As Canada’s sixth-largest city, and a rapidly growing one, Winnipeg has great art galleries that have been around for more than 20 years. Ideally, art institutions should grow together with the ever-more diverse population. How do these galleries keep newcomers and existing citizens engaged and included in their exhibitions? Have they changed their curatorial approach according to the changing narrative in the art world? Three prominent art galleries – WAG-Qaumajuq, the School of Art Gallery and Gallery 1C03 – are under the microscope regarding the strategies of resistance stated by Maura Riley in her book Curatorial Activism. Guided by Riley’s ideas, I have undertaken a brief statistical look at how the exhibitions in Winnipeg galleries have changed over the past 20 years.
The three strategies of resistance are revisionism (shining a light on those who have been marginalized in the past), area studies (introducing new canons to fill the gaps in the history of art), and relational studies (putting aside the categories commonly used to group artists or artworks and letting audiences find their own meanings).
The Winnipeg Art Gallery presented 58 exhibitions from January 2003 to December 2004. Most of the shows mainly featured white male artists, the majority being European or Western painters. Only nine of the 58 exhibitions focused on the works of women artists, and only seven featured Inuit artists/artworks (two of those were displayed under the name of collectors of European descent). Even though those numbers are not impressive, it became clear that the curators and the director at the time, Patricia Bovey, had worked towards inclusivity. Napachie Pootoogook, which was on view from June 1 to September 19, 2004, is a good example of how the gallery endeavoured to give a voice to individual Inuit artists. This solo show of an established Inuk woman artist had the same weight of importance as other exhibitions featuring Western male artists.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery has recently gone through a major makeover, building a new Inuit art centre called Qaumajuq and renaming itself WAG-Qaumajuq, which furthers its decolonization/reconciliation process. This year the gallery has offered numerous shows that are responsive to today’s social and cultural context. The focus has moved away from Western high art and has expanded to include a range of established and emerging Indigenous artists from the province and across the country (e.g., Tarralik Duffy’s Gasoline Rainbows), artists with different cultural backgrounds (e.g., IHSAN – Islamic Heritage Month 2024), and themes that provide a deeper understanding of a discourse not usually explored in a public space (e.g., Dominique Rey’s MOTHERGROUND). This embracing of diverse dialogues at the city’s largest art institution is proof of successful efforts toward moving forward in step with Winnipeg’s growing, increasingly diverse population.
The School of Art Gallery at the University of Manitoba, formerly known as Gallery One One One, presented a total of nine exhibitions in 2003 and 2004. In 2003, one exhibition spotlighted a work by a New York-based woman artist, Out My Window by Myrel Chernick. In the same year, there was a show featuring the Kakegamic brothers, Goyce and Joshim, who were already well known at that time for their Woodlands style. With those two exceptions, the rest of the exhibitions during the two-year period I am examining consisted predominantly of male artists of European descent.
Refreshingly, this has changed. The School of Art Gallery has opened its doors to emerging artists coming from across Canada and all over the world who are studying at the School of Art, and to other artists who are often excluded based on their sexuality, gender, race, etc. Women at War, curated by Monika Fabijanska, provided a woman’s perspective on the ongoing war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through works by 12 contemporary women artists from Ukraine. Three current MFA candidates’ thesis exhibitions adorned the walls of the gallery over this past summer (Agata Garbowska’s hauntings, Takashi Iwasaki’s In My Living Room and Benjamin Perron’s What If the Sun Didn't Rise). The array of unconventional and conventional media and the distinct background of each artist were inspiring for the Fine Arts undergraduate students and the community at large. A recent retrospective of work by a Winnipeg woman artist, Sheila Butler: Other Circumstances, demonstrates how far the institution has come.
Seoyoung Kim
Of the three galleries, Gallery 1C03 has the shortest history, but since its inception in 1986 it has been a crucial part of Winnipeg’s arts community. The gallery had four shows per year during 2003 and 2004. Five of the eight exhibitions were solo shows celebrating a woman artist. Also offered during that period was a group show of women artists to mark International Women’s Day, featuring former MAWA mentees. Gallery 1C03 has actively worked against the mainly white male world of art from the beginning by providing women artists with exhibition opportunities and offering the public a chance to see their work. But in 2003-4, there were gaps in diversity with regard to race and sexuality.
In the exhibitions organized in recent years, Gallery 1C03 has embraced artists of different ethnicities, nationalities, and gender identities. All four shows held at the gallery in 2024 featured women, non-binary and/or queer artists. Legs, a collaborative exhibition by Christine Fellows, Chantel Mierau and Jennifer Still, featured three Winnipeg women artists who have mastered three different forms of art. Christina Battle’s FORECAST was a commentary on the climate crisis through mixed media works that focus on the complexity of challenges the globe faces. The In-Between by local artist Laura Lewis captured her queer fellow artists in the most captivating way with her large-scale portraits. (KC Adams’s Seven Generations was not yet on view when this article was written.)
In the past 20 years, Winnipeg has begun to transform its art scene with inclusivity and diversity. There is always room to grow, but there is no doubt that the continuous efforts by the three art galleries have made a difference. Hopefully they help Winnipeggers and visitors of all backgrounds feel welcomed and seen.
Seoyoung (Alyssa) Kim is a recent Art History graduate from the University of Manitoba and an emerging art historian. She currently works as a gallerist in Winnipeg.
