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Exhibition: Border Cultures: Part Three (security, surveillance) Art Gallery of Windsor

Border Cultures: Part Three (security, surveillance)

January 31 – May 10, 2015

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Bambitchell (Canada), Yto Barrada (Morocco / France), Patrick Beaulieu (Canada), Rebecca Belmore (Canada), Mahwish Chishty (Pakistan / USA), Harun Farocki (Germany), Chitra Ganesh and Mariam Ghani (Afghanistan / India / USA), Tory James and Alex McKay (Canada), Shelagh Keeley (Canada), Osman Khan (USA), Evan Lee (Canada), Victoria Lomasko (Russia), Dylan Miner (Métis), Trevor Paglen (USA), Camal Pirbhai and Camille Turner (Canada), Tazeen Qayyum (Canada / Pakistan), Jose Séoane (Canada / Cuba), Charles Stankievech (Canada), Hito Steyerl (Germany), Syrus Marcus Ware (Canada / USA), Tintin Wulia (Australia / Bali)

Three years ago, the AGW launched Border Cultures, a series of exhibitions which deepen our understanding of what is means to be a border city in the 21st century. Located in the southernmost part of Canada across the river from the USA, Windsor is an important site for the arrival and departure for Indigenous, settler and migrant communities. Crisscrossing the geographic and national boundaries for generations in search of freedom, land, work and security, the collective memory, (oral) histories and cultures on these lands are at once deeply interwoven and splintered along colonial, racial and economic lines.

This three-part exhibition was conceptualized as a research platform, bringing together regional, national and international artists to examine the complex and shifting notions of national boundaries. With Border Cultures: Part One (homes, land) (2013), ten artists explored ideas of home, exile, citizenship and nationhood in our globalized world. As capital flows more easily than people to meet the demands of our consumer-based societies, questions of mobility across borders guided Border Cultures: Part Two (work, labour) in 2014. Fifteen artists examined the in-between space of the borderlands, where free-flowing capital and the uneasy movements of the stratified work force encounter one another.

In the final iteration of this series, Border Cultures: Part Three (security, surveillance) examines the impact of heightened militarization along national boundaries that has intensified deportations, detentions and mechanisms of surveillance of migrants and foreigners. The culture of fear accelerated the latent colonial hierarchies across North America with missing Aboriginal women in Canada and incarceration of black men in America, urging us to reconsider questions of security and citizenship. Moving back and forth between these internal and external boundaries, Part Three proposes the border as a site of struggle between personal subjectivities and systems of power. Artists are the key agents here as their work moves from the symbolic and materiality of the border to a psychological and intimate space of despair, hope and desire.

The Border Cultures exhibition series has been presented with the generous support of the TD Bank Group.

Curated by Srimoyee Mitra

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Migrant Ship Re-Creation Project – Main Works Page

In 2009, the artist began a re-creation of a press image depicting the arrival of the Sri Lankan migrant ship, the MV Ocean Lady at the west coast of Canada. This work was realized in many different forms, but most notably as a 3D re-creation and 3D printed models. In addition to photographs, drawings, paintings and other works, there is a web archive of this project.

It is with this project that the artist began looking at how migration has been depicted in media and in history. This subject concerns the complexities and challenges of immigration and its history in Canada, some of which were experienced directly by the artist’s family and friends.

At the moment, numerous people from Africa and the Middle East are attempting to reach Europe by sea. Many Europeans view this as problematic, leading to a strong rise in nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric and policy. These attitudes also exist closer to home: in 2009 and 2010, two ships arrived at the coast of BC carrying Tamil asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka. Canadian authorities seized these ships and detained their crew and passengers. There has been massive public debate and speculation over the legality of their refugee claims and the practice of human smuggling, and a climate of xenophobia has developed amidst accusations of immigration “queue-jumping” and fears of terrorism. This has been echoed many times in Canada’s history by the arrival of: Fujianese migrants in 1999, Jewish Europeans on the MS St. Louis in 1939 and Sikhs on the SS Komagata Maru in 1914. And it is difficult to separate this history from that of slavery and colonialization.

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Solo Exhibition, Monte Clark Gallery, 12 July 2014 – 9 August 2014

courtesy Monte Clark Gallery / David James / The Kreative

 

EVAN LEE

JULY 12 — AUGUST 9, 2014

TALK: SATURDAY JULY 12, 1PM
FOLLOWED BY OPENING RECEPTION: 2PM — 4PM

In Evan Lee’s solo exhibition of new works at Monte Clark Gallery, the artist recreates, transforms, and expands upon found news media images depicting protest and migration through sculpture, mixed media, and paintings.

In contrast to popular, ubiquitous images of revolution and provocation (such as Alberto Korda’s portrait of Che Guevara, or the graffiti works of Banksy), the found press images that Lee refers to are markedly non-iconic, from nameless and faceless Black Bloc protesters to migrants whose identities have been obscured by the press. Lee approaches these images from a perspective of speculation, creating artworks that either reconstruct or further obscure the subjects. This dual process amplifies the missing details and facts that are not included in the original press images or their accompanying news stories, pointing to an inherent confusion or lack of clarity surrounding the actual events.

This exhibition includes large-scale black and white paintings where silhouettes of marching Black Bloc protesters have been repeated in a motif that borders on abstraction; mixed media works where ink and gesture further obscure printed depictions of individual hooded and masked protesters; a 3D printed model of the Ocean Lady vessel which carried Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka to Canada in 2009; earth-toned, classical style oil portraits of the same migrants created in composite from blurry or pixelated press images and online searches; and a video that recreates the burning of a Danish flag, which was originally enacted by protesters in response to anti-Muslim cartoons that were published in Denmark. The works engage in a dialogue with news media images of protest, the interpretation of these images, their biases and their influence.

Evan Lee lives and works in Vancouver, BC Canada. He has been published in Canadian Art Magazine, Art on Paper, Border Crossings, Flash Art, Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and numerous other venues. Lee has recently exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Surrey Art Gallery, the Presentation House Gallery, and the Richmond Art Gallery. Lee is shortlisted for the 2014 Sobey Art Award and will be exhibiting with the other finalists at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in the fall.

For exhibition previews, please contact Matt McGale
matt@monteclarkgallery | 604-730-5000

For further press info and images, please contact Lindsay Inouye
[email protected] | 604-730-5000

Copyright © 2014 Monte Clark Gallery All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
#105, 525 Great Northern Way
Vancouver, BC V5T 1E1

Monte Clark Gallery · 105 – 525 Great Northern Way · Vancouver, BC V5T 1E1 · Canada

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News: Evan Lee Shortlisted for the 2014 Sobey Art Award

Sobey Art Award 2014 Shortlist Announced

June 4, 2014 – HALIFAX, NS – The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Sobey Art Foundation today announced the five artists who have been shortlisted for the 2014 Sobey Art Award, the pre-eminent award for contemporary Canadian Art.

The 2014 Short List 

  • West Coast and the Yukon: Evan Lee
  • Prairies and the North: Neil Farber and Michael Dumontier
  • Ontario: Chris Curreri
  • Quebec: Nadia Myre
  • Atlantic: Graeme Patterson

“The Curatorial Panel is proud to announce the 2014 Sobey Art Award shortlist. We would like to extend our gratitude on receiving a record number of nominations, demonstrating the vitality of the Canadian contemporary art scene. The five selected artists present a spectrum of practices that emerge from personal experience, ultimately addressing specific social and cultural concerns. We are confident that the work of these five compelling and engaged artists will leave a lasting impact on Canadian art.”

The Sobey Art Award has a prize value of $100,000 with $50,000 going to the winner, $10,000 awarded to each of the other shortlisted artists, and $500 to each of the remaining longlisted artists. The Sobey Art Award, established in 2002, is awarded to a Canadian artist age 40 and under who has exhibited in a public or commercial gallery within 18 months of being nominated. It was conceived to further the national conversation about contemporary art and is widely recognized as the most significant award for contemporary art in Canada.

Work by the shortlisted artists will be shown in an exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery opening on November 1, with the winner being announced at a Gala event on November 19.

The members of the 2014 Curatorial Panel are:

  • Jordan Strom, Curator, Exhibitions and Collections, Surrey Art Gallery, British Columbia
  • Paul Butler, Curator of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba
  • Srimoyee Mitra, Curator of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario
  • Marie-Eve Beaupré, Conservatrice de l’art contemporain, Musée national des beaux arts, Québec
  • Pan Wendt, Curator, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Prince Edward Island

More information about the nominees is available at www.sobeyartaward.ca.