About —
Being marginal presumes a position on the periphery of dominant social, cultural, or artistic norms. Although it usually has a negative connotation, nonconformity can also be conceptualized as a position of resistance and action. During this season, organized around the theme “On the Margin,” we present three exhibitions that convey this idea at different levels.
History shows that marginality may be something that is suffered or, on the contrary, something that provokes action. In this positive sense, fringe positions flow through societies and situations in the form of countercultural ideologies and collective movements. The exhibition organized by curator Esther Trépanier on abstract art in Montréal in the 1940s features four artists who were well known and widely exhibited in their time, but who have since been largely forgotten by historians. These artists didn’t sign the Refus global manifesto and weren’t affiliated with the Automatiste movement, although they were contemporary with, or even preceded, those who did. Although they created abstract works, their backgrounds and influences took them in a direction that diverged completely from Riopelle, Borduas, Leduc, and Ferron, to mention only those renowned modern painters. Revisited today, the works by these four artists make it possible to imagine a history of abstract art in Canada that is more complete, profound, and richer. Here, “On the Margin” is manifested as a differentiating factor and a strength.
During her career, Rita Letendre both set herself apart and took action. Tenaciously forging her own path, Letendre stood out as a pioneer in monumental mural art – a practice reserved mainly for men. The posthumous exhibition that we are presenting underlines the coherence and richness of her work through a selection of pieces from the MAJ collection.
We are also featuring the first solo exhibition in Québec by the Albertan Indigenous artist Faye HeavyShield. From sea to sea, Indigenous artists remain invisible, even today. In HeavyShield’s case, this isolation is due both to her ethnic origins and to her “nomadic” and minimalist art practice, which is difficult to market. She manifests active marginality by defying the restrictions of labels, the differentiations among art media, and the traditional classifications of the art world. The issues that she deals with – family, clan, and connections with the land and nature – are primordially important but often consigned to oblivion, as they do not yield profits or speak of development and growth.
The different peripheral positions featured this season at the MAJ offer examples of artists, practices, and movements, both historical and contemporary, that swing the pendulum back toward highlighting more varied and fuller views of society. Such recognition of a diversity of contexts and positions, as well as unconventional artistic approaches, is reminiscent of the arguments made by Geeta Kapur, the great Indian theoretician of art, around the validity of different paths taken on the outer edges of dominant discourses. There is no single path to practising and theorizing art; in fact, there are many, and each one must be travelled on its own terms.
Jean-François Bélisle, Director and Chief Curator, and Julie Alary Lavallée, Curator of Collections
Images in the banner:
© Marian Dale Scott, Atom, Bone and Embryo, 1943. Photo: Art Gallery of Ontario.
Marian Dale Scott, Endocrinology, Mural, pavillon d’anatomie et de médecine dentaire Strathcona, Université McGill, Huile sur plâtre, 369 x 494 cm.
La Collection des arts visuels de l’Université McGill, Montréal, commandée par le Dr Hans Selye. Photo in the exhibition: Brian Merrett. Photo: Romain Guilbault
Views from the Fall opening at the Musée d’art de Joliette, 2022. Photo: Romain Guilbault