A MASTER IN CONTEXT
Josée Drouin-Brisebois, senior curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Canada, stands in front of Capsule by Rashid Johnson. The work is part of an exhibit that adds diversity and context to the works of the Dutch master Rembrandt.
The National Gallery of Canada reopens today with an important new Rembrandt exhibition that also includes contemporary works by Black and Indigenous artists that give a different perspective on the 17th-century period commonly known as the Dutch Golden Age.
The showstopper is unquestionably The Blinding of Samson, Rembrandt's dramatic large-format visualization of the violent climax of the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah, painted in 1636. On loan from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, it's the first time it's being shown in Canada and, yes, it is the must-see centrepiece of this summer's exhibition, which runs to Sept. 6.
But in contrast to that masterpiece is an even larger work by Kent Monkman, the acclaimed Canadian artist of Cree heritage. It's called The Triumph of Mischief, an action-packed 2007 acrylic painting, part of the NGC collection, that reclaims the landscape tradition and populates it with an array of subversive characters that satirize most of Western art history.
To see Monkman's Miss Chief Eagle Testicle and her admirers in a Rembrandt exhibition is unexpected, almost jarring, but it's a placement that challenges one to reflect on the influence of religion, race, gender and the sense of cultural superiority that has driven generations of white, male artists. Plus it has a cheekiness that will make viewers smile.
There are dozens more works featured in Rembrandt in Amsterdam: Creativity and Competition, the gallery's first Rembrandt show and the result of five years' work by a team of experts led by guest curator Stephanie Dickey, a Queen's University authority on 17th-century art in the Netherlands.
The exhibition focuses on the artist's development in the Dutch capital, a period described as the “transformative central decades of his career” by assistant curator Kirsten Appleyard, and also includes pieces by 20 other artists of the time. Among them are friends and rivals such as Nicolaes Maes, Govert Flinck and Bartholomeus van der Helst.
“Rembrandt didn't become Rembrandt in a vacuum,” Appleyard said. “It was this stimulating, dynamic artistic milieu in Amsterdam that really pushed him to reach his full potential as an entrepreneur, artist and mentor.”
Of course, while the people of Amsterdam were going wild for art, their countrymen were on a streak of invading, enslaving and colonizing the rest of the non-European world. And in keeping with the NGC's mission to modernize the 141-year-old institution, home to the world's largest collection of contemporary Indigenous art, a new curatorial approach was called for to illustrate the impact of colonization.
“The premise is to think through what it means to show Rembrandt here in this place at this moment,” said Jonathan Shaunessy, the
former contemporary art curator who's now the gallery's first director of curatorial initiatives. “We wanted to look at what was happening here on Turtle Island at the time.”
While the Monkman painting may be the most revealing, alternate perspectives are explored in several strategically located pieces in the exhibition. Highlights include the Two-Row Wampum Belt by Cayuga Chief Jacob Ezra Thomas, which symbolizes peaceful coexistence between Indigenous peoples and settlers, and two beautiful beaded works by Saskatoon-based Cree artist Ruth Cuthand. Entitled Smallpox and Pneumonia, they provide a reminder of the devastating effect of Old World diseases spread by European traders.
Outside the Rembrandt show but inside the building are two more compelling new installations commissioned by the NGC. At the entrance is a towering, elaborate framework of steel shelving filled with plants, books, video screens and yellow blobs that represent shea butter. The multi-layered autobiographical expression by New York-based artist Rashid Johnson also includes a platform where musicians will perform.
The second installation is Tau Lewis's Symphony, which fills the rotunda with a central mother figure, a smaller childlike figure and garlands of textile flowers that reach to the ceiling. Hand-crafted from reclaimed fabrics and dyed in gentle hues, the intricate piece constitutes a celebration of life that prevails over the legacy of oppression.
Also on view this summer is a collection of prints assembled over 40 years by the Canadian couple Jacqueline McClaran and Jonathan Meakins. The Collectors' Cosmos includes European and North American prints spanning the 15th to 20th centuries, ranging from Pieter Bruegel the Elder to John James Audubon.
For more information, and to book a timed-entry ticket, go to gallery.ca.