Beadwork holds within it stories of resilience and resistance. Dating from time immemorial, his practice is reflected today in museums and galleries, as if the art world had developed a sudden and growing interest in this at a time when it is moving more and more in the direction of decolonization. At the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), the challenge of presenting the largest exhibition devoted to this technique was taken, and succeeded. Métis, Inuit and First Nations artists show the extent of plastic and conceptual research, with more than 100 works which, one thing leading to another, weave the fabric of an intergenerational know-how that is more current than ever.
A project that invites celebration
The exhibition Pearl, radically draws its strength from the daring collaborative work carried out upstream by its three curators. Sherry Farrell Racette, Michelle LaVallee and Cathy Mattes started thinking about the project more than five years ago… And were temporarily slowed down by the pandemic. Rather than giving up on the project, they developed a particular museological complicity by focusing on the complementarity of their respective fields of knowledge. Coming from distinct provinces, the three put into practice, they joke, the art of curating by text message, a virtual space allowing them to send each other proposals relevant to the development of the exhibition.
Unmissable works, projects unearthed at the Santa Fe Indian Market (the only place which, unlike artists’ studios, could be visited) and distinguished artists appearing on the first selection list for the Sobeys prize have multiplied there. Gathered around a large puzzle to put together, the commissioners had to make numerous choices, but still did not ignore the work of Nico Williams, Nadia Myre, Carrie Allison, Christi Belcourt, Carla Hemlock, Catherine Blackburn, Hannah Claus, Maria Hupfield and so many others. Gathered into various themes and sometimes also amalgamated according to their materiality, the projects with their often stunning aesthetic provide a broad panorama of the diversity of ideas recommended in this art.
Set up by the Mackenzie Art Museum, the project is now in its fourth iteration. Its presentations are different each time: the curators engage in remodeling according to the space provided by the venues and the dialogues that the works generate between them. Bringing certain projects back and forth from one exhibition to another, the proposal has therefore changed somewhat in five years. The version presented at the NGC is its most imposing embodiment: it celebrates excellence in the field of beading.
Reconnect with ancestral practices to regain agency
The works of First Nations artists have often been excluded from official art history. Their art objects, generally intertwined in systems of exchange, celebrations or rituals, were considered functional, and therefore breaking with the traditional notion of fine arts, established according to European and Western criteria. This marginalization was perpetuated until very recently: in the last century, the entry of rare indigenous artistic works into museums still had an anthropological and colonizing objective.
“Our bodies were our art galleries,” says Michelle LaVallee. Excluded from the traditional artistic circuit, members of indigenous, Métis and Inuit communities nevertheless shared their lives with their artistic productions, from the first moccasins given at birth to the flamboyant regalia of powwows. The Indian Act, which for (too) many years prohibited any cultural manifestation to First Nations individuals, could have marked the decline in these ancestral artistic practices intertwined with daily life. Yet here we are at the NGC with the largest exhibition dedicated to beadwork.
That Pearl, radically offers to the public as well as to the communities is dizzying: it brings together all these historical layers in contemporary productions which bridge the gap between past, present and future in a critical, humorous, reflective or even commemorative way. She thus shows beading as an act of power and agency. Bead by ball, work by work, we see the astonishing capacity of technique to tell and rewrite, as one of the exhibition’s curators, Cathy Mattes, points out: “It’s fascinating how radical a couture is, like a very small step forward that links us to the previous step and to the one that will follow; it’s an important gesture, a way of responding and taking back. »
The “radicality” mentioned in the title is in fact a radicality of care, attention and benevolence for beading, whose capacity for preservation and updating over time is impressive. The works presented in the exhibition illuminate all the finesse of this manual work with its staggering complexity and touching symbolism. “We are accustomed to wrapping our loved ones in pearly love,” Mattes tells us. This sensitivity shines through in each of the proposals. Like so many offerings, they lead us to encounter innovative creations and a future with promises of respect and inspiration.