And yet we still remain, going around, and again in dominion's plot at the Dalhousie Art Gallery

It’s not clear what to expect from an exhibition with the title “And yet we still remain, going around, and again in dominion's plot....” It’s a group show at the Dalhousie Art Gallery featuring, principally, Guelph photographer Lisa Hirmer’s photos of piles of dirt left behind at construction sites, but it also includes research photographs and sketches for Lawren Harris’ iceberg paintings, and Halifax artist Gerald Ferguson’s abstract, mostly black-and-white canvases. Its aim seems to be to tell a story about our relation to land in Canada and the evolution of landscape art. However, after reading the exhibition texts, curator Andrew Hunter’s narrative feels forced. Alongside Hirmer’s, Harris’ and Ferguson’s work ¬are sketches of Nova Scotia landscapes – drawings and prints of birds and trees by various artists from the gallery archives. Is this a story of Canada or Nova Scotia?



“And yet we still remain, going around, and again in dominion's plot....”, Dalhousie Art Gallery, 2016, installation view

Despite this confusion, the three main artists do work together, as hill-like and rounded forms echo each other. Would it have been simpler to let the viewer draw their own conclusions about their connections without the landscape sketches and broad historical narratives? If you compare this exhibition with another landscape-focused Nova Scotian exhibition – the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s Terroir survey – Hunter seems as though he’s added work just to fill space. Amid the artworks are several large, bold quotations transferred on the wall, large enough to distract from the individual pieces. One text refers to the “whiteness” of the Group of Seven’s work. Without further context, it’s unclear whether the curator is addressing race or Arctic landscapes. This is particularly puzzling in an exhibition focused on three white artists – one of whom consciously chose to eliminate traces of Inuit life from his art – while the other spaces in the gallery show, uncommonly, two smallerexhibitions looking at Black Nova Scotian history.

Focusing on Hirmer’s, Harris’ and Ferguson’s work, what stands out is the minimalism of the three – their simple lines and static landscapes. How has the country evolved from Harris’ icebergs to Hirmer’s construction sites, from the early romanticizing of the North through to the romanticizing of subdivisions? Is there an inherently Canadian narrative here? Can Ferguson, as a conceptual artist (and American-born to boot), really be considered within the context of Canadian landscape art? There are more questions certainly and similarities, but I’m not sure if the most crucial ones have come to the surface.


Dalhousie Art Gallery: http://artgallery.dal.ca/
“And yet we still remain, going around, and again in dominion's plot...” continues until November 27


Laura Kenins is a writer and comic artist currently based in Halifax. She has written for CBC Arts, C Magazine, Canadian Art, The Coast and other publications.