Event type: Exhibition

The African mask is the face of African art. Displaced and misunderstood, it is a brutalized face through its reluctant association with Western art history, anthropology and art museums. With Opened Mouths reflects on the masks’ presence in an alien context, on alien soil, in alien air. The masks are here not as representatives of who used them or to index what they were used for. Instead, With Opened Mouths attends to the absences surrounding these powerful objects: the absence of people, voices, sound and movement.

The exhibition is a performative engagement with absence and a space to open incipient dialogues between these masks and contemporary art produced by artists residing in Turtle Island, some from the African diaspora. With Opened Mouths speaks the language of refusal, but intonates possibilities for new affinities and new sounds of potential.

Curated by Dr Qanita Lilla

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/with-opened-mouths/

Caricature is a powerful art form that uses exaggeration and humour to convey social and political
meaning. Humour Me traces the development of caricature, across several cultures and centuries, as a tool in dismantling power structures. While recognizing that caricature could be harmful in the reinforcement of stereotypes, this exhibition focusses on caricature that turns hierarchy on its head. The juxtaposition of opposites enabled caricaturists to vividly express ideas in rapid fashion. Through caricature, artists satirized politicians, wealthy urbanites, religious authorities and fashion trends, as well as themselves and their colleagues. The show highlights works by a number of the greatest practitioners of this art form, including William Hogarth,
Thomas Rowlandson, Paul Gavarni, Honoré Daumier and Elmer Boyd Smith. It also features self-reflective caricatures by Emily Carr, Pablo Picasso and John Young Johnstone. By bringing together a selection of engaging works on paper from Agnes’s Canadian and European collections, this exhibition offers a stimulating overview of caricature’s toppling history.

Curated by Dr Maxime Valsamas, Curatorial Assistant, European Art

Find out more:
https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/humour-me/

Other Worlds is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short exploring the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, Amy Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Jessie Ray Short and Tiffany Shaw-Collinge ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner, and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility.

Curated by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/other-worlds/

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

Desert Perspectives features artwork created by teen artists from our sister city, Scottsdale, Arizona. In turn, the work of teen artists from Kingston, Ontario, have been on display at Scottsdale Public Library: Mustang Branch.

With a Scottsdale reception on July 1st, 2021, Canada Day, the Kingston-to-Scottsdale Teen Art Exchange included a welcome speech by Glenn Williamson, the Honorary Consul of Canada for Arizona, as well as “Walkabout”, an exhibit featuring the photography of sister city coordinator, former Kingston City Councilor, and Photographer Sandy Berg.

As this program invites artists to share their creativity and conversations through art, it also welcomes curiosity and openness to learning about other cultures.

This exhibition is a collaborative effort by the Scottsdale Sister Cities Association, City of Kingston, Kingston Creative Arts Focus Program, Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning, Scottsdale Public Library: Mustang Branch, and Scottsdale Artists’ School.

WHERE: Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning, 3rd floor just outside the Creativity Studios

tettcentre.org/events

Michèle LaRose reflects her ongoing fascination with edgy colour and its interplay with shape and space. The show will include several selections from series such as her TRIBUTE SUITE which reflects on other artists who have guided her along her path, and the BENDING THE CURVE drawings completed in early 2020, when everyone was hunkered down and uncertain about what was in store. Drawn on black paper, they convey the sense of concern and unease we all felt at this completely new experience, and continue to feel.

Meet the Artist on October 30 between 1:30 and 3:00 pm at 254 Pinnacle St. Belleville, ON.

Ezi Odozor’s commissioned long-form poem, with audio/visual components creates a narrative arc between the exhibitions History Is Rarely Black or White and With Opened Mouths. The poem invites guests into the space, offering a passageway to the world of the work, but also standing as a bridge for the multiple worlds we all inhabit. The poem functions with roots and routes for interpretation and experience that are both at once unique and shared. 

Ezi (Ezinwanne) Odozor is a Nigerian-born writer, student support specialist, and anti-racist practitioner based in Toronto. Her work, both fiction and non-fiction, focuses on themes of identity, culture, gender, race, health and intimacy. Her writing has also been showcased in multiple exhibits, most notably in Oluseye’s “A Room Full of Black Boys,” which was featured on CBC.

Curated by Emelie Chhangur

This exhibition is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/ezi-odozor/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

The African mask is the face of African art. Displaced and misunderstood, it is a brutalized face through its reluctant association with Western art history, anthropology and art museums. With Opened Mouths reflects on the masks’ presence in an alien context, on alien soil, in alien air. The masks are here not as representatives of who used them or to index what they were used for. Instead, With Opened Mouths attends to the absences surrounding these powerful objects: the absence of people, voices, sound and movement.

The exhibition is a performative engagement with absence and a space to open incipient dialogues between these masks and contemporary art produced by artists residing in Turtle Island, some from the African diaspora. With Opened Mouths speaks the language of refusal, but intonates possibilities for new affinities and new sounds of potential.

Curated by Dr Qanita Lilla

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/with-opened-mouths/

Caricature is a powerful art form that uses exaggeration and humour to convey social and political
meaning. Humour Me traces the development of caricature, across several cultures and centuries, as a tool in dismantling power structures. While recognizing that caricature could be harmful in the reinforcement of stereotypes, this exhibition focusses on caricature that turns hierarchy on its head. The juxtaposition of opposites enabled caricaturists to vividly express ideas in rapid fashion. Through caricature, artists satirized politicians, wealthy urbanites, religious authorities and fashion trends, as well as themselves and their colleagues. The show highlights works by a number of the greatest practitioners of this art form, including William Hogarth,
Thomas Rowlandson, Paul Gavarni, Honoré Daumier and Elmer Boyd Smith. It also features self-reflective caricatures by Emily Carr, Pablo Picasso and John Young Johnstone. By bringing together a selection of engaging works on paper from Agnes’s Canadian and European collections, this exhibition offers a stimulating overview of caricature’s toppling history.

Curated by Dr Maxime Valsamas, Curatorial Assistant, European Art

Find out more:
https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/humour-me/

Other Worlds is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short exploring the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, Amy Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Jessie Ray Short and Tiffany Shaw-Collinge ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner, and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility.

Curated by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/other-worlds/

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

Ezi Odozor’s commissioned long-form poem, with audio/visual components creates a narrative arc between the exhibitions History Is Rarely Black or White and With Opened Mouths. The poem invites guests into the space, offering a passageway to the world of the work, but also standing as a bridge for the multiple worlds we all inhabit. The poem functions with roots and routes for interpretation and experience that are both at once unique and shared. 

Ezi (Ezinwanne) Odozor is a Nigerian-born writer, student support specialist, and anti-racist practitioner based in Toronto. Her work, both fiction and non-fiction, focuses on themes of identity, culture, gender, race, health and intimacy. Her writing has also been showcased in multiple exhibits, most notably in Oluseye’s “A Room Full of Black Boys,” which was featured on CBC.

Curated by Emelie Chhangur

This exhibition is supported by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/ezi-odozor/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition Lii Zoot Tayr (Other Worlds). Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

Lii Zoot Tayr is the third in a series of exhibitions organized by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Ray Short that explores the work of Métis artists. In this iteration, the artists—Malbeuf, Suzanne Morrissette, Tannis Nielsen, Tiffany Shaw-Collinge, and Short—ground themselves within and move beyond the earth and solar system to ruminate on outer, inner and deep space. With a particular focus on the ethereality of science and technology, the artists examine their relationships to unseen forces and concepts of spirit and in/visibility. The resulting artworks are charged with ancestral and personal dreams, memories, and stories that push and pull on the limitations of human perceptions and raise questions about how knowledge comes into being.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition History Is Rarely Black or White. Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach, and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/

Pandemical Loneliness probes the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played—as it exposes both great harm and hidden
opportunities—in restructuring interpretations and experiences of interior and exterior spaces. By linking atmospheres of distance, despondence, solitude and longing, a collective of curators explores the pandemic’s emotional impact on home life,
public space and daily existence. Situating works from Agnes’s contemporary and historical collections in Etherington House allows the curators to directly reprise and appraise homebound feelings of the pandemic, ranging from loss, to dread, to simple pleasures. The selection of painting, sculpture, photography, video, textile and print includes works by Stephen Andrews, Adrian Blackwell, Edward Burtynsky, Alan Collier, Douglas Coupland, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Drayden DeCosta, Rebecca Diederichs, Betty Goodwin, Alice Henriette, John Lyman, Kelly Mark, Florence McGillivray, David Milne, Kim Ondaatje, Ciara Phillips, Anne Ramsden, Mary Rawlyk, Jon Sasaki, Preston Schiedel and Lisa Visser.

Curated by Baraa Abuzayed, Will Boyle, Drayden DeCosta, Darby Huk, Zakary Jiwa, Elijah Nadler and Bingyu Sheng with Coordinating Curator Sunny Kerr, through Screen Cultures and Curatorial Studies 830.

Pandemical Loneliness is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/pandemical-loneliness/

The cotton industry advanced climate change, widened global income disparity and commercialized the oppression of marginalized communities. Lives were irrevocably changed by these effects. History Is Rarely Black or White focuses on people groups brought forcibly to North America through the Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as their descendants in the United States and Canada.

The exhibition interrogates cotton garments in the Queen’s Collection of Canadian Dress through archival research and scientific analysis that connects these materials to resource extraction, Indigenous displacement, enslaved labour, and the Underground Railroad. This history is also shown through tintypes and artifacts.

History Is Rarely Black or White engages contemporary art and fashion to examine colonial history and envision a radically positive future. Artists Karin Jones, Gordon Shadrach and Damian Joel demonstrate the manner in which the burden of colonial history entwines itself in research, making and cultural heritage. Jones and Shadrach discuss the ongoing legacies of oppression that created the global cotton industry. Joel mines the history of enslavement, migration and making in his fashion story, Songs of the Gullah. The inclusion of his work brings the exhibition full circle by juxtaposing the collections at Agnes with contemporary pieces based on similar networks of relation.

Curated by Jason Cyrus

 History Is Rarely Black or White is generously supported by Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Jason Cyrus would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario through the Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse program for supporting this exhibition.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/history-is-rarely-black-or-white/

Gain a new perspective and understanding of current exhibition Studies in Solitude. Join us for this free lunch-hour tour led by our friendly Community Docents.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of scholarly study and Christian devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians in particular warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in Studies in Solitude illustrate how early modern Dutch artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and erudition. Situated in the context of renewed concerns around topics of isolation and exposure brought on by the 2020-2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

The Community Docent training program is supported by the Iva Speers Fund for Art Education.

The social and moral implications of retreating oneself in solitude were vigorously debated in early modern Europe. While the benefits of a solitary state were exalted in the context of study and devotional practice, they were also understood to carry a moral obligation of mental fortitude. Theologians warned that time away from family and community could lead to depressive episodes or leave one vulnerable to temptation. Who was advised—or perhaps permitted—solitude, then, was carefully negotiated by cultural and societal norms.

The artworks brought together in this exhibition illustrate how artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Campen, Heyman Dullaert and Cornelis Bisschop confronted the accepted limits of seclusion in their work. Representations of figures solitarily engaged in studies, prayer, or song provided opportunities for an artistic exploration of human interiority and helped inspire ideals of devotion and
erudition. Situated in the context of the 2020–2021 pandemic, Studies in Solitude also considers how such images participated in the development of gendered and class-based conceptions of privileged space that are still felt today.

Curated by Suzanne van de Meerendonk

Studies and Solitude and its related programs are generously supported by the Bader Legacy Fund.

Find out more: https://agnes.queensu.ca/exhibition/studies-in-solitude-the-art-of-depicting-seclusion/