Ottawa — This 16th edition of the annual GGArts exhibition brings together the works of Montreal visual artists Louise Lemieux Bérubé (who inherited the coveted Saidye-Bronfman Prize), Don Ritter and Dominique Blain, Torontonians Barbara Astman and Greg Staats, ‘Inuit Shuvinai Ashoona, as well as work by documentary filmmaker Marjorie Beaucage and curator Michelle Jacques, both Saskatchewanians.
Their works will be exhibited until March 23, 2025, in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA), which administers the logistics of awarding the GGArts Prizes.
They are distributed in the Indigenous and Canadian art, contemporary art and European art rooms of the NGC; You can also find, in the Library and Archives areas of the Museum, various publications signed by Michelle Jacques. (The NGC website provides a map to identify the precise location of each work.)
Bringing the works into dialogue
“For a third consecutive year, it has become a new tradition at the Museum to offer a dynamic experience by creating a dialogue between the creations of the eight artists and those of our collection,” underlined the Director General of the NGC, Jean-François Bélisle.
The five curators responsible for the exhibition were able to draw from the NGC’s collections in order to not only celebrate the achievements of the award-winning artists, but also to present their works “in a way that creates renewed and original interpretations of our historic and contemporary,” he explains.
Louise Lemieux Bérubé, who likes to use textile and printing techniques, proposes the works I dream of being a tree (2021) et Snowy trees (2008). The first “illustrates one’s relationship to nature and highlights the importance of community; the whiteness of the second represents Quebec winters.
Montrealer Dominique Blain, who exercises a critical eye on politics, offers Derivative (2019-2022), a silent video installation composed of five LCD screens which seeks to pay “tribute to the precarious and perilous journeys of migrants”.
Don Ritter, whose works and installations often merge “aesthetics, ethics and digital media”, set out to explore “the human condition, climate change, war and the exploitation of labor of work” through Unnecessary Signage (2015-), Sustainable signage (2016), et Human Humans (2020).
Don Ritter has fun with signage, during the exhibition of the 2024 winners of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, presented at the NGC. (National Gallery of Canada)
Over two decades, visual artist Shuvinai Ashoona, from Kinngait, Nunavut, has become known for his challenge to the way the public perceives Inuit art, recalls the NGC, which will host Embroidered Dream Quilt (2009), a collage of stitched images through which “the past, present and future of the Inuit” is expressed, as well as Tribute (2009), highlighting in writing the importance of several artists in the history of Inuit art.
Artist Barbara Astman, “recognized for the experimental and interdisciplinary nature of her practice,” offers Intertwined stories (2023), exploration of “media overproduction and overconsumption.”
For her part, the “art-ivist” documentarian Marjorie Beaucage selected three films (Rougarou [2014], #Hope [2022] et Idle No More Midtown Mall [2013]) addressing “topics that are often ignored” or giving voice to “those who generally do not have a voice.”
Ontario photographer and videographer Greg Staats takes advantage of this opportunity to express his Kanien’kehá:ka identity [mohawk] at the bend of his Pine stretched towards a clearing (2024), which “draws inspiration from the language of wampum beads and the worldview of the Haudenosaunee.”
Visionaries
“Each of the eight people awarded […] this year stands out for its visionary spirit,” said the director of the CAC, Michelle Chawla.
“Thanks to their unique, evocative and daring look at the world, these artists stimulate and inspire the public by allowing them to rethink the field of possibilities.”
For the second year in a row, the winners of the GGArts Awards have been given the mandate to develop off-site programming intended to better promote their work across Canada. This parallel programming, called “community engagement,” will be revealed later.
The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts were established in 1999 to celebrate the “exceptional careers” of Canadian artists.
Information : National Gallery of Canada; Canada Council for the Arts
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