It was therefore necessary for a museum in Germany to take an interest in this Abenaki documentarian, storyteller and singer for Quebec and Canada to pay her an important tribute, finally, when she is over 90 years old. Certainly, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presented, in 2019, 40 prints created by Alanis Obomsawin… But let’s agree that this is not the most spectacular aspect of her creation. Obomsawin is best known and acclaimed for directing, since 1971, 56 documentary films — almost all of which can be found on the NFB website — which earned her the prestigious Edward MacDowell Medal in 2023, an award that was also given to Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, David Lynch…
It therefore took the initiative of the Maison des cultures du monde in Berlin and the partnership of the Vancouver Art Gallery for this retrospective to be developed, also presented at the University of Toronto Art Museum in the fall. 2023. And as we always need a foreign perspective to know if our artists are interesting, let’s quote the New York Timeswhich explained how Obomsawin “challenged the global systems established by colonialism”, “contributing with Merata Mita”, a Maori director, “to launch a movement”, that of indigenous cinema.
And now our media are celebrating this artist passionate about issues of social justice and ecology. The TV show Everyone is talking about it invited her, the newspapers gave her an important place… But let’s remember that our society has not always been so excited by her creations. For example, his film on Kanesatake and the Oka Crisis — which you absolutely must see — was not so well received. At a press conference, Obomsawin recalled how a film critic at the time had very strongly criticized him for having shown white people throwing stones at Native people while calling them savages!
Born in New Hampshire, having lived on the Odanak reserve until the age of 7, then in Trois-Rivières and since then in Montreal, Obomsawin has created a work very directly addressing the questions of the self-determination of indigenous peoples , suicide in their communities, internal colonialism in the country, residential schools for Indigenous people…
By browsing this retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), the visitor may wonder if this is really the right place to present it. Would the Cinémathèque have been more appropriate? When the MoMA devoted a retrospective to him in 2008, it did so through a cycle of films screened over several days in a room suitable for cinema. In the context of a contemporary art museum reduced to cramped premises, one will be seized with doubt.
Here is an exhibition that deserved to breathe easier than being stuck in this mini-MAC. In front of the many screens presenting 12 hours of films and more than 12 hours of interviews, there is sometimes only one seat for spectators… But as the Montreal curator of the exhibition, Lesley Johnstone, explains, “the idea is not for the viewer to watch all the films in their entirety, but to show the extent of his work and to make people feel the changes in the artist’s speeches and creation. The format of the exhibition allows us to show his films alongside his drawings, his engravings, his masks, documentation showcases with his letters… The aim is to show the diversity of his art and to invite the people to go see his films.”
A catalog?
We are astounded to see that this exhibition is not accompanied by a catalog in French. It seems that the MAC does not have enough money to translate the English catalog! Doesn’t such a historically significant work demand such a work? I remember…