Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes
July 26–November 25, 2014
Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5T 1G4
www.ago.net
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
“This is a powerful exhibition that is very much about this place and its timeless connection to a distinct world view, one that continues to resonate with the Anishinaabe people.”
—Andrew Hunter, AGO
For more than 12,000 years, the Great Lakes region has produced a distinct culture of Anishinaabe artists and storytellers. The AGO celebrates those artists and stories this summer with Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, featuring artworks by leading modern and contemporary artists—including Norval Morrisseau, Bonnie Devine, Robert Houle, Keesic Douglas, Michael Belmore, Daphne Odjig and others—who sought to visually express the spiritual and social connections to the Great Lakes region.
Before and after the Horizon is co-organized by the AGO and the National Museum of the American Indian. Conceived by David Penney (NMAI) and Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree/Sisika First Nation), this presentation of Before and after the Horizon has been coordinated by Andrew Hunter, the AGO’s Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art. To celebrate this important exhibition, Hunter has organized a series of complementary interventions and installations to extend the dialogue into the AGO’s own collection of Canadian art.
Bonnie Devine, noted Ojibway artist and educator, will work with Hunter to transform one of the permanent collection galleries while Robert Houle (Saulteaux) will present a new installation entitled Seven Grandfathers in the AGO’s Walker Court.
“This exhibition is a welcome opportunity to reconsider, through various political and aesthetic interventions by Anishinaabe artists, how Canadian art history has been traditionally presented at the AGO,” said Devine. “The Anishinaabe have continuously occupied the territory around the Great Lakes for at least 12,000 years, so a survey exhibition of contemporary Anishinaabe art is overdue.”
Marking the first major exhibition of art by Anishinaabe peoples, Before and after the Horizon opens July 26 and runs to November 25.
This exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian.
Lead sponsor: TD Bank Group
Generously supported by Valerie Greenfield Thompson & Hunter Thompson
The Art Gallery of Ontario Foundation Board of Directors
