Document generated on 10/01/2021 1:19 a.m. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review Leah Modigliani, Engendering an Avant-Garde: The Unsettled Landscapes of Vancouver Photo-Conceptualism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018, 296 pp. 41 b/w illus. £ 80 (hardcover) ISBN 9781526101198 Christine Conley Volume 44, Number 1, 2019 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1062157ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1062157ar See table of contents Publisher(s) UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des universités du Canada) ISSN 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Conley, C. (2019). Review of [Leah Modigliani, Engendering an Avant-Garde: The Unsettled Landscapes of Vancouver Photo-Conceptualism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018, 296 pp. 41 b/w illus. £ 80 (hardcover) ISBN 9781526101198]. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 44(1), 105–107. https://doi.org/10.7202/1062157ar Tous droits réservés © UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Association d'art des universités du Canada), 2019 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Ray Ellenwood, Professor Emeritus and Senior 16. Françoise Sullivan, Musée d’art contempor- of feminist political and cultural Scholar at York University in Toronto, is an award- ain de Montréal, October 20, 2018 to January 20, agitation ? winning translator and author of Egregore : A History 2019. Curator : Mark Lanctôt. 286-page catalogue. of the Montréal Automatist Movement. In 1998, he 17. Julian Rosefeldt, Manifesto. October 20, While this question forms the crux organized a symposium, exhibition, and concert 2018 to January 20, 2019. Curator : Lesley John- of the text, successive chapters elab- at York University to celebrawte the fiftieth stone. No catalogue. orate an extended discourse analysis anniversary of Refus global, and he continues 18. Partitions, October 20, 2018 to January to write and publish extensively about the 20, 2019. Curator : François LeTourneux. No of how international critical acclaim Automatistes. catalogue. has embraced Vancouver photo-con- — [email protected] 1. For a much more detailed account than I can offer here, see Sophie Dubois, Refus global, His- Leah Modigliani toire d’une réception partielle (Montréal : Les presses Engendering an Avant-Garde : de l’université de Montréal, 2017), or François- The Unsettled Landscapes of Vancouver Marc Gagnon’s Chronique du mouvement automatiste québécois, 1941–1954 (Montréal : Lanctôt Éditeur, Photo-Conceptualism 1998). Manchester : Manchester University 2. See, for example, Philippe Dubé, « Quand Press, 2018 le culte occulte, » Le Devoir, July 8, 1998. 3. As a sign of the general acceptance of Refus 296 pp. 41 b/w illus. global as a historically important document, con- £ 80 (hardcover) iSBN 9781526101198 sider the fact that Françoise Sullivan, one of the signatories, was invited to read from the text dur- ing celebrations in Quebec City to mark the 250th anniversary of the battle of the Plains of Abraham Christine Conley (see Jérôme Delgado, “Borduas, héros oublié ?”, Le Devoir, February 20, 2010.) 4. Borduas, les femmes automatistes et Refus global, at the BAnQ Vieux-Montréal, September In Engendering an Avant-Garde, Leah ceptualism as a continuation of Euro- 11,18 and 25 from 13 :30 to 15 :30. Modigliani examines the absence pean investments in and perspectives 5. François-Marc Gagnon et l’histoire de l’art au of women artists in Vancouver on the modernist avant-garde — with Québec, held at the Musée de l’imprimerie du Québec on October 19, from 9 :00 to 14 :30. photo-conceptualism, from its incep- frequent analogies to nineteenth [Editor’s note : Professor Gagnon died March 28, tion in 1968 to its identification as the century French painting, for instance, 2019. See the memorial note in this issue.] “Vancouver School,” a global brand in the case of Jeff Wall — rather than 6. La tendresse des nuages (Fernand Leduc), Gal- erie Catalogue, Montréal, August 25 to November that emerged in early 1990s writing considering how the specificity of 10, 2018. Curator : Pierre Bourgie. about Jeff Wall and Ian Wallace and Vancouver production might illumin- 7. Marcel Barbeau : en mouvement, Musée nation- variously encompassed Ken Lum, ate the global possibilities for that al des beaux-arts du Québec, October 11, 2018 to January 6, 2019. Curator : Eve-Lynne Beaudry. Christos Dikeakos, Rodney Graham, project as a social process. Modigliani 240-page catalogue. Roy Arden, Arni Haraldsson, and Stan claims this exclusionary dynamic par- 8. This part of his work is well described Douglas. Modigliani positions this allels the “exclusionary structure of by Rober Racine in “Danser la peinture,” one of the essays included in the catalogue of the self-declared vanguard within a critic- settler colonial populations’ need to exhibition. al discourse generated by the likes of control territory,” hence her under- 9. Not surprisingly, that exhibition made Andreas Huyssen, Johanne Lamou- standing of art discourse as a “trans- little or no mention of Riopelle’s Automatist past, in part because he himself tended not to give it reux, T. J. Clark and Griselda Pollock, fer narrative” (17) linked specifically much importance, but also because it was not who have revealed how the historical here to the absence of local inhabit- relevant to the period of his relationship with avant-garde perpetuated patriarch- ants, including Indigenous peoples, Joan Mitchell. al privilege through dichotomous in the “defeatured” landscape of Van- 10. Françoise Sullivan, The modern.toronto, Toronto, September 20 to November 17, 2018. thinking (the feminine as alterity) couver photo-conceptualism. Curator : Paul Bradley. that situated “women or others as The first chapter focuses on Wall’s 11. We have since learned that this gallery is oppositional to the mission of a early transparencies Picture for Women closing, which is a shame because it was certainly an attractive exhibition space. self-selective male group identifica- (1979) and The Destroyed Room (1978) to 12. Françoise Sullivan, Galerie Simon Blais, tion.”(9) Her study considers how consider how the feminist content Montréal, October 10 to November 24, 2018. Cur- this dynamic was manifest in Van- of these works was overlooked due ator : Paul Bradley. No catalogue. 13. Refus global — 70ième anniversaire, Galerie couver photo-conceptualism. Male to the hegemony within art history Simon Blais, Montréal, September 6 to October 6, artists, consciously engaged with of “patriarchal experiences of pub- 2018. No catalogue. the concerns of the historical avant- lic space and theoretical knowledge 14. Les Automatistes en trois temps, Galerie Michel Guimont, Montréal, September 23 to Oc- garde, explored social alienation in production” (16) over feminist critical tober 23, 2018. 36-page catalogue. the urban landscape in the absence approaches, such as Laura Mulvey’s 15. Refus global : 70 ans, Québecor espace of female agency, yet maintained “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cin- musée, Montréal, October 2, 2018 to January 9, 2019. Curators : Simon Blais, Paul Bradley, Claude images of women in their work. How ema.” Reviewing analyses of these Gosselin. 24-page catalogue. did this happen during a period works by prominent critics Donald racar 44 (2019) 1 : 99–122 105 ⇢ Leah Modigliani, Engendering an Avant-Garde : The Unsettled Landscapes of Vancouver Photo-Conceptualism British Crown’s contractual promises groups, and visiting artists such as to Indigenous peoples. Robert Smithson were dismissed as Kuspit, Arielle Pélenc, and Kaja Silver- A related strategy was the disloca- ahistorical and romantic. Notably, a man, Modigliani counters their reluc- tion of Indigenous art works from significant proportion of the artists tance to acknowledge the violence their sites of origin to museum collec- singled out for their lack of criticality of representation that is spelled out tions. Disconnected from the speci- were indeed women, including Liz in Wall’s back-lit photos. Picture for ficity of land and embodied subjects, Magor, Marian Penner Bancroft and Women reveals the vectors of vision such artifacts could be displayed and Joey Morgan. that position woman as object of promoted as remnants of a bygone Chapter four concerns the “Defea- the gaze, yet Wall clearly retains con- era, rather than living cultures, and tured Landscape” of photo-concep- trol of the camera’s shutter release. promoted for their aesthetic qualities tualists in the 1970s, who garnered Similarly, The Destroyed Room stages a independent of symbolic or ceremon- international recognition and com- scene of violent destruction against ial value. The presentation of Emily mercial success in tandem with the an absent woman in what is visibly a Carr’s paintings alongside Indigenous opening up of Vancouver to inten- stage set constructed by the artist. Not visual culture in The Exhibition of Can- sive capital investment and develop- documentary then, but what ? Fan- adian West Coast Art : Native and Modern in ment after Expo