Two New Exhibitions Open at the Varley Art Gallery
June 3, 2010 - September 6, 2010
Cultural Floe: Modern and Inuit Traditions
Curated by Anna Hudson
A Tribute to Norman Bethune: the mural and political cartoons of Avrom Yanovsky
Curated by Anna Hudson
Varley in Unionville
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Unionville, Ontario - The Varley Art Gallery of Markham opens two new exhibitions on June 3, 2010 along with an exhibition of works by F.H. Varley selected from the galleries permanent collection.
Cultural Floe: Modern and Inuit Traditions
The exhibition juxtaposes sculpture and drawing produced at the beginning and end of the ethnically defined field of Inuit modern art. During the 1950's an international market developed for carving produced in the regions now known as Nunavut and Nunavik. Sixty years later, following significant attainments in Aboriginal self-governance, current Inuit art now flows into an expansive international contemporary art practice. In this new context, individual artists are celebrated as witnesses to a new global reality. Inuit traditional knowledge privileges the expression of personal experience over received information. The subjective views of life captured in these sculptures and drawings advance the continuity of an Inuit way of being in the world and offer a template of cultural influence on contemporary culture.
Featuring the works of: Davidialuk Alasua Amittu, Adam Alorut, Abraham Anghik, Shuvinai Ashoona, Maria Connolly, Osuitok Ipeelee, Naulaq Michael, Idris Moss-Davies, William Noah, Sheokjuk Okutaq, Silas Qayaqjuak, Tim Pitsiulak and Oviloo Tunnille.
A Tribute to Norman Bethune: the mural and political cartoons of Avrom Yanovsky
The exhibition features Avrom Yanovsky's mural tribute to Dr. Norman Bethune who remains best known as a hero in the People's Republic of China. He is remembered in Canada as a surgeon and inventor who developed a mobile blood-transfusion service, a political activist and an early proponent of a universal health care system. The mural was painted for the Communist Party of Canada and covered an entire wall at the Norman Bethune-Tim Buck Educational Centre in Toronto. The mural, completed in 1963-65, has never been exhibited since being removed from its original location.
Over sixty political cartoons by Yanovsky published between 1950 and 1972 are included in the exhibition. The ink drawings, with their collaged and corrected compositions, are the original cartoons published in newspapers nationally, most commonly in The Worker and The Canadian Tribune, and internationally through World News Services. All are animated by a cast of easily recognizable characters: the money bag, the banker, the capitalist, and the politician - with his sidekick, the police or military. Yanovsky saved the leading role for the worker: an idealized representation of labour who endured the endless greed and buffoonery of capital and political power.
Varley in Unionville is an exhibition curated from the Varley Art Gallery's permanent collection with much of the work being part of the original bequest from Kathleen McKay.
A friend of Donald and Kathleen McKay, Varley became their boarder and followed them on their move from Toronto to Unionville in the mid-1950's. In Unionville, Varley would produce numerous paintings and sketches of Kathleen McKay, his muse. She also accompanied him on painting trips throughout Ontario and British Columbia.
Opening Reception Photo Gallery
