Spring at the MacKenzie

Duane Linklater: Kâkikê / Forever
The MacKenzie Art Gallery announces a commission by Duane Linklater on the façade of the Gallery’s T.C. Douglas building in Wascana Park, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Situated within Treaty Four territory, the traditional home of the Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Lakota, Nakota, and Métis peoples, Treaty Four was signed in 1874 in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan between First Nations and the British Crown.

Linklater’s most significant public artwork to date, Kâkikê / Forever is a text-based, site-specific work to be installed in the spring of 2018. It responds to various aspects of its location, drawing from unattributed words spoken during the making of treaties: “As long as the sun shines, the river flows, and the grass grows.” Kâkikê / Forever poetically reflects Canada’s conflicted past, charged present, and future (post) colonial imaginary.

This work is commissioned on the occasion of Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation, with support from the Government of Canada, City of Regina, and an anonymous donation through the South Saskatchewan Community Foundation.

Duane Linklater is Omaskêko Ininiwak from Moose Cree First Nation and was born in 1976. Linklater participated in Documenta 13 and 14, and is the recipient of the 2013 Sobey Art Award. He is currently based in North Bay, Ontario.

Linklater is contributing a portion of his fee to a local Indigenous women’s shelter.

Mixing Stars and Sand: The Art & Legacy of Sarain Stump
Opening March 3, 2018

Sarain Stump (1945-1974) was an autodidact and polymath who moved easily between drawing, painting, writing, teaching, performing music, acting, and ranching. He was just 29 when he drowned off the coast of Chiapas, Mexico. This is the first retrospective examination of his art and legacy.

Born in Venice, Italy, Stump came to Canada in the mid-1960s. He developed a style of integrating personal and historical narratives with various forms and media of Indigenous art. His 1970 publication, There is my people sleeping—with its combination of drawing and poetry—is now considered a seminal text for many Indigenous writers and poets.

Stump arrived in Saskatchewan in 1972 for a role in the Hollywood film Alien Thunder (1974), directed by Claude Fournier and starring Donald Sutherland, Chief Dan George, and Gordon Tootoosis. He later began work at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College, leading the nascent Indart program. A compelling narrative emerges that positions Stump as a cultural catalyst, community activist, and revolutionary.

Co-curators: Gerald McMaster and Anthony Kiendl.

This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.

Re: Celebrating the Body
Continuing until June 3, 2018

A reactivation rather than a historical reconstruction, Re: Celebrating the Body revisits the ground-breaking N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. exhibition Celebration of the Body (1976). Initiated by French curator Fabien Pinaroli, the project probes the current relevance of NETCO’s deconstruction of cultural stereotypes of the body with a special focus on questions of ability and the development of a “soma-esthetic.” The exhibition features contributions by NETCO co-presidents Iain Baxter& and Ingrid Baxter, as well as invited artists Kader Attia, Hannah Dubois, KVM—Ju Hyun Lee & Ludovic Burel, Camille Llobet, La Machine à performer, Jeannie Mah, Emilie Parendeau, jes sachse, Erwin Wurm, and the Museum of Antiquities, University of Saskatchewan.

Re: Celebrating the Body is a platform encompassing an exhibition, public and school programs, and dance residency organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery and New Dance Horizons, presented with the additional support of the Government of Canada, CanDance, Community Initiatives Fund, Dance Saskatchewan Inc., and Business for the Arts.

Co-curators: Fabien Pinaroli, Timothy Long, and Robin Poitras.
 

For more information about the MacKenzie, please visit mackenzieartgallery.ca

The MacKenzie Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Saskatchewan Arts Board, SaskCulture, City of Regina, University of Regina, South Saskatchewan Community Foundation, and the Department of Canadian Heritage.