Curatorial Talk
Canadian Art Hop at the McMichael
Coinciding with the inaugural Canadian Art Hop weekend organized by the Art Dealers Association of Canada, explore two of the McMichael’s current exhibitions with curators Emily Laurent Henderson and John Geoghegan.
Kananginak Pootoogook’s Birds
With Emily Laurent Henderson
12:30 pm
Discover the art of Kananginak Pootoogook, an instrumental founding member of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, through the eyes of Emily Laurent Henderson, Associate Curator of Indigenous Art and Culture. Kananginak Pootoogook’s work is imbued with deep emotion and playful humour, both of which are supremely evident in the McMichael’s current installation featuring one of his favourite subjects – birds. Depicted in flight, nesting, feeding, and interacting with one another, each bird has a unique personality to be discovered by the viewer.
Bertram Brooker: When We Awake!
With John Geoghegan
2 pm
Join John Geoghegan, Associate Curator of Collections and Research, to learn about the polymath artist Bertram Brooker and the exhibition Bertram Brooker: When We Awake!, curated by Michael Parke-Taylor. Brooker is recognized for being the first Canadian artist to exhibit abstract art in the 1920s, but, as Geoghegan will reveal, that is only one facet of a remarkable artistic career that included literary illustrations, art criticism, and expressive portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and nudes.