Jean-Paul Riopelle @ Vancouver Art Gallery - "Riopelle: Crossroads in Time" Retrospective Exhibition

Riopelle: Crossroads in Time

Vancouver Art Gallery

March 21 - September 1, 2025

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of works by JEAN-PAUL RIOPELLE (1923–2002) in Vancouver’s history. A towering figure in Canadian art, Riopelle remains one of the nation's most significant artists of the twentieth century. Organized by the National Gallery of Canada to mark the centenary celebration of the artist's birth, Riopelle: Crossroads in Time brings together almost 100 works drawn from 20 Canadian and international private and public collections, including two paintings from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Guest curated by art historian and independent researcher Dr. Sylvie Lacerte, this extensive exhibition offers an original take on Riopelle’s creative output, highlighting his commitment to freedom of expression, his experimental ways of working, and his visionary and innovative approach.

Riopelle: Crossroads in Time is part of the Jean Paul Riopelle Centenary celebrations — a global initiative of the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation that honours the boundless creative spirit and enduring legacy of one of Canada's most iconic artists.

The celebrations were initiated in 2019 by renowned philanthropist and collector Michael Audain, Chair of the Audain Foundation, and past Chair and Cofounder of the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation: “I consider Jean Paul Riopelle to be one of the greatest Canadian artists of all time. Over the past five years, the Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation curated an exceptional program to mark the centenary of his birth. Never before has one of our national artists been celebrated this way. We consider this to be our collective duty of memory. And we hope it will inspire others, so we may see our cultural heroes duly acknowledged for their contribution to the history of Canadian and international art. I am grateful to both the National Gallery of Canada and to the Vancouver Art Gallery for bringing this exhibition to British Columbia.” 

Anthony Kiendl, CEO & Executive Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery, reflects on the significance of this presentation and the support that made it possible to bring the exhibition to the West Coast of Canada: “We feel privileged to present Riopelle: Crossroads in Time at the Vancouver Art Gallery as the grande finale of the artist’s centenary celebrations. We are grateful to our presenting sponsor, The Audain Foundation, who made it possible to give Vancouver audiences this incredible opportunity to experience Riopelle’s remarkable work and the new perspectives that the exhibition offers.”

Spanning five decades of Riopelle’s creative journey—bringing together paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and collages—Riopelle: Crossroads in Time recognizes the breadth of Riopelle’s imagination and the diversity of his work and interests. The exhibition is organized chronologically to highlight his far-ranging practice and explosive periods of creativity, from the popular works of his youth, such as Le perroquet vert [The Green Parrot] (1949), to his final works, including Sans titre (Autour de Rosa) [Untitled (Around Rosa)] (1992). Early works from the 1940s mark the development of a spontaneous painting style inspired by his brief time as part of Les Automatistes, an influential group of Québécois artists. By the 1950s, when Riopelle’s work was being shown all over the world, he had arrived at what became his signature “mosaic” style in which he manipulated the paint with a palette knife to create bold shapes and energetic compositions. The exhibition spotlights several stunning canvases from this defining period, including La Roue II [The Wheel II] (1956) and Chicago II (1958).

In the 1960s Jean-Paul Riopelle moved fluidly between sculpture and painting, and the exhibition features several bronze sculptures from this period, as well as paintings and prints created in the 1970s that were inspired by the imagery and atmosphere of the Far North. His final work from the 1980s and 1990s represents a surprising turn with colourful panel paintings peppered with spray paint and glitter. The exhibition will also unravel Riopelle’s creative and cultural connections through the inclusion of a selection of works by his contemporaries, including Sam Francis, Alberto Giacometti, Roseline Granet, Joan Mitchell and Françoise Sullivan, which draw out influences and exchanges that shaped the artist’s life and work over time.

This exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Canada as part of the Jean Paul Riopelle Centenary celebrations. The Jean Paul Riopelle Foundation, co-founded in 2019 by Canadian philanthropist Michael Audain and Yseult Riopelle, the artist’s daughter, orchestrated a vast program to mark the centenary, leading to national and international celebrations and to the acknowledgment of Jean Paul Riopelle as a Canadian cultural icon. For decades Riopelle’s experimental works have inspired generations of artists in Canada and around the world.

Jean-François Bélisle, Director and CEO, National Gallery of Canada, reflects on the celebrations: "We were honoured to present Riopelle: Crossroads in Time on the occasion of the centennial year of Jean Paul Riopelle's birth. From one of our best-attended openings of 2023 to innovative music and dance events, this major retrospective of works by this legendary Canadian artist was a huge success. I would like to underscore the importance of partnerships between our country's museum institutions to make Canadian art accessible to all Canadians, from coast to coast to coast. Following its opening in the National Capital Region, we were elated to see the show have an outstanding run at the Winnipeg Art Gallery last summer. I would now like to express my gratitude to the Vancouver Art Gallery for hosting the final stop of this exhibition.”

Offering a unique take on Canada’s famed artist, this visually spectacular exhibition presents Riopelle’s renowned works alongside many which have been rarely shown in public. The presentation at the Vancouver Art Gallery also features works by Jean-Paul Riopelle from the Gallery’s permanent collection, including his bold composition Sous le Mythe de Gitskan No. 3 [Under the Myth of Gitskan No. 3] (1956)—which has not been shown for more than a decade—and Figure libre-Parure [Free figure-Adornment] (1967). In preparation for the exhibition, Figure libre-Parure [Free figure-Adornment] has undergone extensive conservation treatment. Delicate consolidation, infilling and inpainting took place to resolve areas of unstable cracking and lifting paint. Now stabilized, preserved and newly framed, the painting is ready to be seen in its full brilliance.

“Jean Paul Riopelle was the first post-war Canadian artist to achieve international status. He is a pillar of our history, who has left in his wake a multifaceted body of work that encourages pushing past boundaries, and this is perhaps his greatest legacy,” says Dr. Sylvie Lacerte, Art Historian and Independent Researcher. “Underlining the extraordinary career of this prodigious artist enables us to keep the memory of his accomplishments alive. Riopelle was first and foremost a trailblazer, and that is precisely what made him an eminently contemporary artist. He was invested in the present moment; situating him at a crossroads in time highlights the currency of a body of work that will always be in the here and now.”

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Sylvie Lacerte, Art Historian and Independent Researcher. The Vancouver Art Gallery presentation is coordinated by Siobhan McCracken Nixon, Associate Curator. 

Riopelle: Crossroads in Time

National Gallery of Canada, 2023

Hardcover, 208 pages, 10 x 12 inches

ISBN 9780888849663

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue. This thoughtfully designed hardcover publication, edited by Sylvie Lacerte, includes essays by artists and art historians, including Gilles Daigneault, Vera Frenkel, Manuel Mathieu, Caroline Monnet, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf and Marc Séguin, who reflect on Riopelle’s legacy.

VANCOUVER ART GALLERY

750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H7

www.vanartgallery.bc.ca

George Legrady Digital Art CODE Live 2010

 

George Legrady is professor of art and of media arts at University of California, Santa Barbara. He will be showing his work in an exhibition that is part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad Festival. Legrady's "We Are Stardust" is one of more than 40 digital art installations in CODE Live, an 18-day event that features visual art, music, and performances fueled by digital technology and audience involvement. It began on February 4 and continues through February 21, 2010.

 

  Georges Legrady. Photo courtesy of UCSB.

 

"We Are Stardust" is a two-screen projection installation that maps the sequence of 36,034 observations made by NASA's Earth-orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope during the five-year period from 2003 to 2008.

On one screen, an infrared camera in the gallery space sequentially replays the history of the telescope's movements. At the same time, it records the thermal presence and movements of visitors to the gallery. Those images are superimposed with data retrieved from the telescope's log that correlates with information such as the observation number, name of the celestial body target, the vertical and horizontal angles of the telescope, the observation date, duration, the name of the chief researcher, and which of the three onboard instruments were used to make the observation.

 

  “We Are Stardust" heat-sensing camera screen. 
   © Georges Legrady, UCSB. Courtesy UCSB

 

On an opposite screen, a visually projected map of the universe represents deep space. The animation begins with the birth of the universe and follows with the sequence of the 36,034 observations over a five-hour period. Randomly moving points eventually settle into star locations in the universe .

 

  “We Are Stardust" observation sequence screen. 
   © Georges Legrady, UCSB. Courtesy UCSB

 

"The intent of the project is to consider our relationship to both local and deep space, and how we conceptualize and situate ourselves in relation to such spaces," said Legrady, whose work focuses on how data and various forms of information are represented. "This is realized by visually mapping the schedule of scientific observations based on NASA data consisting of what celestial bodies were looked at, when, for how long, and by whom.

"In contrast to this mapping, the heat-sensing camera mounted in the gallery performs in a similar fashion to the Spitzer heat-sensing instruments and simultaneously follows the same sequence of pointing instructions to record thermal images of the public moving through its field of view in the gallery space," he said.

"We Are Stardust" was originally commissioned as installation artwork by the Art Center College of Design and NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, both of which are located in Pasadena. The installation was featured in the "Observe" exhibition at the Art Center College of Design in 2008. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA.

Engineering for the project was realized by Javier Villegas, doctoral student in UCSB's Department of Media Arts & Technology.

Emily Carr New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon at Vancouver Art Gallery - A Retrospective Exhibition

Emily Carr

New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon

Vancouver Art Gallery

October 7, 2006 — January 7, 2007

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents a fresh look at the life and art of EMILY CARR (1871-1945) in the first national touring retrospective exhibition of the artist’s work in more than thirty year. Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon examines the painter through the lens of her exhibition history and extraordinary life to reveal a complex woman of extreme talent and conviction. Beginning with a partial recreation of the first exhibition of Carr’s work on the national stage, the exhibition also examines the artist as a modernist painter and explores how her persona and her work have been portrayed and interpreted over time. Jointly organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, the exhibition features nearly 200 objects by Emily Carr and others, including paintings, drawings, watercolours, caricatures, ceramics, sculpture, hooked rugs, books, maps and photographs. Nearly 150 works of art from the National Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery and other major institutions are included, along with works from private collections.

“Emily Carr is a vital part of Canadian and British Columbian history, and we are proud to pay homage to her with this sweeping exhibition during the Gallery’s 75th anniversary year,” said Kathleen Bartels, director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. “As the holder of the world’s most significant collection of Carr’s work, the Gallery has a long tradition of exhibiting her art and contributing to the scholarship surrounding it. With this touring exhibition and the accompanying book, our visitors have the opportunity to better know the woman behind the stunning canvases.”

Emily Carr began serious study of art in her late teens after leaving home in Victoria, British Columbia to attend the California School of Design in San Francisco. Returning for a brief time, Emily Carr soon left Victoria again to attend the Westminster School of Art and study in the studios of a number of British artists. But, it was her year in France between 1910 and 1911 studying Post-Impressionist art that Emily Carr found most inspiring. In 1911, she returned to Vancouver with a commitment to document the First Nations cultures of British Columbia, a project she began in 1907, and produced a great number of watercolours and corresponding canvases in her new French style. These works met with mixed reception until 1927, when her paintings were included in the National Gallery’s Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art Native and Modern, where they were embraced by members of the famed Canadian painters, the Group of Seven. She returned to British Columbia to begin the most productive period of her career, venturing out into remote parts of coastal British Columbia and creating the inspired, powerful canvases for which she is best known.

Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon begins with a reconstruction of the seminal Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art Native and Modern, which introduced Carr’s work to the Canadian art establishment. This remounting of the landmark exhibition is presented in its original spirit, with contemporary works of the time mixed with historical objects of First Nations heritage. Carr’s early paintings intermingle with Haida, Tsimshian and Kwakwaka’wakw masks, house posts, carvings and textiles, as well as a selection of works by artists Anne Savage, Paul Kane, Langdon Kihn, and Group of Seven members Edwin Holgate and A.Y. Jackson.

The next section of the exhibition considers Carr as a modernist painter, drawing inspiration from the 1945 Emily Carr Memorial Exhibition presented the year of her death at the Art Gallery of Toronto. Gathering a selection of Carr’s finest works dating from 1910 to 1942, this section illustrates the artist’s skillful use of colour and form, inviting viewers to explore her unique and expressive style. Abandoning her attempts to create straightforward portrayals of First Nations life and art, the exhibition reveals Carr’s exquisite endeavour to describe the fundamental nature of her subject. It is here that Carr’s interests in primitivism and spirituality shine through in her paintings of First Nations sculpture and the dramatic landscape of coastal British Columbia.

The final section of Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon provides a unique perspective on the artist from a postmodern viewpoint. It introduces the many voices that have been brought to bear on Carr and her work, and examines Carr’s self-construction through her caricatures, self-portraits and writings. This section also evaluates her relationship to the landscape and considers her role in the development of cultural tourism on the northwest coast.

Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon was on display at the National Gallery until September 4, 2006. After showing in Vancouver, the exhibition will travel to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario from February 24 to May 20, 2007, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from June 21 to September 23, 2007 and Calgary's Glenbow Museum from October 25, 2007 to January 26, 2008.

The exhibition is curated by Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator, Ian Thom, National Gallery curator of Canadian art Charles Hill, and Johanne Lamoureux of the Université de Montréal. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a major full-colour book, including essays by all three curators and several notable historians and critics, published with Douglas & McIntyre.

VANCOUVER ART GALLERY

750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6Z 2H7

www.vanartgallery.bc.ca

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Carr, O’Keeffe and Kahlo: Places of Their Own, Vancouver Art Gallery, June 15 - September 15, 2002

Daniel Richter, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa - Pink Flag – White Horse - A Touring Exhibition

Daniel Richter

Pink Flag – White Horse 

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

25 June – 10 September 2005

The National Gallery of Canada presents German artist DANIEL RICHTER’s electrifying, large-scale paintings in the new exhibition Daniel Richter: Pink Flag - White Horse, in the Contemporary Galleries.

 

The Berlin-based painter, who built his reputation with abstract works, has attracted an increasing amount of critical attention in the past few years for his massive representational paintings, 9 of which are featured in Daniel Richter: Pink Flag - White Horse.

Daniel Richter draws inspiration from found images that include reproductions of artworks, book covers, film stills, newspaper clippings, comics and album covers. With his brush, this material is transformed into spectacular compositions that explode with violence, fear, political struggle, urban alienation and social transformation.

“The paintings in Daniel Richter: Pink Flag - White Horse are both unsettling and beautiful,” says Pierre Théberge, Director of the National Gallery of Canada. “Together, they represent a unique and significant contribution to 21st century art that is just now being discovered by a broader North American audience.”

Born in Germany in 1962, Daniel Richter has participated in numerous European exhibitions. 

This is his first touring exhibition in North America. Daniel Richter: Pink Flag - White Horse is the result of a collaboration between Wayne Baerwaldt, former director of the Power Plant in Toronto; Kitty Scott, Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada; and Scott Watson, Director and Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver.

The exhibition, which also includes a display of ephemera from the artist’s studio, is accompanied by a colour catalogue with an introduction by the curators.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA

380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1N 9N4

www.gallery.ca

Frank Tam Retrospective, Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver

Frank Tam: Restrospective
Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver
May 5 - July 30, 2000

Art Beatus Gallery presents a solo exhibition of works by artist, Frank Tam. Included in the Retrospective are ink paintings from the early years and mixed media installations created later in his career.

Frank Tam was one of the most remarkable artist to which he demanded a critical examination of Eastern and Western cultures. Frank Tam's study of traditional Chinese ink painting with Chao Siao-eng, a great master of Lingnan school enabled Frank Tam to gain a full understanding of traditional Chinese painting techniques and because the Lingnan school was the first to incorporate a Western influence into traditional Chinese art he was aware of Western Art practices.

Frank Tam immigrated to Canada in 1972, and his art began to grow substantially. He became dissatisfied with traditional Chinese media and began to consciously question Eastern and Western traditions and discovered a link between Eastern and Western philosophy's. The purpose of Chinese painting is not to explain the world, but rather to achieve a universal balance between nature and the artist. It follows that the creation of art must be natural yet spontaneous. Only in this state can the spirit of the soul travel. Frank Tam found similar ideas in works by Western artists Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Brice Marden. By studying these artists Frank Tam reaffirmed a strong artistic belief.

Art Beatus presents a showcase of Frank Tam's works created in his early to late career. The Ink on paper works in the manner of his early training hang easily beside the mixed media on canvas works created up until Frank Tam's death in 1998.

ART BEATUS GALLERY, VANCOUVER
888 Nelson Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H1
www.artbeatus.com

Hong Hao, Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver - Suspended Disbelief

Hong Hao: Suspended Disbelief 
Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver
February 25 - April 30, 2000

Art Beatus Gallery presents a solo exhibition of the recent works of Beijing artist, Hong Hao. Suspended Disbelief  includes computer-generated colour photographs, photographic hand scrolls and a selection of colour serigraphs from his series, Selected Scriptures.

Hong Hao has been working on this continuing series for over ten years and the process of creating a fictionalized document, in the likeness of an encyclopedia or atlas, has generated a prolific body of work. Each serigraph is an element of the total invented volume, and presents a view of two pages from this book. The prints define a territory of a world that we almost know: "political, social and historical in content and rendered in ways so subtle that, if you don't know your history you might well believe yourself to be well beyond the looking glass." The pages contain what appears to be an historical evolution that challenges our cultural precepts.

His art is the result of his curiosity and process of understanding. His sensitivity to the relationship between both traditional and modern culture lends to a unique photographic portfolio that highlights his view of the influence of Western ideas in an Eastern locale. In his large-scale colour photographs, the artist inserts himself into Western commercials cast in the role of a transnational businessman. "By creating a Chinese identity which is blurred and unfamiliar from both an ethnic and cultural standpoint, Hong attempts to express the uncertainty and inconsistency of human judgement, as well as people's embarrassment at living in a pastiche society." Based on the famous twelfth-century painting by Chinese court painter Zhang Zeduan, Life along the River on the Eve of the Chingming Festival, Hong Hao presents scrolls composed of snapshots depicting "a cityscape in which the traditional urban plan has been undermined by the chaotic distribution of modern commercial buildings."

Suspended Disbelief is not only the first opportunity to see Hong Hao's work in Vancouver, but it is his first solo exhibition in Canada.

ART BEATUS GALLERY, VANCOUVER
888 Nelson Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H1
www.artbeatus.com