The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is making room for Indigenous art more than ever with new acquisitions and major exhibitions. Starting Tuesday, the day after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the facade of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion will serve as the backdrop for a video work by Inuit artist Glenn Gear, based in Montreal.
“We have begun a major catch-up effort in order to highlight artists who were previously under-represented,” underlines artist and curator Léuli Eshrāghi, the first person to occupy the position of “curator of indigenous practices” at the museum, since July 2023. This is the first position of its kind for a French-speaking institution in the world.
Since her arrival, Léuli Eshrāghi has worked within three acquisitions committees — those devoted to Quebec, Canadian and American art — in order “to build bridges between cultures and represent all geographic areas of the continent.”
Thus, the MMFA now allocates 12% of its acquisitions budget to Indigenous art, or approximately $130,000 per year. In five years, the museum has acquired 131 works by Inuit or First Nations artists.
“We have already made a lot of progress, just with our acquisitions budget, 95% of which comes from private donations,” explains Léuli Eshrāghi. When we have a core group of local artists, we will then be able to expand to other regions of the world. My wish, for the moment, is to make our museum a reference in terms of indigenous art in the country. »
Inuit art
Latest symbol of this shift: the video work of Glenn Gear, a Montreal artist originally from Nunatsiavut (Newfoundland and Labrador), which will be projected on the facade of the institution’s oldest pavilion.
Titled ulitsuak (rising tide), it is made up of an assemblage of beadwork photographs by the artist, inspired by Inuit tattoo traditions. “Glenn Gear’s work also draws on his questions of identity as an Inuit person living in an urban environment in Montreal,” says Léuli Eshrāghi. He also takes an ecological look at the animal world, representing in this work the Arctic char, a species dear to the Inuit. »
Inuit art is also at the heart of one of the museum’s largest indigenous projects. Starting November 8, the MMFA will open new spaces dedicated to it, on the ground floor of the Michal and Renata Hornstein pavilion. The new permanent exhibition which will be presented there, ᐆᒻᒪᖁᑎᒃ uummaqutik: essence of lifeimagined by Inuit artist and curator Asinnajaq, will bring together more than 60 works which will be updated throughout the seasons. Today, some 300 Inuit artists can be found in the institution’s collection.
This openness to Inuit art was even welcomed in an article in the New York Times last week. We learn that the museum collaborated with five “Inuit advisors” to design the new exhibition. Léuli Eshrāghi rightly affirms that “collaboration, canvassing partnerships with the indigenous cultural and community environment” is one of the main objectives of his mandate.
“We also want to get closer to indigenous audiences,” explains Léuli Eshrāghi. We recently made admission to the museum free for Indigenous people from here and abroad, following the example of other institutions, such as the McCord Stewart Museum. We wish to inspire, through the arts, diplomacy between the people who share our territory. »
Kent Monkan
The MMFA’s efforts to highlight Indigenous art will culminate in September 2025 with a major exhibition dedicated to Ontarian Kent Monkman — a first for an Indigenous artist in the history of the institution founded in 1860.
A major star of contemporary art in the country, Monkman has already been the subject of an exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum in 2019 and presented two paintings in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2020. The exhibition at MBAM will bring together 40 monumental paintings by the artist.
It is curated by Léuli Eshrāghi and John Lukavic, curator of indigenous arts at the Denver Art Museum. For Eshrāghi, it is “an unexpected privilege to present a major exhibition so soon” after taking office. “Monkman makes direct references to Canadian history from a subversive perspective and denounces the consequences of the climate crisis on indigenous peoples. With his powerful paintings and his sense of humor, he is not only an essential gateway to discovering Canadian indigenous art, but also a major artist of our time. »