New books, new art
Gallery presentation followed by reception and book launch Thursday
This week the Confed Centre Art Gallery presents an ArtTalk with artist John Greer and launches two new books.
The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) will be presenting “Greer View Mirror,” a selection of early work by Nova Scotia-born artist John Greer. To introduce the new exhibit, an ArtTalk with John Greer happens Thursday at 7 p.m. at the gallery.
The Oct. 12 talk will be followed by a reception and the launch of two recent CCAG publications. “New Positions: Alexis Bulman, Andrew Cairns, Monica Lacey, Alexandra O’Sullivan” documents a recent exhibition of these P.E.I. artists at early stages in their careers. The second new publication, “RE:collection,” features 150 works of art from the CCAG’s Canadian Art Collection along with an introduction by CCAG director, Kevin Rice, and short interpretive texts by 35 writers bringing multiple viewpoints to the publication. Such major works as Robert Harris’s “The Atelier Bonnat,” 1882; Arthur Lismer’s “Sand Lake Algoma,”
1923; Kenojuak Ashevak’s, “The Arrival of the Sun,” 1962; Jean Paul Lemieux’s, “Charlottetown Revisited,” 1964; Teresa Marshall’s sculpture, “Peace, Order and Good Government,” 1993; and Robert Houle’s recently commissioned painting, “O-ween du muh waun (We Were Told),” 2017, are featured. Greer’s 1981 sculpture, “TV Idol Time”, (which is currently on exhibition in “Greer View Mirror”) is also reproduced.
“This wonderfully illustrated
book documents key works in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery’s Canadian Art Collection,” said Rice.
“I am very pleased with the collaborative nature of this project looking at a selection of diverse works from the collection.”
Greer was associated with the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto (1970 to 1990) and his exhibition looks back at that period. It was a time when Greer’s work was characterized by
a humble scale, a love of visual and verbal puns, and an interest in engaging viewers through surprise and paradox. Greer is one of Canada’s most critically acclaimed artists of the past 40 years. He received the Governor General’s Award in 2009 and his monumental sculptures have been commissioned in Canada, Italy, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States.