The Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) unveiled its new exhibition, Open Edition, curated by Heather Anderson and Sandra Dyck with special help from Diana Hiebert, on June 5.
This exhibit is important for Carleton’s history—it marks the gallery’s 25th opening anniversary, and it honours Carleton’s 75th anniversary. Open Edition focuses largely on prints from several featured Canadian artists, as well as an array of older prints within the collection.
“We chose to focus on the collection to celebrate because the collection majorly defines what the gallery is. And printmaking has always been a big part of the collection from the earliest days—before there was a gallery,” Anderson said.
CUAG has a known history for printmaking. When it was established in 1992, it had been built up by its first director, Michael Bell, who became popular for receiving print donations from numerous artists.
“He would solicit donations of entire bodies of work,” Anderson said. “So some of these artists[in the collection] we would have 50 to 100 prints by them thus the collection grew quite rapidly.”
By the mid-1960s to the 1980s the university’s committee of fine arts, made up of volunteers, invested in a wide range of Canadian and European prints. The budget for this was provided by various Carleton presidents at the time.
CUAG’s backbone today includes prints by historic French, Canadian, European, and Indigenous artists. As well, it has one of the largest university print collections in Canada—there are over 8,000 prints in the collection and only 100 prints have been selected for Open Edition.
The exhibition includes prints by Canadian and international artists dating from the 16th century all the way to present day and it only gives its visitors a microscopic glimpse of what the collection holds.
Most of the prints haven’t been displayed before and Anderson said CUAG’s main goal is to bring them into conversation along with what contemporary working print artists are producing today.
To bring in the modern element, CUAG invited seven Canadian artists who have works outside of the collection: Ciara Phillips, Ningiukulu Teevee, Mohamed Thiam, Guillermo Trejo, Étienne Tremblay-Tardif, Erika Walker, and Melanie Yugo.
Many of the prints within Open Edition and the ones that have been selected or featured, especially the prints by Indigenous artists all shine a light on Canadian history, and the progression of technology. Some of the featured prints by Erica Walker subtly expose the impact of technology on the environment.
“This particular series, all of the text comes from treaties, like crown treaties with Indigenous land treaties and land claims,” Anderson said. “The wording is very clear and all the imagery though are machinery and labourers in resource extraction.”
Trejo, an Ottawa-based artist, was invited to be the collection’s invitational artist, meaning he was invited to research the collection.
Trejo looked at historical prints within the collection. His piece, A Galaxy Reconfigured (2017), is comprised of historic European prints from CUAG, as well paper, Mylar, cabinets, and metal stands. His works symbolically resembles a storage unit used in the printing workplace.
Anderson added that Trejo has been very creative in how he has displayed the collection in a contemporary fashion.
“He has used them to create compositions or ‘constellations,’ as he calls them. You open each drawer and he has focused in on details of all the different prints,” Anderson said.
“By drawing us into these small details he is forcing us to look in a deeper way than we normally would when staring at the prints. The way it’s impossible for anyone to look at an entirety of our collection.”
The Open Edition exhibition will be at CUAG until August 23.
Photo credits: Rory Clark
