AUGUST 2019 | Director's Picks
Check out a few exhibitions, both local and international, that have been on our radar in this month’s Director’s Picks. Be sure to click on an image for more details.
Sandra Brewster: Blur | Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
July 24, 2019 - March 29, 2020
Located on the 2nd floor in the Mary & Harry Jackman Gallery.
In the Blur series, Brewster explores layered experiences of identity – ones that may bridge relationships to Canada and elsewhere, as well as to the present and the past.
image: Sandra Brewster. Blur 18, 2017. Photo-based gel transfer on archival paper, 101.6 cm x 88.9 cm.
Black Refractions: Highlights from the Studio Museum in Harlem | The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
May 24 - August 18, 2019
With works in all media from the 1930s to the present, this will be the first traveling exhibition to reflect the full breadth of the Studio Museum’s unparalleled permanent collection. The exhibition, including work by artists such as Romare Bearden, David Hammons, Norman Lewis, Wangechi Mutu, and Lorna Simpson, will expand understanding of modern and contemporary art by artists of African descent.
image: Barkley Hendricks, Lawdy Mama, 1969, Oil and gold leaf on canvas.
Thomas J Price, Ordinary Men | The Power Plant, Toronto
June 22 - September 2, 2019
The exhibition at The Power Plant, Price’s first in Canada, features a series of sculptures in varying sizes. Inside the gallery, a newly commissioned work is presented alongside several smaller bronzes and photographs that challenge the erasure of black bodies within the traditions of classical sculpture.
Curated by Justine Kohleal, RBC Curatorial Fellow
We Found Us | Studio Museum, Harlem
July 19 - August 30, 2019
We Found Us: Expanding the Walls 2019 presents work by the fifteen artists in the 2018–19 cohort of Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community, an annual, eight-month residency at The Studio Museum in Harlem in which New York City–area high school participants explore the history and techniques of photography.
To Who Do We Call Upon | Margin of Eras Gallery, Toronto
July 18 - August 10
To Who Do We Call Upon is about kinship in its simplest form — creating a love letter to the past, present, and future. Work by artists Zoma Maduekwe, Jemini Baptiste, Sylvia Limbana, Kadrah Mensah, Faith Icecold and Oreka James explore visions of the Black home, shared history, connectivity and community. "We envision ourselves, spirits and elders within our (art) practices and devotion."
Zanele Muholi, Faces and Phases 13 | STEVENSON, Johannesburg
July 20 - August 30, 2019
STEVENSON is proud to present Faces and Phases 13 by Zanele Muholi.
Founded in 2006 in recognition of a lack of black queer visibility, Muholi’s Faces and Phases series has grown into a living archive of black and white photographic portraits of more than 500 lesbians, gender-nonconforming individuals and transmen in various expressions of their sexuality and gender identity.
image: installation view, Faces and Phases 13, STEVENSON