New retrospective explores 50-year career of First Nations artist Robert Houle
CBC News | December 03, 2021
Categories: news
Exhibit runs at Art Gallery of Ontario until April 17 before touring Calgary, Winnipeg
The half-century-long career of renowned Saulteaux and Anishinaabe artist Robert Houle is the focus of a new major retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario titled "Red is Beautiful."
The exhibition, named after one of Houle's earliest pieces, features more than 100 works, including monumental paintings, intimate drawings and large-scale installations as well as personal and archival photos.
Putting together the show has been two years in the making but a dream of Houle's for longer. The artist, who is 74, wanted to do a retrospective before he turns 75 next year. His work has been part of two other major shows but this is the largest exhibit to date.
"It's kind of frightening. Makes me realize how old I am," Houle said with a chuckle during a phone call.
"You still get [goosebumps] and anxiety no matter how many professionals are helping you put up your paintings, your installations, your objects. It's still very nerve-racking."
The retrospective opened Friday in Toronto.
Houle is often regarded as one of the most influential First Nations artists since breaking into the contemporary art scene in 1970. The Art Gallery of Ontario's website describes his work as blending abstraction, modernism and conceptualism with First Nations esthetics and histories. His work explores themes of Indigenous sovereignty, Ojibway spiritual traditions, major resistance movements and the residential school era.
Houle grew up in Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation in southern Manitoba. As a young boy, he was forced to attend a residential school in the community, and as a teen was sent to another residential school in Winnipeg. Like many other Indigenous boys and girls, Houle says he was stripped of his language and culture and faced abuse while attending the institutions.
Later in life, Houle began to use art as a way to heal the wounds of the past.
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