Marcel Dzama (b. 1974), The sisters of nature parade on the flood, 2023, pearlescent acrylic, ink, watercolour, and graphite on paper, 39.7 x 40.6 cm, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner. © Marcel Dzama.
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art is pleased to present:
Ghosts of Canoe Lake
A solo exhibition by Marcel Dzama
November 22, 2024 – March 8, 2025
Opening Reception | Friday, November 22, 2024, 8 – 10pm
Live Chat with with Marcel Dzama, Wayne Baerwaldt, Guy Maddin, Alison Norlen and Robert Enright | Saturday, November 23, 2024, 2pm
Plug In ICA is thrilled to invite you to the opening reception of Ghosts of Canoe Lake, a solo exhibition featuring Marcel Dzama. This exhibition will take place in our galleries from November 22, 2024 to March 8, 2025. To celebrate the opening of the exhibition please join us on Friday, November 22 from 8 to 10 pm for an opening reception where the artist will be in attendance, and Saturday, November 23 at 2 pm for a Live Chat conversation with Marcel Dzama, Wayne Baerwaldt, Guy Maddin, Alison Norlen, in an informal discussion moderated by Robert Enright. The conversation will focus on Dzama and his work while touching on his history and the impact Winnipeg had on his development.
Marcel Dzama is one of Canada’s most intriguing expatriates, an artist who works in myriad media to express his fantastical and sometimes unsettling vision. Originally from Winnipeg, where he entered the art world as a founder of the famous Royal Art Lodge (once dubbed the new Group of Seven by a zealous journalist), Dzama moved to New York in 2004, continuing a career that has become increasingly international in scope.
This exhibition marks Dzama’s return to the Canadian museum scene after more than a decade with a new body of work inspired by the occasion. Here the artist revisits themes of landscape drawn from Canadian art history and his own memories of a childhood spent in the wilds of Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan—all while confronting a natural world threatened by climate change. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven come in for special attention, as Dzama plays with the legacies of the landscape painters who came before him.
This exhibition was organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in partnership with Contemporary Calgary.
Marcel Dzama was born in 1974 in Winnipeg, Canada, where he received his BFA in 1997 from the University of Manitoba. Since 1998, his work has been represented by David Zwirner. The artist has had fourteen solo exhibitions with the gallery and has exhibited widely in solo and group presentations throughout the United States and abroad.
Guy Maddin has directed or co-directed thirteen feature-length movies, including Rumours (2024), My Winnipeg (2007), and The Saddest Music in the World (2003). His screenplay and film-story collaborators include Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, poet John Ashbery and longtime friend George Toles. His movies Archangel (1990) & The Heart of the World (2000) both won National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Experimental Film.
Wayne Baerwaldt is a visual arts curator based in Western Canada. His best-known curatorial projects trace performative elements in artmaking with an emphasis on unstable, disputed identities in diverse spaces. Recent projects include Leesa Streifler: The Performance of Being (co-curated with Jen McRorie) Marie Lannoo: In Extremis and Ydessa Hendeles: Grand Hotel.
Robert Enright is a Winnipeg-based critic who first wrote about Marcel Dzama in 1998 and has since published a number of articles and interviews about him in various magazines. He is the senior contributing editor with Border Crossings and Research Professor in Art Theory and Criticism in the School of Fine Art & Music at the University of Guelph.
Alison Norlen received a BFA (Honours) degree from the University of Manitoba in 1987, and MFA from Yale University in 1989. Alison teaches at the University of Saskatchewan and lives and works in Saskatoon. In 2020 Alison was inducted as a Fellow into the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) and has been awarded as one of the U of S’s Distinguished Professors.
Acknowledgments
We are on Treaty 1 Territory. Plug In ICA is located on the territories of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the National homeland of the Red River Métis. Our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation.
Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without their continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at https://plugin.org/support or by contacting Gilles Hébert, Interim Executive Director at executivedirector@plugin.org.
For more information on public programming and exhibitions contact info@plugin.org.
For general information, please contact: info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043