NAC window gallery celebrates 50 years of art
Before Niagara Artists Centre moves on to its March events, it’s celebrating its past.
“Art-athon,” a modified exhibit on view in the St. Paul Street gallery’s front window space, digs through the gallery’s 50year history to show how it helped change the region’s arts scene.
“It’s like the NAC archives exploded and the contents are splattered all over the inside of our storefront windows,” said NAC director Stephen Remus.
Installed by visual artist and NAC member Matt Caldwell, the show celebrates the former volunteers and staff members “who worked to make life in Niagara more interesting.”
Through the decades, Remus said NAC has been empowered by people who “challenged themselves and they challenged their audiences.”
“The challenges came in many forms, but it was always a variant on a theme: What are your thoughts on this as someone living in Niagara?”
With the gallery closed because of the pandemic, its renovated window space has become its temporary viewing space. But it hasn’t been without problems — a brick was recently thrown through one of the windows during a spree of downtown vandalism. Remus said a community member stepped forward with a donation to replace the window and keep the exhibition going.
The show is also a rarity for NAC in that it’s looking backwards this time.
“It’s 50 years of doing what can’t really be summed up, accounted for, or even neatly explained in a narrative,” he said. “And we can’t help with that. NAC is already looking ahead.”
The exhibition runs to the end of February.
Also this month, NAC is celebrating Black History Month with a special online screening of the 1972 documentary “Nationtime,” about the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Ind. The screening is $8, with all proceeds going to the Niagara Region Anti-racism Association.