by Staff Writer, The Globe and Mail

Canadian Art, Fall 2011
Taking “Ideas of North” as its theme, the current Canadian Art attempts to rehabilitate the iceberg nationalism of Lawren Harris et al (still well represented on the advertising pages) to suit a new age focused on global issues of climate change and indigenous survival. The quest takes novelist Lisa Moore to Fogo Island, Newfoundland, the hauntingly barren site of the country’s most far-out art residency program, while fellow novelist Timothy Taylor visits Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk in Igoolik. Two other stories follow artists on look-and-learn sailing voyages in Arctic waters. The tensions that arise are best expressed by Winnipeg photographer Sarah Anne Johnson: “How do you make art about a cause?” she asks. By way of a helpful primer, Sara Angel celebrates the 40th anniversary of Joyce Wieland’s seminal True Patriot Love exhibition at the National Gallery, recalling the last time that unabashed nationalism was a leading project of the English-Canadian avant-garde.

Read the full article by Sara Angel here.