OTTAWA,
ON, June 19, 2024 /CNW/ - The National Gallery
of Canada (NGC) presents
Shelley Niro: 500 Year
Itch, the first retrospective exhibition of the multi-media
work of Mohawk artist Shelley Niro.
Opening at 5 p.m. EDT on June 20, the eve of National Indigenous Peoples
Day, the exhibition will run until August
25, 2024.
Spanning four decades of photography, film, painting,
installation, sculpture and mixed media, this major exhibition
features more than 70 works, some in series—totalling 136
pieces—from public and private collections across Canada and the US. It also includes close to
20 artworks from the National Gallery of Canada's collection. Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch is organized
and circulated by the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) with the Smithsonian's National
Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and with curatorial support
from the National Gallery of Canada. Major support for this project is
provided by the Canada Council for the Arts and Terra Foundation
for American Art.
The exhibition is making its third stop at the National Gallery
of Canada, after it was presented
at the NMAI in New York last year
and at the AGH this winter and spring.
"We are proud to showcase Shelley
Niro, an artist whose visual art and film works have been
featured across Canada and
internationally, including at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Our
collection has been enriched with more than 30 of her works since
1995. This includes the famous '500 Year Itch' photograph,
from which the title of the exhibition is drawn," said
Jean-François Bélisle, Director & CEO, National Gallery of
Canada.
"Shelley Niro's
retrospective 500 Year Itch is a momentous
exhibition, marking a significant milestone in her career," stated
Shelley Falconer, President &
CEO of the Art Gallery of Hamilton. "We are immensely proud to bring
the unique vision of this remarkable artist across Canada, as her artistic practice has helped
shape the discourse around Indigenous representation. We extend our
heartfelt gratitude to the National Gallery of Canada for their invaluable partnership, which
will help bring this important exhibition to a national
audience."
A member of the Turtle Clan of the Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk)
Nation, from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Niro
approaches the Indigenous experience of the last 500 years in
North America in her work with a
hint of humour and irony mixed with criticism, always through a
lens of hopefulness. Her references to iconic pop-culture icons
establish a common ground with her audience. Coming from a
matriarchal society, Niro works to put Indigenous women and girls
in the foreground and make them visible. Members of her family
become the characters in her stories, as in her iconic work The
Rebel (1982/1987), made in the spur of the moment, when Niro
asked her mother Chiquita to pose near a car to create a satirical
image of a woman on a vehicle, which was prevalent in magazines ads
of the time. Her mother spontaneously decided to hop on the trunk
of a car with the model name Rebel and lay across it with her hand
behind her head.
Shelley Niro: 500 Year
Itch has been seven years in the making in terms of
research and development and is co-curated by Melissa Bennett, Senior Curator of
Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Hamilton; Greg
Hill, independent curator and former Audain Chair and
Senior Curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of
Canada, and David Penney, former Associate Director of
Museums Scholarship, Exhibitions and Public Engagement at the
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Wahsontiio
Cross, Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization at
NGC, is the coordinating curator of the exhibition at the
Gallery.
The exhibition will travel next to the Vancouver Art Gallery
(September 28, 2024 – February 2, 2025) and to the Remai Modern,
Saskatoon in spring 2025.
Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by richly illustrated
publications, in English and French, with essays by Melissa Bennett, Greg
Hill, David Penney, as well
as Shelley Falconer, Tobi Bruce, Madeline
Lennon, Lori Beavis,
Bryce Kanbara, Nancy Marie Mithlo, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie,
Adriana Greci Green, and
Sally Frater. The French version was
edited by the NGC. It is available at the Gallery's Boutique and
online at ShopNGC.ca.
Public programming
A 20-minute video documentary on Shelley
Niro produced by the Art Gallery of Hamilton is on view in the Inspiration
Space, in conjunction with the exhibition. This
Saturday, June 22, from 1 p.m.
to 2 p.m., the public is invited to join Shelley Niro and Greg
Hill for a special tour of the exhibition. To
find out more about the public programming in conjunction with
Shelley Niro: 500 Year
Itch, visit gallery.ca.
About the National Gallery of
Canada
The National Gallery of Canada
(NGC) is dedicated to amplifying voices through art and extending
the reach and breadth of its collection, exhibitions program, and
public activities to represent all Canadians, while centring
Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Ankosé—an Anishinaabemowin
word that means "everything is connected"—reflects the Gallery's
mission to create dynamic experiences that open hearts and minds,
and allow for new ways of seeing ourselves, one another, and our
diverse histories, through the visual arts. NGC is home to a rich
contemporary Indigenous international art collection, as well as
important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian and
European art from the 14th to the 21st century. Founded in 1880,
NGC has played a key role in Canadian culture for more than 140
years. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
About the Art Gallery of
Hamilton
Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is the oldest and largest art gallery
in southwestern Ontario with a
permanent collection that is recognized as one of the finest in
Canada. Embracing Canadian
historical, international, and contemporary art, the collection
consists of more than 11,000 works, including by Alex Colville, Prudence
Heward, Tom Thomson, the
Group of Seven, Emily Carr,
James Tissot, Jean-Léon Gérôme,
Gustave Doré, Norval Morrisseau,
Keith Haring, Edward Burtynsky, and
Kim Adams. For more information,
visit artgalleryofhamilton.com.
SOURCE National Gallery of Canada