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.  

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. 

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.

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.

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