Toronto Exhibitions

Eva Hesse: Studioworks, 1966. Courtesy of University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. Gift of Helen Hesse Charash, 1979. Photograph by Ben Blackwell, Alameda, CA.

Working Women take over the AGO

This September, the Art Gallery of Ontario opens three distinct but related exhibitions on the work of artists Eva Hesse, Betty Goodwin and Agnes Martin under the title “At Work.” Magenta Magazine Online Executive Editor Bill Clarke spoke with AGO assistant curator Georgiana Uhlyarik, who shares some of the highlights from each of three exhibitions and tells us why visiting the AGO this fall should be an imperative.

BC: How did the opportunity arise to bring these three stellar women artists together?

GU: It all started with the Eva Hesse: Studiowork exhibition, which was organized by the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Studiowork exhibit is the culmination of new research by Hesse scholar Briony Fer, who curated the show with Barry Rosen, the director of Hesse’s estate. The AGO quickly agreed to be the only Canadian stop for this touring exhibition. Hesse is one of the major sculptors of the 20th Century and her work has never been presented here in such depth before. Studiowork is a remarkable opportunity for audiences to examine a newly discovered aspect of Hesse’s work with its special focus on the studio, and to consider her ongoing relevance to current issues in contemporary art practice.

BC: When did Goodwin and Martin come into the picture?

GU: Bringing Agnes Martin and Betty Goodwin together with Hesse came very naturally – one of those amazing curatorial moments where it just made sense. Plus, Goodwin’s 117 notebooks, along with other material from her studio, came to the AGO upon her death in 2008. While these three artists’ vocabularies are distinct and diverse, when presented together, the installation will provide new insights into these artists’ dedicated and focused work in the studio. For each, the studio was a private creative space which allowed them to test, work and rework, question and imagine. Through intense work and discipline in the studio, each artist, in her own way and in her own discipline, pushed the boundaries of tradition and presented new possibilities for art – Hesse with sculpture, Martin with painting and Goodwin with drawing. And, it is significant that, while they were not exactly contemporaries, the 1960s was a key decade for each of them.

Betty Goodwin: Notebook 62, 1972-1976. Promised gift of the artist to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo: Craig Boyko, Art Gallery of Ontario. © 2010 Estate of Betty Goodwin.BC: When did Goodwin and Martin come into the picture?

The differences between the three are poignant: Martin’s ascetic studio space in the desert versus Goodwin’s space, which was a living archive, filled with objects. Despite her death at the age of 34 in 1970, the fact that Hesse had an immense impact in less than a decade of art production contrasts with Goodwin’s and Martin’s longevity and long productivity.

BC: The Hesse exhibition comes to the AGO from Edinburgh; you curated the Goodwin exhibition and your AGO colleague, Michelle Jacques, curated the Martin works. Although these shows were organized separately, it seems that you want viewers to make connections among them. What do you hope viewers take away?

GU: Yes, the three exhibitions are together under one umbrella title: At Work. The work done by artists in the studio – making that labour visible and real for visitors – is the key idea. How an artist works is either mythologized, or completely undervalued and misunderstood. We wanted to bring to the forefront and explore the work that it takes to make art. How does this work manifest itself? And, it is fascinating to think that Martin’s work is all hidden by the final presentation. Her labour was in thinking and writing, and layering of paint. Goodwin’s spirals out of her many notebooks, all her notations, found imagery, objects, etc. - all so meticulous, and yet so different in approach and execution. Just like Hesse; her studio work is finished work, she exhibited it during her lifetime. And yet, they are experiments as well, which parallel her more well known practice.

BC: What are one or two of the high points among the three exhibitions for you?

GU: The Hesse and Goodwin material has never been shown to this extent before and with such focus. Being able to enter Hesse’s studio through this work is a definite highlight. Only one person, except for the artist, was able to flip through Goodwin’s notebooks during her lifetime. This is the first time she is sharing them with the public. And, I cannot wait to stand in the middle of Martin’s monumental masterpiece The Islands (1979) – one work composed of 12 canvases. It is going to be the highlight of the year.

At Work: Eva Hesse, Betty Goodwin, Agnes Martin opens at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Sept. 22 and runs until Jan. 2, 2011. Showing concurrently is a major exhibition of American artist and film maker Julian Schnabel, which runs Sept. 1 to Jan. 2, 2011. Will Munro: Total Eclipse continues in the Toronto Now space until Sept. 26.

More Toronto

Patrick Howlett: to know oneself does not seem natural, 2010.

Patrick Howlett: the possible and the real
Susan Hobbs Gallery
Sep 8 to Oct 16, 2010

In his second solo exhibition at this gallery, the Toronto-based Howlett presents a new series of elegant and restrained geometric abstract paintings (done with egg tempura) along with a suite of cut and routered panels, which will add a new dimension to the artists’ ongoing examinations of the ‘meaning’ behind abstraction. An exhibition by Arnaud Maggs follows from October 21 to December 4.

Alex McLeod: Spectral, 2010. C-print.

Alex McLeod: Spectral
Angell Gallery
Aug 26 to Sep 25, 2010

Toronto-based Alex McLeod presents disorienting, richly detailed, computer-generated landscapes in his first showing at Angell Gallery, which relocated earlier this year to a larger space on Ossington Avenue. McLeod’s futuristic landscapes are utopian and dystopian at the same time, lush and vibrant, but also devoid of people, which opens them up to myriad interpretations. Gallery artist Jakub Dolejš also shows new three-dimensional works.

Hadley + Maxwell: Improperties. installation view of altered antiques, collage and paint at SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, 2010. Photo: Niels Vis.

Hadley + Maxwell: Improperties
YYZ Artists Outlet
Sep 9 to Dec 11, 2010

This summer, the Berlin-based, Canadian duo of Hadley + Maxwell undertook a residency at YYZ, and the results of it - sculptural works composed of reconfigured and recombined objects that examine ideas around criticality and rearticulating materials - will be on display throughout the fall. The works are part of an on-going series titled ‘Improperties‘. A new series of lithographs by Toronto-based Barbara Balfour opens at the same time.

Scott McFarland: Marina, 2010.

Scott McFarland: Sans Souci
Clark & Faria
Sep 22 to Nov 17, 2010

For his most recent photographs, McFarland visited the small island of Sans Souci (‘without worries’) in Georgian Bay. The exhibition centres around two large photographs of the island’s marina and the activity surrounding it; the images feature the same images in the foreground, but with different skies, which ties into McFarland’s interest in portraying variations within a single body of work. A new series of photographs taken with a pin-hole camera round out the exhibition.

Dan Bergeron: Junction Joe, 2010. chromogenic print.

Dan Bergeron: Faces of the City
Show & Tell Gallery
Sep 10 to Oct 3, 2010

Street artist Dan Bergeron, who also goes by the moniker ‘fauxreel’, shows new wheat paste images within the gallery space and in different locations around the city. New editioned prints of his works in situ will also be shown. New paintings by the artist known as Know Hope follows from Oct 8 to 31.

Aaron Carpenter: Autumnal Dolour. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy RBC.

RBC Painting Competition
The Power Plant
Sep 25 to Oct 3, 2010

Paintings by the 15 finalists in the 12th annual RBC Painting Competition touch down briefly in Toronto before the winner is announced in October. Newly commissioned works by the iconic Ian Wallace and the American artist Pae White, whose work was featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, run from Oct 9 to Jan 2, 2011.

Amanda Clyne: Before the Looking Glass, 2010, oil on canvas.

Amanda Clyne
P/M Gallery
Sep 30 to Oct 23, 2010

Emerging Toronto painter Amanda Clyne culls imagery from the world of fashion and fame and transforms them into complex composites in her first solo exhibition at P/M. Tension is created in the work through the artist’s treading of a fine line between beauty and ugliness. Another Amanda – this time painter Amanda Reeves – shows works rooted in post-impressionism and colour field painting from Oct. 27 to Nov. 30.

N.E. Thing Co.: Simulated Photo of the Moon's "Sea of Tranquility" Filled with Water and N.E. Thing Co.'s Signed Placed Beside It, 1969. Silver gelatin print and ink, 60.7 x 86.3 cm. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

TRAFFIC: Conceptual Art in Canada
University of Toronto art galleries
September 11 to November 28, 2010

The Justina M. Barnicke, Blackwood and Doris McCarthy galleries mount a major, multi-site exhibition surveying conceptual art in Canada from 1965 to 1980. Arising from progressive social movements of the 60s and 70s — women’s liberation, gay rights — and the general anti-establishment and anti-institution mindset, conceptual art remains one of the longest-lasting and influential movements in art history. The exhibitions will focus on themes of appropriation, mimicry and adaptation, and paint a picture of the dynamic networks established by artists across Canada during this time. A conference stemming from the exhibitions takes place from November 26 to 28.

Save the Dates!

• Spend the day exploring Toronto’s galleries during the Canadian Art Foundation’s Gallery Hop on Sep 25.
• Toronto’s all-night art extravaganza, Nuit Blanche, takes place all over the city on Oct 2.
• The Magenta Foundation’s first Flash Forward Festival takes place in Liberty Village from Oct 6 to 10.
• Art dealers from across Canada and around the world converge at the Toronto International Art Fair from Oct 28 to Nov 1.