The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is celebrating seven powerful new exhibitions as it launches its Winter Season, from new works to a different look at classics, from the far north to the sky above.

Agnes curators and invited guest curators are presenting a rich range of art dating from the 1500s to the current moment, including several recently acquired works.

The launch event will take place Thursday, Jan. 16 from 6-7:30 pm.

NEW EXHIBITIONS

Inuuqatikka: My Dear Relations
Jan. 11-April 12
This exhibition features video works, ephemera and production material created by Arnait Video Productions, the world’s leading women-centered Inuit filmmaking collective. Arnait represents the voices of Inuit women across generations, addressing traditional knowledge and contemporary life. This exhibition is part of Arnait’s March 2020 artist residency at Queen’s Vulnerable Media Lab, which includes intergenerational dialogues, workshops, and screenings. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Archive/Counter-Archive and the Vulnerable Media Lab.

The exhibition is curated by Nakasuk Alariaq, Linda Grussani and Tamara de Szegheo Lang.

The Pathos of Mandy: Walter Scott
Jan. 11-April 12
In Walter Scott’s new body of work, the central character is Mandy, an artist who has lost all legal ownership of his fictional character. A film follows Mandy through various vignettes of hubris and desperation as he attempts to piece together who he is, both personally and artistically, now that the central focus of his art practice is gone. The film and the accompanying installation are together a meditation on the slippery states between the fiction and reality of the “artist,” of aesthetic representation and of the self. 

Fresh from New York’s International Studio & Curatorial Program, Scott is this year’s Stonecroft Artist-in-Residence at Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

B-Side Agnes Etherington: Paul Litherland
Jan. 11-Aug. 9
Montreal-based photographer Paul Litherland offers unprecedented access to the little-seen “back sides” of paintings from the Agnes’s historical European collection in B-Side Agnes Etherington. Printed to scale, his photographs are mounted on commercial painting stretchers, which lend them the aura of original canvases while offering privileged views of labels, installation hardware and preservation devices. Enlightening viewers about the physical histories of Old Master paintings, this exhibition invites viewers to contemplate notions of the simulacrum and the trompe-l’oeil tradition.  

From Tudor to Hanover: British Portraits, 1590-1800
Jan. 11-Aug. 9
In recognition of a number of spectacular acquisitions in recent years, From Tudor to Hanover: British Portraits, 1590-1800 investigates the evolution of the painted and printed portrait in Britain. The desire to fashion the self, record achievement and cultivate fame has appealed to British citizens since the early modern era. Accordingly, this show explores the fundamental issues of identity – gender, class and status – by presenting portraits by Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller and others in the context of evolving national and cultural boundaries.

Face to the Sky: From the Collections
Jan. 11-Aug. 9
Face of the Sky turns its gaze upwards, tracking a longstanding artistic fascination. In feature works from the Agnes’ contemporary and historical collections, skies swarm with figures, depicting spiritual epiphanies and embedded histories that seem to both belong to the land and carry transcendent potential. Taking inspiration from artist John Hartman’s drypoint landscapes, the exhibition combines Inuit printmaking, Italian Renaissance angels, Canadian mystical landscapes, modernist sculpture and contemporary mediations.

Playing Doctor: General Idea Multiples
Jan. 16-April 12
Affordable and ubiquitous, General Idea multiples were an activist means of disseminating activism. The Canadian collective, comprising AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, was an international artistic force. From the 1970s through early 1990s, they sent into the world art editions in various media that played upon consumerism, collaboration, media culture, queer counterculture and AIDS. Playing Doctor samples three decades of multiples-making from the Agnes collection, revealing the interconnectedness of General Idea’s ironic, often humorous, and self-referential practice.

Quest for Colour: Five Centureis of Innovation in Printmaking
Jan. 11-April 12
Printmaking is essentially a linear medium. How, then, to achieve the tonal richness of painting? Quest for Colour explores the inventive techniques through which printmakers from Albrecht Dürer to Andy Warhol have sought to answer this challenge. Curated by students in the Art History Program at Queen’s University, with Professor Stephanie Dickey, Bader Chair in Northern Baroque Art.

CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS

To April 12: The Art of African Ivory

To Sept. 6 2021: Sandra Brewster: Blur

A members’ preview is being held ahead of the launch starting at 5 pm.

To learn more visit the Agnes Etherington Art Centre website.