The Missing Corner—Legends lost and found at Satellite Gallery

by Rhys Edwards

The eclecticism of the O’Brian collection encourages patrons of Cindy Sherman meets D’zunukwa to find parallels between works which wouldn’t normally be shown together. Although Sherman’s pre-eminent status within recent art history warrants her inclusion in the title of the exhibit, the combined efforts of the show’s four curators have produced an array of relational meanings which extend far beyond her immediate presence. The most interesting of these meanings, arguably, reside in the far corner of Satellite’s first gallery space.

My Hands are My Heart: Shigeyuki Kihara’s Language in Motion

by Katherine Somody

Gabriel Orozco’s My Hands are My Heart (1991)

To view the work of Samoan­-Japanese artist Shigeyuki Kihara on display at the Satellite Gallery, one must first navigate past a heavy black velvet curtain, like that which is raised to mark the start of a show on a grand stage. This is a theatrical space, a space of performance, it seems to tell us. Indeed, behind the curtain we find Kihara dancing excerpts of the classical Samoan taualuga in three video pieces that interrogate ways of seeing and complicate expectations of performer and audience.

Shigeyuki Kihara’s Alter Ego and the Past and Present of Samoa

by Areum Kim

After meeting artist Shigeyuki Kihara at the reception for Paradise Lost? I was excited to have the chance to hear her speak about her work. As a part of the International Symposium of the Pacific Arts Association, Kihara, along with other artists in the exhibition, gave a presentation on her video work which is currently being shown at Satellite Gallery.

Laughter into Tears: Ayman Baalbaki’s Destination X

by Rhys Edwards       

 

When I take visitors on tours of MOA, I occasionally bring them into the Audain Gallery to show them our major contemporary art exhibition, SAFAR/VOYAGE. Although visitors express an interest in all the works in the room, there is one piece in particular which seems to draw the most enthusiastic response: Ayman Baalbaki’s Destination X.

The Sacred Objects: In Conversation with George Nuku

As we are preparing for LAB, our experimental summer tour program, in conjunction with Paradise Lost? Contemporary Works from the Pacific, we met with artist George Nuku in his workshop at the Museum of Anthropology to discuss his plans for an intervention in the Great Hall. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation with the artist.

Conversations of Old and New but Always “Pleased to Meet You”

by Janine C. Grant

Wheel-thrown vessels by Gwyn Hanssen Pigott

Approaching the potter’s wheel requires a particular mindset.  You sit down with a lumpy, potato-shaped wad of clay, smack it down on the wheel head, seal the bottom and envision the bowl, mug, plate, or jar you wish this mass to become.  But in order for the imagined to become reality you must prepare yourself for the negotiation that will be dictated through the medium of your hands.

The New Design Gallery, Chief Henry Speck, and Modernist Art on the Northwest Coast

by Liza Montgomery

New Design Gallery: On the frontier 1955 – 1966 at West Vancouver Museum

Early- to mid-century modernist art is enjoying a resurgence in our city’s cultural institutions this summer in the form of three independently curated, yet interestingly related, art exhibitions.  The Satellite Gallery’s Projections: The Paintings of Henry Speck, Udzi’stalis (organized by the UBC Museum of Anthropology) and the West Vancouver Museum’s New Design Gallery: On the frontier 1955 – 1966 provide divergent narratives to the canonical offerings of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s latest summer blockbuster, Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters. The two more modestly scaled exhibitions examine the particularities of modernism’s emergence on the Northwest Coast.

Mapping Henry Speck’s Journey

by Karen Duffek

“Eaton’s Salutes our Native Indian Culture,” Vancouver Sun, 18 July 1967

In 1967, just a few blocks from where Satellite Gallery is now located, Eaton’s staged an exhibit that included the work of our current featured artist, Henry Speck. It was the year of Canada’s centennial, and the department store put on Eaton’s Salute to Indian Culture. It was a public celebration of Native arts and cultural practices arranged from street level to the sixth floor, with artifact displays and carvers demonstrating their craft in between racks of clothing and hardware, chiefs offering autographs on Saturday between 2:00 and 4:00 pm only, samples of barbequed salmon, and a few non-Native artists showing paintings of Indian people and totem poles.

Camera Absentia: B/I

by Sean Michael Nelson

How does one express the grief over the loss of a loved one? Roland Barthes wrote several works in the wake of his mother’s death, among them Camera Lucida, a personal reflection on the essence of photography. In it, Barthes notes that the “photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain what has been.” Ishiuchi Miyako’s (石内 都) photographic series Mother’s (2000 – 2005) is one instance where photographs say what-is-no-longer through what-has-been.

Art, History, and Hiroshima

By Rhys Edwards

                                                   Photo by Ishiuchi Miyako

After several exhibitions throughout Japan since 2008, ひろしま hiroshima  by Ishiuchi Miyako opened recently at the Museum of Anthropology, marking the exhibition’s first foray into North America. Artist Ishiuchi Miyako began her professional photography career in the 1970s, and since then has become one of Japan’s foremost contemporary photographers. As an artist, she is predominantly concerned with the notion of personal memory and how it is disseminated through the human body as well as material objects.