,000 from Lela Wilson and the late Maxwell Henderson, honours the contribution of Canadian painter York Wilson by assisting Canadian institutions to acquire works by living Canadian painters and sculptors.

MacKenzie Art Gallery
Established in 1953, the MacKenzie Art Gallery welcomes everyone to experience visual art in all its diversity. The MacKenzie Art Gallery is strongly committed to its mandate of serving the people of Saskatchewan by exhibiting, collecting, preserving and interpreting original works of art for the enrichment of the quality of life and for the establishment and maintenance of an artistic and cultural heritage in Saskatchewan.

As one of Canada's leading public galleries, the MacKenzie's permanent collection numbers more than 4,000 works of art including historical and contemporary works with a special interest in Western Canadian art. The MacKenzie's collection of 19th and 20th century European works on paper is regarded as one of Western Canada's finest. In recent years, photography, folk art and work by Aboriginal artists have also been a focal point of the Gallery's collecting.

Ruth Cuthand
Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Ruth Cuthand grew up in various communities throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan. With her Plains Cree heritage, Ms. Cuthand's aboriginal culture and memories of her childhood experiences are often the inspiration for her work. Through her work she explores the frictions between cultures, the failures of representation, and the political uses of anger. Ms. Cuthand graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master of Fine Arts degree. In 1990, she had the first solo show of her career at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. Currently living in Saskatoon, Ms. Cuthand teaches Art and Art History at the First Nations University of Canada, Saskatoon Campus.

Canada Council for the Arts
In addition to its principal role of promoting and fostering the arts, the Canada Council for the Arts administers and awards many prizes and fellowships in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural and health sciences, engineering, and arts management. These prizes and fellowships recognize the achievements of outstanding Canadian artists, scholars, and administrators. The Canada Council for the Arts is committed to raising public awareness and celebration of these exceptional people and organizations on both a national and international level.

Emily Dickinson would have loved Saskatchewan’s warm summer nights!

Join MacKenzie Head Curator, Timothy Long, for a tour of For Emily and finish the evening with a series of Dickinson-inspired poetry performances in the MacKenzie Art Gallery Sculpture Garden, featuring Cindy MacKenzie, Anne Campbell, Judith Krause, and Barbara Dana. Bring your own lawn chair or blanket. This program is free!

Friday, July 24, 2009

7:00pm - 10:00pm

MacKenzie Art Gallery Sculpture Garden

Anne Campbell is an award-winning author of four collections of poetry, with a fifth due, Soul to Touch, due in the fall of 2009. She is presently a Research Fellow at the CPRC University of Regina working on a biography of Arthur McKay, one of the famed Regina Five group of artists. As well as writing with music composer Tom Schudel, Anne’s work has been performed, recorded and published internationally.

Judith Krause is an award-winning Regina writer, editor and teacher whose work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Her most recent publications include her fourth collection of poems, Mongrel Love (Hagios Books, 2008), and a collaborative chapbook, blue transport / the insistence of green (Jack Pine Press, 2007).

Barbara Dana made her New York stage debut at the age of 17 in the off-Broadway production of Arthur Laurents’ A Clearing in the Woods. She appeared on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Enter Laughing, Room Service and William Inge’s Where’s Daddy? She was also a member of the improvisational group, Second City, appearing in Chicago and New York. Off-Broadway, Ms. Dana has appeared in a number of movies and TV programs. She is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults. Her first non-fiction book, Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson (Kent State University Press), co-edited with Dickinson scholar Cindy MacKenzie, was published last year. Her latest novel, A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson is just out, published by HarperCollins.

Cindy MacKenzie is an educator who has taught in many classrooms. After receiving a B.A. and B.E.A.D. degrees in French, and spending a semester as au pair for a family in Paris in the early 70s, she began her career teaching French at Central, Campbell, and Thom Collegiates. Eight years later during a maternity leave, she began to take classes in English at the University of Regina, eventually earning another B.A. Honours. This degree was followed by an M.A. and finally, a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Her particular interest in nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson began after taking an American Literature class in the mid 80s and since that time, she has pursued her study of this fascinating woman writing both an M.A. thesis and Ph.D. dissertation, as well as several articles, three books, and numerous papers presented at conferences in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. While carrying on her teaching at the University of Regina, she is currently working on another book that emphasizes the relationship between Dickinson’s letters and her poetics. As a board member of the Emily Dickinson International Society, she is convening the 2009 annual meeting of scholars and readers of Dickinson in Regina.