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Get-go Nations and Canadian Art Galleries

Many scholars take argued that Canadian art galleries accept poorly represented Kickoff Nations art, specially objects prior to the mid-twentieth century (Jessup, Hard Inclusion xiv; Martin, Politics; Martin, An/other one). Canadian art galleries have, in fact, long been dominated by an art/artefact binary (Clifford), where only European fine art is considered art, to the exclusion of artworks past non-European Canadians (Li). Under such ideologies, First Nations works take not been considered artworks and instead have been located exclusively in anthropological museums (Jessup, Hard Inclusion xiv). Some art galleries have recently begun to increase their collections of Starting time Nations art. Yet, they have "shied away from displaying historical objects and have focused their attention on works by contemporary [Kickoff Nations artists] whose choice of media and style of execution fit more easily into their existing collections" (Whitelaw 198). Canadian art galleries have been spaces of exclusion in the representation of First Nations art.

Since the release in 1992 of Turning the Page: Forging New Partnerships Betwixt Museums and First Peoples by the Task Force on Museums and First Peoples, several events demonstrate that Canadian fine art galleries have changed. For example, in 1992, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa hosted State, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada, the starting time large-calibration exhibition of gimmicky fine art past First Nations artists at a major Canadian art gallery. Beyond the river from the National Gallery, the Canadian Museum of Civilization hosted INDIGENA: Contemporary Native Perspectives, "the first [exhibit] to be mounted by a major institution in which all the primal participants—the curators, artists, and writers who contributed essays and poems to the catalogue—are members of the Native community" (Phillips, "Making Infinite" 18). The year 1992-the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to what is now America—is therefore marked as a turning bespeak in the representation of First Nations art in Canadian art galleries and museums.

The Canada Council has besides supported art galleries to purchase Outset Nations art and to hire Ancient curators. After a sixty-year intermission of the acquisition of Showtime Nations art since 1927, the National Gallery of Canada purchased Carl Axle's The North American Iceberg in 1986 and has since increased its collection of First Nations art. In 2003, the National Gallery opened Art of This Land and exhibited some historical First Nations artworks to give "prove of the variety and richness of [Aboriginal] artistic production, and [to illustrate] its evolution from ancient times to the present solar day" (National Gallery, "National"). Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist in 2006 was the commencement solo exhibition of a Offset Nations creative person at the National Gallery of Canada. In Quebec, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opened a new Canada and Quebec gallery in September 2011 and the exhibits of First Nations art, more often than not from the Northwest Declension, were slightly expanded.

In Toronto in November 2008, the Art Gallery of Ontario also opened new gallery halls to firm some of the 2,000 new acquisitions donated by Ken Thomson. According to the Agone, the Thomson Drove was "the almost meaning private art collection in Canada" (AGO, New Art). Pieces of the Thomson Collection vary from seventeenth-century ship models to nine hundred European artworks, including The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens, a seventeenth-century work. It likewise includes signature works past Canadian artists from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, three hundred of which are by the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, too as "First Nations objects which span two millennia, from around 200 BC to the late-nineteenth century" (Ago, First Nations Works). Apparently, some seven hundred new artworks of the Thomson Drove have made the AGO'southward Canadian art hall more attractive and impressive.

But more importantly, regarding Aboriginal representation, was the AGO'due south hiring of Gerald McMaster, non as a curator of Commencement Nations art only as a curator of Canadian art, the first Aboriginal curator to concord to position (Reid fifteen). Dennis Reid, AGO's director of collections and enquiry and senior curator of Canadian fine art at the time, stated that "One of our goals is to brand historical First Nations art a fundamental chemical element of the story of Canadian art and [McMaster] will play a pivotal role in helping usa build that part of our collection" (ibid.).

This article aims to appraise the above statement. As the second largest art gallery in Ontario, the AGO has taken a significant role in the development of Canadian art. In its history, a number of exhibitions and meetings have been held at the gallery, which has accumulated collections and documentations of major artists, art dealers and collectors, creative person-run galleries, and other people and organizations that have shaped the "Canadian art world" since the early on-nineteenth century (AGO, Overview). The Agone is therefore a good case study to discuss the politics of representation and inclusion/exclusion of Starting time Nations art in Canadian art galleries.

The Importance of Offset Nations Art in Canadian Art History

Why should Canadian fine art galleries include First Nations fine art? The uncomplicated respond is that First Nations accept expressed their creative sense and visual aesthetics through materials since prior to European contact (Grey 138). The inclusion of First Nations art is also important because Canadian art history is not complete without examining the interconnections between First Nations and Europeans. For example, such commodified art (souvenir art) as Northwest Coast carvings and Iroquoian embroideries and beadworks represents the interrelated history between Outset Nations and Europeans (McMaster, Our (Inter) 5). First Nations artists made those artworks for European travellers and colonizers looking for "curios" and in this interaction, the artists improved their craft skills. European women sometimes learned embroidery skills from First Nations works (Phillips, Trading x), which would not have been possible without the creative sense and critical eye of the original Native artist. Commodified art was also the evidence of cultural and economic resistance to the onetime federal absorption policy (Raibmon). The exclusion of commodified fine art therefore ignores the subjectivity and history of Kickoff Nations.

Since the early twentieth century, notwithstanding, dominated by the art/artefact binary (Clifford), Canadian art galleries until recently did not pay much attention to the construction of an inclusive national art history that examines the interrelatedness between Kickoff Nations and Europeans (McMaster, Our (Inter) 5–6). Canadian art history has placed European fine art at its cadre and "Ancient art histories continue to exist treated independently of Euro-Canadian art history" (ibid. 5).

At the Vancouver Art Gallery, for example, when they began collecting in 1931, the art of Starting time Nations peoples was far from the minds of the gallery founders. The 1930s represented a time when the artistic practices of Beginning Nations were collected by ethnographic or history museums rather than art galleries. The presence of First Nations people and culture within the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery was through their depiction in the works of art by not-Native people. It was non until the 1980s that the Vancouver Art Gallery… began to collect First Nations work with whatever regularity. (Vancouver Art Gallery)

Today, the Vancouver Fine art Gallery almost exclusively collects contemporary works from First Nations artists (ibid.). Later 75 years from its opening, nonetheless, the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibits Starting time Nations art rather poorly compared to landscape paintings by Emily Carr, even though British Columbia raised many First Nations artists. The Montreal Museum of Fine Fine art also has long specialized in collecting European fine art (Gillam 64). In Ottawa, while the National Gallery of Canada collected European art, Kickoff Nations objects were collected by the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Fifty-fifty the new Art of This State—"a virtual exhibition that mirrors the new installation of Aboriginal art within the Gallery'due south permanent collection of Canadian art" (National Gallery, "Art") — is criticized for the way Outset Nations artworks are displayed. According to Whitelaw, Offset Nations works merely serve to explain the historical background of paintings by white Canadians such Paul Kane, which nostalgically describe a disappearing Aboriginal globe (Whitelaw 201). Furthermore, with fewer than v pieces of contemporary First Nations artwork, the National Gallery does not mention the interrelatedness betwixt First Nations and Europeans, nor does information technology systematically show the historical and cultural diversity of Kickoff Nations art. Indeed about galleries have few pieces of First Nations art and this absenteeism is an oversight in Canadian art history. First Nations cannot acquire their history and culture through artworks at the public institution and this lack gives visitors an impression that First Nations did not have an artistic sense prior to the European contact.

Furthermore, the manner Ancient social club has been represented in mural paintings by white artists is problematic. Today, landscape paintings, specially those painted past Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, are considered representative of Canadian fine art. However, these artists often did not draw Get-go Nations guild or people of the early twentieth century in their paintings to stress the "untouched nature" and "wilderness" of Canada. Such artists as Paul Kane, Cornelius Krieghoff, Emily Carr, and Edwin Holgate nostalgically represented the "disappearing" First Nations culture (c.f. Jessup, Group of 7; Dawn). Canadian landscapes in these paintings exercise not satisfactorily represent First Nations' subjectivity and resistance for survival. Therefore the exclusion of First Nations art from the art gallery is non merely an issue of how to interpret art and artefact, merely how to sympathise Canada'southward national history. In this context, it is articulate why First Nations artists and curators have put pressure on art galleries to include Start Nations art, particularly historical pieces. But has the new Canadian art gallery at the AGO inverse the way to represent Canadian fine art?

History of the Ago: Controversy Around the Representation of First Nations Art

An overview of its collection and exhibition history demonstrates how the AGO has not been completely ignorant of the importance of First Nations art. Rather, in many cases, the AGO encountered challenges and found excuses to exclude Get-go Nations art from its drove. In this section, I review several key events and special exhibitions regarding the representation of Offset Nations art.

The Agone began as the Art Museum of Toronto, established on 31 March 1900, and soon became an important infinite for Canadian artists. The Fine art Museum of Toronto inverse its name to the Fine art Gallery of Toronto in 1919 and the institution quickly became popular. Interestingly, in the 1920s, the bulk of gallery visitors were women (Kimmel 203–6). In its history, the AGO has hosted a number of exhibitions and meetings and has accumulated collections and their documentation that have shaped the Canadian art earth since the early-nineteenth century. The records are therefore "a rich resource for research into the activities of the Group of Seven, the Canadian Group of Painters, the Ontario Society of Artists, and other Ontario (and Canadian) fine art societies" (AGO, About). The gallery changed its proper noun to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1966, with a mandate to serve the entire province.

In the early-twentieth century, however, the Canadian art world, every bit represented by the AGO, appeared to take a limited sense of its mandate, targeting only European art for its drove. In the Art Gallery of Toronto's 50-yr ceremony publication, Walker et al. country that "[their] field seems naturally to define itself every bit European Art from the end of the center ages and its extension into Due north America" (10), while their specific task is "to promote and further fine art interests in Ontario" (8). Acquisitions were limited to paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints by European artists. Walker et al. state that

... modernistic art in Europe was affected by the discovery of the native arts of primitive people notably in Africa and Australia, and the influence has been in bear witness both in Canada and the U.s.a.. It would be proper for us to show this past European examples, but, as the Royal Ontario Museum has a drove of these archaic objects, it would be folly to compete with them.

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The in a higher place statement clarifies that the aesthetic value of "primitive people" and the interrelatedness betwixt European and non-European art was recognized. The AGO thus had a take a chance to demonstrate its "inclusion" of Canadian art history at the beginning of its history, but decided not to collect non-European art, including First Nations art, because of the wish to avoid overlapping collections with the Royal Ontario Museum.

A pivotal and exceptional exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto in the early-twentieth century was Canadian West Coast Art: Native and Modern, organized by the National Gallery of Canada in 1927 and sent to the Fine art Gallery of Toronto the following year. Native and Modern represented Canadian interrelatedness between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, and was a rare exception in featuring Canadian interrelated history (McMaster, Our (Inter) 5). Native and Modern was also one of the first exhibitions to bring Ancient aesthetics into the art earth. The catalogue states:

The purpose of the Trustees of the National Gallery in arranging this exhibition of Due west Coast Indian Art combined with the work of a number of Canadian artists who, from the days of Paul Kane to the present day, have recorded their impression of that region, is to mingle for the first time the art work of the Canadian West Declension tribes with that of our more than sophisticated artists in an endeavour to analyse their relationships to one another, if such exists, and particularly to enable this primitive and interesting art to accept a definite identify as 1 of the most valuable of Canada's artistic productions.

Barbeau, Exhibition 3

In the exhibition, the organizer and the founder of Canadian anthropology, Marius Barbeau, tried to come across "the Indian sense of creative blueprint and high adroitness securely rooted in his national consciousness" (Barbeau, Exhibition iii), and "the native artists' [manifestation of] their amazing sense of decorative fettle and beauty. It also tried to encounter regional diversity in the West Coast. The organizers saw the feature of Ancient fine art equally "truly Canadian in its inspiration" (ibid. 4) and argued that this characteristic should be retained and revitalized before disappearing "nether the penetration of trade and civilization" (ibid. iii).

After Native and Modernistic, until the 1980s, the Ago's policy to target European art did non announced to have changed, while pivotal events regarding the representation of First Nations art were observed outside the AGO. For example, in the 1960s, authoritative contemporary Offset Nations artists, such as Bill Reid, Norval Morrisseau, and Alex Janvier, emerged. Formerly trained in professional fine art schools, they introduced abstraction to First Nations art, or became founders of a new schoolhouse. For the public, particularly the art-buying public, the Aboriginal fine art market place was platonic since the works proved "the value of [Canadian] traditional imagery" (Tom Hill, Indian 20). During the 1960s, Canada experienced its own identity crisis, concerned as information technology was about the cultural domination of the U.S. At the time, the demand for Canadian identity helped found the market popularity of Inuit art. Beginning Nations fine art followed, encouraged by several events and exhibitions in the 1960s, such equally Arts of the Raven: Masterworks of the Northwest Coast Indian, Vancouver Fine art Gallery, 1967; Masterpieces of Indian and Eskimo art from Canada, National Gallery of Canada, 1969; and Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal (ibid.). Among these, "Expo '67 was the about dazzling of many commemorative projects organized to celebrate Canada'south 100th altogether, and the Indians of Canada Pavilion emerged as a surprise highlight of the fair" (Phillips, "Show" 86). Tom Loma states that Expo '67 was a fundamental outcome because information technology was the first time that Aboriginal artists from across Canada got together:

Information technology's hard to believe, only they really got together and talked and they were having the same problems out in BC or Nova Scotia or Toronto or wherever. So, in that location was a real need to alter, to make some changes. Nearly of the artists were just commencement to scissure the surfaces again of gaining some sort of reputation. Certainly ones from Expo, all had galleries, all were producing works of fine art, all were attracting a sure amount of attention.

Tom Loma, personal advice, 2 Dec. 2004

The Ago seemed to be keeping its distance from the change that surrounded Start Nations art in this period and no special exhibitions were organized in the 1960s or 1970s. The Agone only added a piece of work past Norval Morrisseau to the collection of gimmicky art in 1979 (AGO, Annual Report). In the early-1960s, the Contemporary Canadian Committee of the Ago was however collecting landscape paintings by "painters belonging to or associated with the Group of Seven and their successors, the Canadian Group of Painters" (AGO, Selected 49). In improver, "The Gallery's importance as a major repository of Canadian historical fine art was farther strengthened in 1965 with the transfer of title of 340 works purchased since 1912 from the annual exhibitions of the Canadian National Exhibition" (47). Almost of these works were European fine art (Pantazzi; Brooke and Wistow).

In contrast, the Majestic Ontario Museum had hosted or accepted some special and travelling exhibitions on First Nations art, including, Canadian Indian Art '74 (1974); An Exhibition of Traditional Crafts of the Naskapi (1977); Quillwork by Native People in Canada (1977); and even Paul Kane: 1810–1871 (1972). The Ago and the Royal Ontario Museum were nonetheless using their "division" explanation, and the AGO was not collecting pieces of Kickoff Nations art.

Interestingly, at the Ago, Inuit art had a different status than First Nations art. In the 1970s and 1980s, the AGO accepted donations of Inuit art collections—including the Sarick Collection, the Isaacs Reference Drove, and the Klamer Collection—and began periodic exhibitions. Later on, space for an Inuit gallery was planned and the Inuit Collection Committee was formed in 1988 (AGO, Selected 28). The AGO now claims "one of the finest collections of Inuit fine art in the world" and more than than v hundred sculptures are exhibited in the Inuit Visible Storage Gallery (AGO, About).

Not until the 1980s did a small-scale but of import alter occur at the AGO: Seneca curator Tom Colina was hired in 1982 and had a big influence on collection policies. Colina, who had curated Canadian Indian Art '74 at the Majestic Ontario Museum, tried to introduce Kickoff Nations artwork as an art form, objecting to "scholars [who had] sought to utilise Indian art objects in scientific areas of anthropology… thus, [ignoring] the inherent aesthetic qualities" (Tom Hill, Introduction n.p.). He was successful in bringing Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers to the AGO. The exhibition demonstrated the development of works past Morrisseau and his impact on both senior and junior members of the Woodland School (McLuhan and Hill half-dozen). Tom Loma states that during the 1980s, artists began to shift some of their attending to more political positions. Exhibitions of Starting time Nations fine art were more often curated by Offset Nations curators, every bit was Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers.

A special exhibition, From the 4 Quarters: Native and European Fine art in Ontario 5000 BC to 1867 AD, was too held in 1984. The organizers argued that this exhibition was a landmark in Canadian fine art history since "Native and European creative traditions not but are given equal attention, merely both are outlined in terms of a single chronological framework, and examined as mutually interacting aesthetic systems in response to a common fix of geographical, historical, and cultural circumstances" (Reid and Vastokas ix). The objects displayed included Native coppers and banner stones from 5000 BC, clays and stones from the sixteenth century, Shaman rattles and drums from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, watercolour paintings by English artists from the nineteenth century, quillworks, and landscape paintings by Paul Kane. The developments of both Aboriginal and European fine art were examined side by side. The exhibition challenged the thought that First Nations objects lacked individual artful expressiveness and therefore should exist housed in an anthropology museum (Reid and Vastokas 9). Information technology as well challenged the idea that early on colonial fine art was a documentary work with fiddling aesthetic importance (ibid. x). From the Iv Quarters demonstrated the various functions of Starting time Nations art, likewise as a Canadian artistic tradition with a long and complex interrelatedness between First Nations and European art (ibid. 11–12). In AGO history, 1984 was an epoch-making yr and may have been a turning betoken.

In 1992, the AGO released an important study: Independent Task Force on the Future of the Art Gallery of Ontario. It declared that AGO'due south mission was "Bringing Art and People Together." The study argued that it would be necessary to target culturally various populations and broaden its audience to increment the number of visitors in the long-term. In the short-term, the number of visitors could be increased past targeting the "traditional" audiences of the gallery, mainly from the "dominant culture" (AGO, Independent). Thus, the AGO recognized its Eurocentricity in terms of both its collection and its audience. The report too recommended that broadening the audience should be done "through branch programming with and commitment to non-bulk culture visual art producers and their audience," rather than by acquiring artworks by indigenous minorities (ibid.). The written report had nigh no impact on increasing the collection of First Nations art, either historical or contemporary. Few special exhibitions on First Nations were held in the 1990s; the few exceptions included Robert Houle: Anishnabe, in 1994, and Carl Beam's work, The Columbus Suite, which was temporarily exhibited in 1993.

The Agone also experienced some controversial events in the 1990s, such as the Barnes Showroom, in 1994. This collection, established past Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951), is one of the finest collections of French Impressionist, Mail service-Impressionist, and early Modern paintings in the world (Barnes Foundation) and besides includes African, Asian, and Native American artwork. Barnes collected these non-European objects as "fine art" that is, "as aesthetically of import as other major art movements and traditions," while his contemporaries nerveless them as "examples of 'primitive' cultural artifacts" (ibid.).

When the Barnes Collection travelled to the Agone, the 6th stop on the bout, none of 2500 African, Asian, and Native American artworks were included. According to Agone spokesperson Rob Berry, the Barnes Drove Lath "determined what artworks would be included in the exhibition based on a U.S. court society giving the lath permission to temporarily allow some of the artworks to exit their Philadelphia home" (Wallace 27). Members of the African customs protested the exhibition, claiming that it perpetuated systemic and cultural racism confronting African fine art (Tator, Henry, and Mattis 63). Despite the protestation, artworks of the non-European cultures represented in the collection were only shown by a big photographic panel. Art journalist Bronwyn Drainie raised key questions about the selection:

If Barnes was a "pioneer in the area of cross-cultural study of the visual arts" and passionately committed to the concept of integration of art forms from different cultural traditions, why was his collection displayed in such a way that the viewer is unable to see the formal connectedness between works created continents and centuries away? Why do we end upwards with a display of but French painters, which undermines what Barnes was trying to accomplish?

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The director of the Agone, Glenn Lowry, claimed that "even though the exhibit contained only European masterpieces, they were so universal in quality that they would naturally lead the viewer's listen to the richness of visual creation that has come out of all the globe'south cultures" (ibid.). The African community argued that nothing of the multicultural nature of the drove was highlighted in the exhibition although the Agone had used Toronto's ethnic and cultural diversity to land the exhibition (Tator, Henry, and Mattis 68). AGO excuses aside, European-way "high" art remained at the centre of the AGO.

Another controversial event was The OH! Canada Project, a concurrent plan with The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation in 1996. Art for a Nation, highlighting the image of landscape and Canadian national spirit through works of the Group of Seven, was organized by the National Gallery of Canada for the 75thursday anniversary of the group's get-go show, and it circulated effectually the country. About visitors and the mainstream media highly appreciated the exhibition, except for The OH! Canada Project (Goddard xi).

The OH! Canada Projection tried to talk over and contend the reality of contemporary Toronto culture and raised a fundamental question: "Why are minorities largely absent from big urban cultural institutions?" (Ago, OH! Canada 7; McIntyre 35). The project participants included members of Latino and African communities, as well equally Tom Hill and Bill Powless from the Vi Nations Reserve. The show organized interactive presentations, workshops, and events, though it was more often than not dismissed every bit a noisy sideshow, receiving complaints and protests. The company survey clarified that the majority of visitors preferred Art for a Nation, which "presented the Group of 7 as famous artists, synthetic a historical narrative of their development and provided expert stance on their work" (Lisus and Ericson 199). Meanwhile, The OH! Canada Project was considered a misguided endeavor to "look at the art" (Goddard), and was fifty-fifty dismissed by some as an assail on white males, the AGO'south "traditional" audience (Mays). While the project was intended to re-evaluate the relevance of the Grouping of Seven with "Canadianness," White argued that it "seemed only to farther reinforce the idea that Canadian national identity was still very much located in the woods associated with the Group of 7" (eleven). Some visitors and critics expressed intolerance and saw the use of multimedia to represent cultural diverseness as mere noise confronting the "already-established White Canadianness" in Canadian fine art.

After the installation of Haida argillite by master carvers Charles Edenshaw and Isaac Chapman, donated by Roy G. Cole in 1999, the Agone finally began to increase the representation of First Nations art in the Canadian art gallery. The AGO co-hosted a briefing titled On Aboriginal Representation in the Gallery and the poor inclusion of First Nations fine art in Canadian art galleries was recognized anew (Jessup with Bagg). The AGO also purchased an early on-nineteenth century Anishnabe (Ojibwa) gunstock mode club in September 2002. According to Agone curator Rick Hill, it was an historic conquering—the kickoff purchase of a First Nations object in its hundred-year history. The lodge was exhibited together with other Ancient and Euro-Canadian artworks in the R. Samuel McLaughlin Gallery (Richard Hill, Samuel 2).

In the McLaughlin Gallery, a single gallery hall was dedicated to "a curatorial laboratory for the inclusion of Ancient art," named The Coming together Ground (Richard Hill, Reinstallation 52). The Coming together Ground directly challenged the traditional categorical distinction between Aboriginal and European Canadian art by bringing both together as historical art. For example, The Thunderbird and The Virgin and Kid were juxtaposed to represent the meeting of cultures between Aboriginal spirituality and Christianity brought by European missionaries and traders in the seventeenth century. The gallery infinite was radically redesigned to create the meeting context and exhibited "Aboriginal art in a way that reflects the values and aesthetic sensibilities of Aboriginal cultures" (Richard Hill, Samuel 2). Video and computer applied science were set upwardly to bear witness visitors art and ideas from both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives (Richard Colina, Reinstallation 51). Coming together Ground was the infinite to "creat[due east] situations in which Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal art is brought into conversation [and to show] that potent Aboriginal perspectives are at play in the design and the contextual discourse" (70). The Meeting Ground was closed in October 2003, along with the residue of the Ago'due south Canadian wing, in preparation for the upcoming expansion project.

A review of the chronological events affecting the representation of Kickoff Nations art at the Agone demonstrates a contradiction. While the Agone has, since its establishment, recognized the aesthetic value of non-European fine art, it has also recognized its poor inclusion of First Nations art. The AGO has occasionally tried to change or innovate a new concept in some of its special exhibitions, yet, they accept often been stymied by counter-arguments and resistance to change, particularly by "traditional" audiences or lath members. The traditional claim is that non-European objects are not fine art but artefact, and thus do non deserve exhibition in an fine art gallery. Even during the planning of The Meeting Ground projection, following the approving of the purchase of historical Aboriginal objects, a member of the acquisition committee argued that the objects were non artworks and should vest to the Imperial Ontario Museum (ibid. 53). Surveys of visitors also indicated that about of the traditional audience were unaware of any First Nations art traditions from the region (ibid. 59).

First Nations curators take struggled for recognition in their profession, to increase the size of collections, or to enhance the audience'south understanding of First Nations art. First Nations curators are frequently hired on a project-by-project ground, not permanently. Even so, the change and support from the institution seems to be inevitable, and the Agone's decision to hire Gerald McMaster as curator of Canadian art is a step in this direction.

AGO's new gallery

Canadian art has traditionally been understood as starting with the arrival of Europeans in the mid-1600s. The AGO's Canadian galleries take been conceived to tell a more than inclusive history by incorporating much older Starting time Nations and Inuit objects. Every bit you lot walk through the galleries, you lot will find different means of interpreting Canadian art. In the Thomson Collection, up the stairs to your right, almost of the galleries provide an in-depth look at the work of individual artists. The rest of the Canadian galleries characteristic artists of different periods to explore broad ideas and issues—how art is shaped by institutions and beliefs, how it reflects our shared and personal memories, and how it communicates cultural stories. (Text in Gallery 200, Agone)

The Agone gallery halls of Canadian fine art are located on the second flooring. According to the visitors' guide, thirty-nine halls are dedicated to Canadian art. Of these, xx-three display pieces from the Thomson Collection of Canadian Fine art, donated by Ken Thomson, and newly installed in November 2008. The other fourteen halls are for pieces of the J. S. McLean Centre for Canadian Fine art, a reinstallation of the Agone's original collection (Figure i).

Figure 1

AGO's 2d Flooring

AGO's Second Floor

Reproduced from the visitors' guide

-> See the list of figures

The gallery halls of the McLean Eye for Canadian Fine art are located on the westward side, towards the rear of the building. Visitors who go far at the 2d flooring from the main entrance via the nearest stairs will come to the gallery halls of the Thomson Collection and observe themselves surrounded by a vast number of landscape paintings by white Canadian artists, as well as a few pieces of historical Starting time Nations fine art.

The representation of artworks from the Thomson Collection is in stark dissimilarity to the representation in the McLean Center. In the Thompson Drove, visitors are non provided with any accompanying texts or, in some cases, fifty-fifty captions on the wall. According to a volunteer guide, the absence of text allows visitors to immerse themselves in the globe of Canadian mural and savour each piece of artwork. Visitors can find captions in a minor booklet displayed in each gallery. In the McLean Centre, in contrast, visitors can notice many texts explaining the concept of each gallery and how all-time to interpret the installations and artworks. According to Gerald McMaster, the McLean Eye is an "exploration of rich and circuitous diversity of Canadian fine art through abandoned voices and tells various voices" (McMaster, "Fine art and Ideas"). The McLean Centre challenges the idea that merely works past white artists are Canadian fine art, past strategically juxtaposing works by white male person artists with works by Aboriginal or female artists. The McLean Centre, therefore, is considered the successor to The Meeting Basis in representing the interrelatedness between First Nations and European fine art, non a peculiarly new thought for the AGO, as McMaster might contend.

Let us kickoff a gallery bout from the Thomson Collection. Visitors will likely kickoff see either Gallery 207 (20-two paintings by the Group of Seven) or Gallery 206 (twenty-eight paintings by such white artists as Emily Carr, Paul Kane, and Edmund Morris). Gallery 207 besides displays three pieces of historical First Nations art from the West Coast (2 Tsimshian masks from 1750 and 1820–forty; and a Nuu-chah-nulth salmon mobile from 1900). Gallery 206 displays a Raven rattle from 1860; a clapper from 1840–sixty; and a comb from 1840–lx. The booklet for Gallery 206 celebrates the high achievement of First Nations fine art, stating, "Whether weapons or growing tools, rich attentive and inventive adornment of these works ensured they would be prized from the moment of their creation." The booklet offers no explanation most why these particular six pieces were installed together with the fifty landscape paintings in ii gallery halls.

Visitors would likely exist attracted to Gallery 218, which displays twoscore-three paintings, mostly northern Ontario landscapes by Lawren Harris (from the Group of Vii). The bluish tone of Lawren Harris's gallery is impressive. Gallery 218 over again displays three pieces of historical fine art from the Northwest Coast (a Tsimshian mask, 1820–forty; a Nuu-chah-nulth salmon rattle, 1900; and a Tsimshian antler club, 1750). It is not clear, withal, why "their linearity and bold design elicit deeper engagement with their corresponding creative traditions" when they are "[p]aired with the northern paintings of Harris from the 1920s and 1950s," every bit the booklet states. Many critics have argued that the landscape representations by the Group of 7 emphasizes the "vast country and virgin wilderness," while erasing the existence of Aboriginal people (e.g., Jessup, Group; Jessup, Mural of Sport; Manning; Dawn). The forty-three mural paintings by Harris are sufficiently impressive to obscure the three examples of Commencement Nations art.

To the east of Gallery 218, five galleries (203–205, 220, 221) display 193 landscape paintings by white artists, including French Canadian artists from Quebec, Edmund Morris, and Cornelius Krieghoff. Actually, of the total, 104 pieces are by Krieghoff. Some of the works nostalgically depict the "disappearing Aboriginal earth" in the tardily-nineteenth and early on-twentieth centuries, or Canada's vast "empty" land, "typical" of Canadian landscape paintings and an important chemical element of white Canadianness. Krieghoff "faced the lakes and virgin forest without prejudice, and uttered their colour and rhythm in forms and so true that they nonetheless remain vital, despite the passing of fourth dimension and the changing standards of art" (Barbeau, Krieghoff 32). The 104 works demonstrate this. Gallery 202 displays twenty-half dozen portraits of Kickoff Nations people by Krieghoff. At the very east end of the Thomson Collection, a small, dark hall (Gallery 222) is dedicated to Indigenous art from North America, Africa, and Oceania, without much of a dedication to Canadian Outset Nations fine art. As no texts or captions announced in this hall, visitors would exist hard pressed to identify the details of each piece of work in the broad sampling.

In the w half of the Thomson Drove, visitors tin can encounter some other big collection of landscape paintings: Gallery 216 has fifty-nine works past Tom Thomson (who inspired the Group of Vii); Galleries 208–210 accept 160 works by members of the Grouping of Seven; and Galleries 211–214 have 114 works by David Milne, another white, male Canadian painter. With a vast collection of mural paintings comprising most of the Thomson Collection of Canadian Art, visitors who expect to see the "core" of Canadian art are never disappointed.

The J. S. McLean Centre (Galleries 201 and 224–239) has iii main themes (Memory, Myth, and Ability) each trying to demonstrate the complexity and variety of Canadian fine art and to correspond women and historical Outset Nations art. Visitors volition see many pieces by white Canadian artists, including members of the Group of Seven, though the works are represented in "new and dramatic ways" (Agone, Nearly).

In the hallway-like Gallery 225, visitors notice First Nations fine art from historical to gimmicky periods, including Norval Morrisseau'south Man Changing into Thunderbird on the north wall. According to the text,

This gallery features aboriginal, historical and modern works by First Nations and Inuit artists. The works reverberate 11,000 years of visual expression, tradition and memory. They reveal a by which continues to shape the future.

The showroom includes rock tools and arrowheads from prehistoric periods, which announce memories, metals, and textiles with a European influence from the early seventeenth to the late-nineteenth century. The menstruum from the tardily-nineteenth century to the early-1950s is denoted every bit the erasure catamenia and tourist art, or works for collectors, such as argillite poles, birch bark, and beaded bags, are displayed to illustrate the survival of artistic expression. Hither, words by Louis Riel are quoted: "My people volition slumber for 100 years, but when they awaken, it will be artists who will give them their spirits back."

The period later on the 1950s represents modernity, denoted as cultural revitalization with iii works by Bill Reid displayed. Reid, Norval Morrisseau, and Zacharias Kunuk are introduced as artists who led new forms of expression. In Gallery 225, only one slice is owned past Agone with others on loan from the Regal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and the Smithsonian Establishment.

Gallery 224 contains contemporary artworks, including two by Starting time Nations artist Robert Markle. The exhibits in Galleries 227–239 are thematic. In Gallery 228, the juxtaposition of Anishnabe'southward two pipage bags with Tom Thomson's West Wind, or birch works with Emily Carr's Indian Church are supposed to demonstrate the interrelatedness between First Nations art and European fine art, though the connection is hard to decipher. Gallery 232 challenges the idea that the Group of 7 is representative of Canadian art:

Does the Group of Seven reflect your Canada?

The Group of Seven formed in Toronto in 1920. Today, their paintings are nevertheless among Canada'due south virtually popular images. Each painting on the light greyness walls was offset exhibited in seven exhibitions of the Group's work at the Art Gallery of Toronto in the 1920s. While the Group'due south landscapes have get symbols of Canada, many in the art world have questions nigh the mythology that has developed around them. Are these landscapes a true representation of Canada?

In response to this question, this gallery offers the work of other artists who were active at the time of Grouping of 7. Their work, presented on the dark grey walls, challenges the Grouping's mythology by providing different perspectives on Canadian art and identity.

The artists presented on the nighttime grey walls include female artists such equally Emily Carr, Dorothy Stevens, Lilias Torrance, and Sarah Robertson, along with Bertram Brooker and John Lyman, who were critical of the grouping's nationalist arroyo. According to the text, still, all of these artists were overshadowed or inspired by the group. Thus, the style of the selected paintings is like and the way in which these artists might have challenged the group seems less radical than that of other works, such as A Grouping of Sixty-Seven, past Jin-Me Yoon. She strategically located Asian-looking figures in mural paintings by Lawren Harris and Emily Carr to raise the question, "Tin can I as a non-Western woman savor a naturalized human relationship to this landscape?" (Manning). In this gallery, white Canadian artists are yet dominant and white Canadianness is not critically challenged. In addition, considering of the similar styles of the artworks, the public would probable accept no thought nigh the concept of the gallery hall unless they read the text. In a 30-minute ascertainment, I could easily see that only virtually one in ten visitors read the text.

The subject of Gallery 233 is "Constructing Canada"

What images contributed to the structure of Canada? Painted views of landscapes illustrated books, photography albums, travel guides and Starting time Nations objects all shaped the world'south perception of Canada. These items were reproduced locally and away in every art grade, perpetuating the mythology of Canada.

This gallery highlights three pop images of Canada. These scenes from Niagara Falls and Quebec, as well as objects and images from First Nations communities are often considered the cornerstones of Canada'southward identity abroad.

The Offset Nations artworks exhibited in this gallery include a Haida pipe and argillite carvings, Mohawk beadwork, and a Kahnawake Mohawk peace tree. The concept is interesting only why are only these images considered "the cornerstones of Canada's identity abroad"? Why is the gallery missing images of the Canadian Rockies, Anne of Light-green Gables, or the northern lights? Popular "Indian" images away are misappropriated as totem poles, plumage dresses, teepees, and Wild Due west shows.

The subject field of Gallery 238 is the institution and questioning of power and the struggles inherent in power dynamics. The gallery displays a few Commencement Nations artworks: Norval Morrisseau's Shaman—Thunderbird, a Haida mask (1870), Charles Edenshaw'due south totem pole (1924), and a Haida association helmet (1840). Kent Monkman's The Academy, which uses parody in representing a circuitous relation between First Nations and white people, attracts guided tours and visitors, who are usually given the fourth dimension to savor the piece of work. In Gallery 239, the works stand for "how Europeans—Euro Canadians have represented Aboriginal people" and "how Aboriginal people looked dorsum at them in render." Photographs by Edward Curtis and paintings by Edmund Morris and Paul Kane demonstrate a European's nostalgic view of Aboriginal people while Haida works such as Sea Helm (1840), European Figure (1880), or Crewman Figures (1945) stand for an Aboriginal view of Europeans. The text explains that Aboriginal people created these works because they "were fascinated by the unusual advent and article of clothing of Europeans" just as Europeans were fascinated by the "curios" of Aboriginal people. The concept of Galleries 238 and 239 is relatively easy to understand and the selection of artwork is good. Gallery 239 is the end of the Canadian art section.

Overall, visitors see a huge collection of landscape paintings and a few samples of historical First Nations artwork, with no texts in the Thomson Collection. Visitors can fully taste the "core" of Canadian fine art. In the McLean Centre, visitors once again see landscape paintings along with Offset Nations artworks and works by women artists. The installations challenge the thought that only works by white Canadian artists are considered Canadian art. Many of the texts explain the curator's views and give visitors a chance to reconsider the notion of Canadian fine art. Unfortunately, few visitors likely read the texts.

Is the New Canadian Art Section Successful?

The Agone'south new Canadian fine art department is impressive. The 1447 works on display would satisfy almost visitors, even if they missed the Ago's other major collections, such every bit European and contemporary art. The huge number of landscape paintings in the Thomson Drove would fully excite "traditional" audiences. Some visitors' comments are testimony to this:

[Morgan] Ip reserved his highest praise for the Ago'south Group of Vii collection. "They are spectacular paintings. I didn't even realize how much talent Canada had," he added.

Demara 2008

[Author James] Dubro said his favourite moment was being alone—briefly—in a gallery spaceloaded with great Canadian art. "The weirdest thing was being in a room—with a lot of great Canadian art—Paul Pare and all these other artists—with nobody else in the room. Alone with 100 extraordinary pieces of art," he said

ibid.

The core of Canadian art all the same appears to be dominated by works by white artists and the Ago's new Canadian art section has really left the paradigm unchanged. The Ago is also tethered to the critique that Canadian fine art galleries still fail to include First Nations art adequately. The pieces of First Nations art displayed do not entreatment to visitors, in comparison to the landscape paintings past white Canadian artists, especially in terms of their number. The majority of artworks in all galleries of Canadian fine art are landscape paintings past white artists. In particular, more a hundred works in several gallery halls by Cornelius Krieghoff, the Group of Seven, and David Milne are the dominating representatives. Galleries 222 and 225 are specifically dedicated to First Nations artworks, with more than 50 on brandish, but the works are miscellaneous, from prehistoric rock tools to contemporary paintings (and video works) from various regions including N America and Oceania. Gallery 222 is besides a small area, at the very end of the Thomson Drove, and Gallery 225 is no more than a hallway at first glance. Visitors are never surrounded past more than than a hundred pieces of Beginning Nations artwork past the same artist or group. If, for example, visitors could run across a hundred pieces from the Woodland School of Painting, spanning several gallery halls, they would be impressed to run into a rich history of First Nations art, something not shown at the Agone.

Visitors may too be challenged to assimilate fully the concept of the McLean Centre. While not denying the significance of the concept, nor arguing that the public is not interested in some "difficult" interpretations of art, the texts are unappealing, like many of the selected works in the art gallery. In the Thomson Collection, the lack of texts (and even captions) freely allows visitors to interpret or enjoy each piece in their own way. Visitors are non told direct how to approach mural paintings from a "professional" perspective, co-ordinate to the curator. Instead, they can immerse themselves in this Canadian fine art world. Borrowing Roberta Smith'southward words, the exhibition "contextualize[s] things in a way that might let them to speak for themselves, or the viewers to think for themselves" (qtd. in Cuno twenty). Meanwhile, in the McLean Centre, the thematic installments with many texts require visitors to see the artworks from a particular perspective. Of course, visitors can skip the texts and enjoy each piece as they might wish, however, "The exhibition favors labels that provide explicit, heavily biased interpretations, oft putting words in the artworks' mouths and so judging them accordingly" (ibid.).

The spatial arrangements are too challenging. Near visitors would start their tours from the Thomson Collection, as information technology is located at the front and close to the main stairs. The approximately 650 mural paintings by white Canadian artists in the Thomson Collection are extremely impressive and visitors are immediately educated nearly Canadian art. The huge drove would easily satisfy visitors before they attain the McLean Center. Likely, the majority of visitors would exist besides tired even to try to sympathise the concept of the McLean Centre past the time they go there. Visitors might wonder why works of the Group of Vii are installed in two separate galleries. A close examination of the Thomson Drove with its huge number of landscape paintings would weaken the appeal of the "new" brandish in the McLean Middle. McMaster argues that "history is less boring" at the McLean Centre (Fine art and Ideas) merely visitors might be exhausted to learn history or the "different" view on Canadian art. When beginning a tour from the Thomson Drove, in my offset visit to the new Agone, I was noticeably tired past the time I reached the McLean Middle two hours after. The spatial arrangement of Agone's Canadian art section clearly emphasizes the notion that landscape paintings define Canadian art.

Although the Agone has included historical Showtime Nations art, the entreatment of such works is still weak. Information technology is disappointing that the Ago did not radically claiming the dominant prototype of Canadian fine art, even under the supervision of an authoritative Beginning Nations curator, Gerald McMaster. The number of works and spatial organization of the Canadian art gallery reinforces the idea that white Canadian fine art is Canadian art, and constructs "Canadianness." Ane could say that the AGO'south real achievement is not the gallery itself merely the decision to hire Gerald McMaster, with his feel at the Smithsonian Institution and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, to curate non only First Nations art, but the unabridged Canadian art department. Might the installations of art in the galleries of Canadian art been different if the AGO had hired someone else equally curator? Might someone else have made the brave decision to limit the number of works from the Group of 7?

Gerald McMaster one time stated that "Aboriginal art histories continue to exist treated independently of Euro-Canadian art history" and "In that location is a much more circuitous Canadian art history that needs to be told" (McMaster, Our (Inter) 5–6). Many others have suggested the same thing since the 1980s (due east.m., Vastokas; Phillips, Trading; Jonaitis; Wright; Young; Jessup, Landscape). The Ago has fabricated its shot, merely the new Canadian fine art galleries yet miss the mark.

Towards an Inclusive Canadian Art History

Is there any practical means to change the representation of Canadian art drastically to include more First Nations works? I suggest that there is, merely several issues need to be addressed. First, Canadian art galleries, including the Agone, demand to increase the number of First Nations artworks in their collections significantly. This is a big challenge. The lack of a sizeable collection is partly related to the history of Ago acquisitions, as previously discussed, since its arroyo was to avoid overlap with anthropology museums. In addition, Canadian fine art galleries depend on donations of art to increase their collections. Nigh of the artwork donated take been works by white artists, except for a few examples of Inuit fine art. Although many Canadian art galleries are acquiring First Nations artwork, the size of their collections is not comparable to the number of landscape paintings accumulated earlier the 1950s (AGO, Selected). Many of the pieces of historical First Nations art currently on display at the Ago take been on loan from other institutions. Moreover, the history of collecting First Nations objects has worsened the situation, as the vast majority of collectors of eighteenth and nineteenth century works were British or European, and later American, who transported their collections to their dwelling house countries (Willmott 215–16). In the early-twentieth century, Canadian anthropologists such as Edward Sapir and Marius Barbeau considered First Nations historical art as "inauthentic" handicrafts, and they were thus overlooked from their collections. Moreover, Starting time Nations are now challenge the repatriation of such pieces from institutions (Hamilton); therefore Canadian art galleries take niggling chance to increase historical pieces at nowadays.

Under such circumstances, are collaborations with artists and reproductions of historical artworks feasible? Some anthropology museums (i.east., UBC Anthropology Museum) have already begun working in this expanse (Duffek and Townsend-Gault). In this way, First Nations artists will exist able to join in the activities of an fine art gallery, acquiring new skills and reflecting their voices, while a big number of reproduced historical works can help the art galleries create a "new" style of exhibition. Are there any ethical issues surrounding "counterfeits" in the art gallery? Information technology does not seem that Canadian art galleries accept yet started active discussions on this issue.

The adjacent challenge is how to make infinite for the display of more First Nations pieces and how to convince "traditional" audiences, who prefer landscape paintings and may not be interested in Start Nations art from the region (Lisus and Ericson). In the short-term, the Agone can remove some mural paintings from two or three gallery halls to make room for Aboriginal artworks. For example, the Thomson Drove currently displays more than a hundred pieces past Cornelius Krieghoff and David Milne; however, such representation appears repetitive (Carson). McMaster indicated that the installations at the McLean Eye would be updated to attract echo visitors from the Toronto area (Art and Ideas). Why non the Thomson Drove? And if such a change happens, how will "traditional" audiences react?

In fact the AGO recognizes that its European-focused drove targets the white upper classes, who are Agone's traditional visitors. The Ago rarely receives visitors from the lower classes, who tend to feel unwelcome (Jonaitis 19). The Ago is besides non a destination for First Nations (Thomas and Hudson 147). Lynn Hill raises many questions about the art gallery audience:

Is the audition Native or non-Native, and what is the deviation between these 2 audiences? How tin didactics and entertainment be used to claiming the fundamental behavior of not-Native audiences who do not wait to have their key beliefs challenged during a visit to the fine art gallery? Why would First Nations people desire to visit a place where someone else is telling their story? How tin nosotros strike a remainder between the disparate needs and expectations of our audiences?

178

For the AGO, a radical change could be challenging and risky, but if it causes no loss in the number of visitors, why should it shy abroad from a "new" style of exhibition? Is the AGO agape of being boycotted by its traditional visitors if it takes an "innovative" approach to Canadian art with a large number of Start Nations artworks? Without such radical changes, visitors will not learn the interrelated Canadian art history betwixt Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

John Ralston Saul argues that art is never really a small-scale step but is "something [not-Aboriginals] have to do with Aboriginals" (35). Referring to the Art of This Land at the National Gallery, he continues: fine art "is the sign that nosotros are getting set to think differently—that nosotros are starting to imagine ourselves in another manner" (36). Fine art can demonstrate the possibility of constructing "another national history from another perspective and examining and changing the centre" (Young 205). For the Agone, the next step would be to permit the public understand that First Nations art is integral to Canadian art history. The rich history of white Canadian fine art needs be recognized, only information technology does not ever have to exist the centre. The AGO tried something new in 2008, but not all of the galleries